ON THE NORTH-WESTERN TRIBES OF CANADA. 29

instance, /‘ci/tzs, to give a name to the door, see p. 27), ndsz'nztzs, or
k‘cr'nztzs, to give a name to a man). The si/dua gives a name to the body
(nanahé'kustes) to enable man to go easy, that means, to be able-bodied
and strong. She invokes good fortune by going down to the beach at
the time of sunrise and at the time of sunset, and, looking eastward, she
dips her hands into the water, sprinkles a few drops upward, and blows
a few puffs of air eastward. She is able to cure such diseases as are not
due to the absence of the soul from the body. She rubs the sick person
with cedar-bark, paints his face red, and blows some puffs of air upward.
The sick one must fast all day, and at sunset she goes to the beach and
talks towards sunrise in the sacred language. She is applied to by
women who desire to bear children. They are given decoctions of wasps’
nests and flies, as both lay many eggs. She also helps women to bring
about abortion. For this purpose she kneads the belly of the woman in
the second month of pregnancy. Her hands and the skin of the belly
are made more pliable by means of tallow and grease. She also lets the
woman lift heavy loads and eat leaves of a species of Carex, which have
very sharp edges, that they may cut the embryo (see p. 25). For a love-
charm she rubs girls with cedar-bark, and in the same way she restores
the lost affection of a husband. When a man has been absent for a long
time on a hunting expedition, and his friends fear that some accident
may have befallen him, they call the si’6ua, who stretches out her hands
to where he has gone. If, on doing so, she feels a pressure on her breast,
something has happened to the absent man ; if she does not feel anything
he is safe. All these practices of the si/dua are accompanied by incan-
tations in her peculiar language and by dances and dancing songs. In
dancing she holds her arms on both sides of the body, the elbows not far
from the waist, the hands upright, the palms forward, approximately on
a level with the head. Her hands are trembling while she dances. I
collected one of these songs, sung by the Lku’figeEn sidua, but the words
being in the Cowitchin language :—

=

La-ma -tla-ta gQwé-ma - Ha-qan ho-yé - ye-@ h6-yé - yé- 6,

EY 8 om ee a= ae
= ee a er = Pee eae fe es es See ——— 3

The Lku‘figEn equivalent of these words is: K’u'nettsre gtriigé’k' En, 7.e.,
see her (the si/6ua) now going along.

The saund’am, the shaman, is more powerful than the siéua. He is
able to see the soul and to catch it when it has left the body and its
owner is sick. A man becomes a sQquna’am by intercourse with super-
natural powers. Only a youth who has never touched a woman, or a
virgin, both being called éc’é’’ts, can become shamans. After having had
sexual intercourse, men as well as women become ?’k-é ‘el, v.e., weak,
incapable of gaining supernatural powers. The faculty cannot ‘be regained
by subsequent fasting and abstinence. The novice goes into the woods,
where he bathes and cleans himself with cedar-branches (k’oatcd’set).
He sleeps in the woods until he dreams of his guardian spirit, who
bestows supernatural power upon him. This spirit is called the ¢?’h’a'yin,
and corresponds to what is known as the tamanowus in the Chinook
jargon, and ‘medicine’ east of the Rocky Mountains. Generally the
t’k’a'yin is an animal, for instance a bear, a wolf, or a mink. This

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