WINTER CEREMONIAL DANCES 107

The most feared of all Cannibals are those who have the
unusual prerogative of eating corpses. At present (1922),
there is only one man with this right, whereas at least seven
can bite the living. His prerogative was recently obtained
from the people of Rivers’ Inlet, although the ritualistic de-
vouring of corpses was well known to the Bella Coola in former
days. All informants agreed, however, that the actual eating
of a body was practically unknown.®? Even when one was
provided and the Cannibal dragged it from house to house,
accompanied by an escort of kukusiut, though he sank his
teeth into the flesh and pulled forth morsels of the carcass, he
invariably disposed of them as soon as he was out of sight of
the uninitiated, as in the case of the dog. Of course, blood
and small pieces of flesh must have been swallowed inadver-
tently, but the rite was always essentially ritualistic, not real.
More often, the “‘corpse” consisted of a wooden frame-work,
shaped like a human body, and covered with the scraped skins
of deer or dogs. The interior was filled with the flesh of an
animal, and the whole buried in the graveyard until the meat
had become foul. The uninitiated, from a distance, watched
the exhuming of this object and concluded that it really was
a long-buried body. Fear prevented them from making a
close inspection, so that the defects of the imitation were not
apparent. The frames were kept hidden from year to year;
an inquisitive non-member who chanced to stumble upon one
would have to be initiated or die.

On account of the long time that has elapsed since a com-
plete corpse-eating Cannibal dance was carried out, it was
found impossible to obtain a detailed account of the ritual.
This deficiency is unimportant since all informants agreed that
it closely resembled other Cannibal dances.

Like other Cannibals, one who has the prerogative of eating
dead human flesh can perform as often as he desires, subject
only to the approval of the marshals, who have no hesitation

**Apart from this ceremonial eating, no trace of cannibalism was found among

the Bella Coola.