WINTER CEREMONIAL DANCES 137

“Are you brave?”

Not one of them was willing to display his courage, even
after repeated questionings. At this impasse the lad’s uncle,
a prominent kusiut, requested that his nephew be asked; so
the question was put to him. He answered jn the affirmative
as his uncle had advised him to do. To the further question:

“Are you willing to do what this man [the performer] may
demand?” he also answered:

“Yes,” without knowing what he might be called upon to
do.

Further preliminaries took place and the frightened boy
asked several of his companions to stand near him to lend him
their moral support. He was told to go to X, where one of the
assistants gave him the knife and told him to examine it. It
was a real knife and, as he announced to the assembled gath-
ering, very sharp. X showed him where to insert it, under the
left bottom rib, and told him to draw it firmly across to the
corresponding point on the other side. The boy did so; the
victim cried out as if in pain, his hands shook, and when the
entrails fell out, he dropped back as if dead. The youth, be-
lieving that he had killed the man, was terrified. Years later
he learned all about the ceremonial, but at the time the decep-
tion was complete.

A subterfuge sometimes employed at this time is to place
a bladder among the entrails, so arranged that it can be inflated
from a distance through a tube, making it appear that the
intestines are quivering.

As soon as X has fallen, pandemonium breaks out in the
house. The kukusiut women weep and wail, whistles sound at
intervals, and the effect is like bedlam. Presently two or three
of the uninitiated move to the door and harangue the kukusiut
in this fashion:

“You have gone too far, you powerful people. We know
you are powerful and in league with the supernatural ones, but
now you have slain a man. Your power is too great, it is