Guy Lanouethey carry some food and, of course, weapons; they hunt in pairs). A
man on a quest thus metaphorically evokes the pre-Transformer ep-
och, when animals hunted humans. Because an animal’s biological
nature would normally urge it to flee humans, any animal that ap-
proaches the hunter in this temporary ritual space is assumed to be
under the sway of its primordial, non-biological nature. In these spe-
cial circumstances, in which the human has become prey and the an-
imal has in a sense become a hunter, a metaphoric link develops be-
tween the hunter and the animal. Some of the animal’s power can be
passed to the human.
In fact, the favorite metaphor used to describe this is a “conversa-
tion” or “talking with the animal doctors” (the widespread Native
English name for the act of engaging the invisible dimension of ani-
mals). It is in fact a form of contamination, in which some of the ani-
mal’s innate essence is transferred to the weaker human. The transfer
is seen as normal, because everything in Sekani culture (including the
Transformer tales) urges people to believe that equilibrium is a natu-
ral condition. If someone has food and another does not, the food is
given to the hungry person not in the spirit of generosity but because
it is the “natural” thing to do, like water seeking its level. By the same
token, animal power “naturally” gravitates to those who do not have
any, although there are many dangers associated with this transfer.
Just as the Sekani say that a person who is too hungry or too thirsty
should not eat or drink too much, a person who is without power
should be very careful not to become too contaminated with a force
over which he can exercise no control.
All men are expected to be able to achieve contact with power, though
not all do so. Women cannot because they already possess an essen-
tial quality of the transcendental, the blood of reproduction and of
species survival, the same blood that superior animals willingly sacri-
fice to ensure the survival of individual humans. In one sense, women
are symbolic animals and are more perfect than men, just as animals
are more perfect than humans. Men are thus the semiotically marked
category that is subjected to the ritual transformation of the self by
means of the vision quest and its rules; women are unmarked because
they are “naturally” superior.