"These feasts are generally connected with the giving away of
property. As an instance, I will relate the last occurrence of the
kind. The person who sent the aforementioned invitations is a chief who
has just completed building a house. After feasting, I heard he was to
give away property to the amount of four hundred and eighty blankets
(worth as many pounds to him), of which one hundred and eighty were his
own property and the three hundred were to be subscribed by his people.
On the first day of the feast, as much as possible of the property to
be given him was exhibited in the camp. Hundreds of yards of cotton
were flapping in the breeze, hung from house to house, or on lines put
up for the occasion. Furs, too, were nailed up on the fronts of houses.
Those who were going to give away blankets or elk-skins managed to get
a bearer for every one, and exhibited them by making the persons walk
in single file to the house of the chief. On the next day the cotton
which had been hung out was now brought on the beach, at a good
distance from the chief's house, and then run out at full length, and a
number of bearers, about three yards apart, bore it triumphantly away
from the giver to the receiver. I suppose that about six hundred to
eight hundred yards were thus disposed of.

"After all the property the chief is to receive has thus been openly
handed to him, a day or two is taken up in apportioning it for fresh
owners. When this is done, all the chiefs and their families are called
together, and each receives according to his or her portion. Thus do
the chiefs and their people go on reducing themselves to poverty. In
the case of the chiefs, however, this poverty lasts but a short time;
they are soon replenished from the next giving away, but the people
only grow rich again according to their industry. One cannot but pity
them, while one laments their folly.