WINTER CEREMONIAL DANCES 135

meal with admonitions from the marshals; then they too dis-
perse.

During the following day a hole is dug behind the fire of
sufficient depth to conceal X, when Standing in it, as high as
the thighs. Towards dusk he takes up his position in this pit;
his face is blackened and he wears the customary cedar-bark
collar and a belt-apron to hold the frame in place. An assistant
lies down on the floor immediately in front of him with his head
in the hole beside X’s feet so that the two men, instead of
appearing as such, seem to be only one seated upon the ground.
As night falls the kukusiut take their places and the more influ-
ential members of the society press forward to see that X and
his assistant are Properly disguised so that the fact that they
are really two is not apparent. When all is in readiness, the
Bella Coola practice is for a herald to summon the waiting
uninitiated, but in Kimsquit one of the marshals orders some
of the younger men to extinguish the fire, before this is done, so
that as the non-members come to the door their fears are in-
creased by finding the house in deep darkness. The heralds
guide them to their places in the front corners, where they sit
in shuddering expectancy for about an hour. The stillness is
broken only by the occasional sound of a whistle and the lab-
oured breathing of the guests. Suddenly the hush is shattered
by the voice of a kusiut calling out four times an-Gn-at-, the
ejaculation used in pain.

To the spell-bound uninitiated it seems as if the super-
natural beings surrounding him had become too much for him,
so that he cried out in the agony of his soul. Resinous sticks
have been placed in readiness and a fire is quickly kindled.
The Cannibals growl savagely in their corners and the unin-
itiated shiver. From this point forth the ritual in Bella Coola
and Kimsquit is identical.

X circles the fire, sunwise, four times and appears to seat
himself on the floor with outstretched legs though in reality he
is standing in the hole. One of the dnuyex stands up and
announces: