466 THE BELLA COOLA INDIANS

THE MAN WHO TRIED TO RECAPTURE HIS DEAD CHILD*?

Once, long ago, when a husband was absent sealing, his wife gave
birth toa child. The woman’s mother was in attendance, but though she
did her best, her daughter died. Using her own discretion, the assistant
killed the infant, the usual practice under such circumstances. The father
of the dead woman was so grieved at the loss of his daughter and grand-
child that he determined to leave the spot, a decision concurred in
by the rest of the community. They stripped the planks from all the
walls, and piled them on canoes, leaving the posts and beams of the
houses alone in position. Their last act was to bury the woman and
her baby within the framework of her home, perhaps with some vague
idea of giving strength to it. Then they moved away.

The next night the husband returned, accompanied by a lad who had
been sealing with him. He was, of course, all unaware of the calamity
that had struck his household, in fact he had not expected his wife to be
delivered during his absence. When still on the beach he heard a woman’s
voice.

“Abueltka,” it said, “please bring me my basket.”

It seemed as if the speaker were gathering clams, but the returning
husband was much puzzled because Aduve/uka had long been dead. He
went up to the village where the inky darkness prevented him from seeing
that the houses were mere skeletons. On entering his own, he saw a fire
in one corner with his wife sitting by it, running her fingers through her
hair which had fallen loose over her forehead, and rocking an infant in a
cradle suspended from a horizontal stick. As the delighted parent drew
near he saw that the cradle was upside down, with apparently nothing
to prevent the child from falling to the floor. He rushed up to remedy
what he assumed to be his wife’s carelessness, but when he touched the
cradle there was a whistle—instantly fire, wife, cradle, infant, all vanished.
Then the husband realized that they must have been ghosts, and in grief
and horror rushed from the house into the darkness.

The man succeeded in locating his parents-in-law, who told him that
his wife had died three days previously, and, almost mad with grief, he
determined to attempt a rescue. He knew that on the fourth night after
death the dead dance to welcome a newcomer, making him or her an
official member of their community. Once admitted, there is no possible
chance of returning to this world, so the husband resolved to try to catch
his wife at the dance itself. He enlisted the aid of a number of friends
with whose help he collected a number of full cham ber-vessels, which he
placed on the rafters of his now deserted house. Towards dusk he and

*°A story probably of Bella Bella origin.