210 THE BELLA COOLA INDIANS

the goats were plentiful, fat, and unsuspicious, so that before nightfall
they had killed four. Well satisfied, they lay down in a cave to sleep
for the night. At that time no one knew what supernatural being caused
thunder; the earliest inhabitants of the world had possessed that knowl-
edge but it had been forgotten in the intervening generations. Towards
midnight the hunters were awakened by a loud boom and wondered what
could have caused it. Presently they saw approaching a figure resem-
bling a man, with a weird non-human face, who carried in each hand a
huge rock crystal. He raised and lowered his arms as if pounding; at
each movement the crystals struck each other, producing the booming
sound and also emitting a flash of light. The eldest brother, Saiks, told
the others to cover their faces with their blankets and to keep their eyes
closed, because some evil and powerful creature was drawing near. But
the second brother, who had caught a glimpse of the two crystals and
greatly desired them, watched cautiously, hoping for an opportunity to
steal them. Thunder, for it was none other, ranged around; at intervals
he passed across to the other side of the intervening valley on a sidewalk
which grew before his feet to form a bridge for him, and on it, too, he
was able to retrace his steps. Several times Thunder crossed and re-
crossed, accompanied by reverberating peals. He came near the four
brothers and danced; then lay down while fire emerged from his nostrils.
The second brother began to feel scorched, gradually the heat increased,
but he was powerless to move; before dawn, when Thunder vanished, he
had been roasted to death.

The three survivors buried the dead man in a hastily made grave in
the floor of the cave and went home, abandoning the mountain goats
which they had killed. Saiks, though grieved at the loss of his brother,
felt that the latter’s death was his own fault for peeking when he had been
warned not to do so. Not long afterwards the two younger brothers
died. Then the sole survivor told a carpenter to make him a mask
secretly, according to a design which he would describe. In this way
the face of Thunder was portrayed in wood. When the mask was ready,
Saiks wore it and gave an imitation of the actions of his patron; no one
had ever seen anything like it and the people were amazed.

No great antiquity is ascribed to this myth and it gives no
explanation of questions which at once arise in the investi-
gator’s mind. The type is fairly common in Bella Coola; in
fact, the only unusual part of it is that the visionary received
a kustut prerogative rather than one of the forms of good for-

“This is said to have been equivalent to the fire-rattle of a Thunder dancer.