198 THE BELLA COOLA INDIANS

formers who are chosen for their small stature. Ano°likwotsaix
stands up ready to explain as usual. One of the actors now
comes forth from beneath Mother-Nature’s stomach, as if born
of her, wearing a mask surmounted by a carved stick repre-
senting the leaves of the willow. The nurses handle the per-
former, as if washing a new-born child, and announce:

“It is a boy, Willow Leaves,” just as a midwife might state
the sex of an infant.

Willow Leaves dances around the fire, at intervals saying,
“T am Willow Leaves.”

Ano likwoisaix adds her comments: “Yes. There is Willow
Leaves, see him.”’

The masked figure goes into the matting enclosure out of
sight. The next plant to be born is Gooseberry, for whom the
same procedure is carried out, before he, too, disappears. In
succession, a few minutes apart, come Nettle, all kinds of
Grass, and Western Skunk Cabbage. Each is washed and the
sex announced; then the figure dances and Anolikwoisaix
comments as before. A good dancer is always chosen for the
next figure, Black Cottonwood, who is “born”’ in the same way,
but instead of vanishing into the enclosure remains dancing to
and fro on the upper, upstream, side of the house. After him
comes ‘The Dancing Tree,” the American Aspen. An agile
man is likewise chosen for this part and he remains dancing
back and forth on the lower, downstream, side. Ano°likwotsaix
announces, amid breathless interest: “The South Wind 1s
coming.”

This figure enters the house by the front door, wearing the
mask of a handsome young man. He goes to Nunuoska like a
doctor called in to assist, and when he stands up, her face
appears like that of a happy woman who has just given birth.
The uninitiated do not realize that a new mask has been put on
Mother-Nature while her face was hidden from their sight. The
South Wind then retires to the lower side of the house, where he
dances to and fro near Aspen, at intervals going up to his
patient. In rushes the North Wind, but he is too late to accom-