WARFARE 355

spit upon his own hands and rubbed them over the patient’s head, his
arms, his trunk, his legs, and finally his feet, as if massaginghim. Xnut#i’s
strength began to return at the first touch of Thunder’s hands, and,
when the treatment was finished, he felt entirely rejuvenated. Thunder
told him to overtake his friends and to massage them in the same way
and they would be revived. He explained that they had been travelling
in circles of ever-decreasing radius which was the reason that they had
neither reached their destination nor recrossed their own tracks. He
added that they must think constantly of their first objective, Ulkatcho,
Nukétco in the Bella Coola language, and that at night Xnut#i must sleep
on the side of the five nearest that goal.

Soon afterwards the four wanderers were surprised to see a stalwart
man swinging along the trail behind them, and their amazement was
intense when they realized that it was Xnut#i whom they had left at the
point of death. He bade three of his comrades hide, and massaged the
fourth as Thunder had done to him; this restored his strength exactly
as in his own case. The one so cured then concealed himself, while
Xnut#i treated another of his comrades, and finally the third and fourth.
This was not the end of the assistance so obtained. Within a few minutes
of their recovery, they found the trail they had so long been seeking and
reached Ulkatcho before night, though under normal circumstances the
same distance would have required four days of travel. There were
several Bella Coola at the settlement who were overjoyed at the safety
of those for whom all hope had long been abandoned. They rested for
four days, then set out for home. Xnutti told his comrades to fix their
minds upon their objective, and as a result they were able to make the
journey with phenemonal rapidity.

Thunder had granted Xnut# the boon of ixtokwaladjut on this occa-
sion, and had promised that he would come to his help whenever called
upon. Xnutli was a sorcerer, a profession which had been practised for
generations jn his family, and he now performed more openly than ever,
assured that Thunder would be able to protect him. The malefactor
killed more and more people, until he became an object of universal
hatred and fear. At last the principal chief of the village, confident in
the power which the giving of many potlatches had bestowed upon him,
ordered an expert shot to slay Xnut#i. The man so deputed had himself
lost several relatives and gladly watched an opportunity. This came
when the sorcerer was paddling across the Bella Coola near the old
Hudson’s Bay Company’s post; he took careful aim from ambush, fired,
and the evil man fell dead. A medicine can be made from the corpse of
a murdered person, which, when used by the relatives, causes the killer’s
death. To prevent this, the executioner called his friends and they took