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Th'owxiya: The Hungry Feast Dish
When you take something from the earth you must always give something back.
From the Kwantlen First Nation village of Squa'lets comes the tale of Th'owxiya, an old and powerful spirit that inhabits a feast dish of tempting, beautiful foods from around the world. But even surrounded by this delicious food, Th'owxiya herself craves only the taste of children. When she catches a hungry mouse named Kw'atel stealing a piece of cheese from
her dish, she threatens to devour Kw'atel's whole family, unless she can bring Th'owxiya two child spirits. Ignorant but desperate, Kw'atel sets out on an epic journey to fulfill the spirit's demands. With the help of a sqeweqs, two spa: th, and a sasq'ets, Kw'atel endeavours to find gifts that would appease Th'owxiya and save her family.
From the Kwantlen First Nation village of Squa'lets comes the tale of Th'owxiya, an old and powerful spirit that inhabits a feast dish of tempting, beautiful foods from around the world. But even surrounded by this delicious food, Th'owxiya herself craves only the taste of children. When she catches a hungry mouse named Kw'atel stealing a piece of cheese from
her dish, she threatens to devour Kw'atel's whole family, unless she can bring Th'owxiya two child spirits. Ignorant but desperate, Kw'atel sets out on an epic journey to fulfill the spirit's demands. With the help of a sqeweqs, two spa: th, and a sasq'ets, Kw'atel endeavours to find gifts that would appease Th'owxiya and save her family.
104 pages, Paperback
Published September 10, 2019
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March 5, 2023
This is a children's play, drawn from the First Nations mythology of Dandurand's Kwantlen nation (located in what's now British Columbia). It draws on multiple Indigenous performance traditions, including elements like ritual dancing, drumming and chants, masked performers representing spirits, the interplay between history/mythology and the world the audience inhabits, the idea that identity is changeable, trickster spirits, etc. In this sense, this would be an excellent play for introducing children to First Nations or Native American performance and storytelling traditions.
The play itself is about Th'owxiya, a cannibalistic feast dish spirit, who catches Kw'at'el (Mouse) eating some of her cheese. With the help of her unwilling servant Sasq'ets (Sasquatch), Th'owxiya threatens to eat Kw'at'el and his family unless he brings her two children to eat. But the only children he can find are a boy and girl Spa:ath (Bear), but they are friends with Sqeweqs (Raven) and Sqeweqs decides to help Kw'at'el trick Th'owxiya in order to save both Kw'at'el's family and the two Spa:ath. So, Sqeweqs stops the moon from rising a second time--which was Kw'at'el's deadline for delivering the two children--and Kw'at'el and the two Spa:ath go to the great mountain, where the find a rainbow, a spoon, a bowl of sweet water, and a rattle. They trade these things to Th'owxiya, who is well satisfied with them and invites everyone to feast on the vast amount of food she's collected.
https://youtu.be/u2XRRmTmUT8
The play itself is about Th'owxiya, a cannibalistic feast dish spirit, who catches Kw'at'el (Mouse) eating some of her cheese. With the help of her unwilling servant Sasq'ets (Sasquatch), Th'owxiya threatens to eat Kw'at'el and his family unless he brings her two children to eat. But the only children he can find are a boy and girl Spa:ath (Bear), but they are friends with Sqeweqs (Raven) and Sqeweqs decides to help Kw'at'el trick Th'owxiya in order to save both Kw'at'el's family and the two Spa:ath. So, Sqeweqs stops the moon from rising a second time--which was Kw'at'el's deadline for delivering the two children--and Kw'at'el and the two Spa:ath go to the great mountain, where the find a rainbow, a spoon, a bowl of sweet water, and a rattle. They trade these things to Th'owxiya, who is well satisfied with them and invites everyone to feast on the vast amount of food she's collected.
https://youtu.be/u2XRRmTmUT8
Displaying 1 of 1 review