WINTER CEREMONIAL DANCES 141

to discuss the event and lay plans for the future, but as it is
now daylight they too soon retire to sleep.

The kusiotem ceremony resembles a double kusiut rite since
it comprises two sets of four days and nights. The one on which
X’s stomach was cut is considered to be isixtémem. Accord-
ingly, the heralds call the kukusiut to X’s house early on the
afternoon following and the regular ritual of nustutalsap takes
place. Some of the younger men are at once sent to the forest
for wood to be made into more masks but, with the love of
drama typical of the kukusiut, it is assumed that X himself is
too feeble to accompany them. Accordingly his power is trans-
ferred to a substitute by means of the frenzied beating of sticks
and repeated cries of hoif. On the return of the wood col-
lectors, who carry their burdens as usual on tump-lines and set
them down carefully, this power is restored to X in the same
manner. The work of making the masks is now allotted. For
kusiotem, and several other Ausiut rites hereafter to be de-
scribed, the dancer is entitled to show as many of the beings in
the Bella Coola pantheon as he desires. Consequently if X is
wealthy and wishes to have a spectacular webusam, he orders
many masks. Then the kukusiut practise a number of songs
composed by the singers. One, or sometimes two, prepared for
X is couched as if he himself were telling what he had seen in
the upper regions. They describe Aguntém, his messenger
Ogottkts Aiguntdm, and, especially Kudstkakmidjut, the super-
natural being whose stomach is periodically cut in the land
above. It is he who has entered X and impelled him to suffer
the same mutilation from the effects of which Snitsman-a has
restored him. X himself usually remains concealed behind the
matting in the rear part of the house, but sometimes, if he
Wishes to practise what he will perform the next night, he
comes forward for a rehearsal. He still pretends to be very ill,
and instead of dancing in the usual violent manner, totters
around the fire, supported by several assistan ts, while he feebly
shakes his hands. The women drone, and the uninitiated in the
other houses realize that more exciting events are impending.