WINTER CEREMONIAL DANCES 235

petrified and which can still be seen, with its head facing the
water.

The preliminaries of Kwasta’s dance do not differ from
those already described, although it is uncertain whence comes
the actual call. A large number of masks are constructed, as
well as a huge wooden figure of the Stone Man himself, and
smaller ones of his wife and four children. When the unini-
tiated are called in on the night of nebusam they see the Stone
Man and his family standing behind the fire, while the body
of the house is filled with a number of masked figures. The
latter keep shouting to the Stone Man and he answers them,
as he does mortals who pass his station on Dean Channel.
The marshals always arrange that he does not reply to one of
the masked figures, whereupon the others gibe at this unfor-
tunate and tell him that he will die within a year. It is common
knowledge that if the Stone Man does not answer the hail of a
passer-by, the latter will soon die. The uninitiated are
impressed to find that supernatural beings share this belief.

THE FIRE DANCE

This dance is the prerogative of a kusiut named Wai-s,
“Cohoe Salmon.” Its origin is attributed to the experience of
an ancestor of the dancer who was helped by, and received his
name from, one of these fish. Only a fragment of the ritual
could be learnt, enough to show that it has many points of
resemblance with kusiotem rites. When Wai-s performs, the
central fire is raked apart and he appears to lie down on the
ashes between the two flaming sections; evergreen boughs and
sand are thrown over him, and the fire drawn together over his
body. After an hour or more, when the uninitiated imagine
he must be baked, his singing is heard, and Wai-s walks in
through the front door. Deception is practised probably by
means of a dummy fastened with deer tendons which contract
with the heat so that it seems as if the body itself were writh-
ing. It is said that the first Wai-s was actually able to per-
form this feat by means of the power given him by the salmon,