WINTER CEREMONIAL DANCES 201

for the dance to start, and X suddenly cries out that he is
feeling peculiar. The night selected is usually that of the
nebusam of some other kusiut, and X is at once escorted to his
own house from which the uninitiated are expelled. For that
night and the two following he remains concealed within, leav-
ing only when necessary and taking care that no uninitiated see
him. During the afternoon following the third night of con-
cealment, a large number of kukusiut gather in X’s home and
escort him to the lowest house of the village. He goes around
the fire shaking a rattle violently and calling out:

“More! More! Please say exactly what you want and I
will do it.”

The uninitiated have been told that X has been unable to
comprehend the impending call, hence they have no difficulty
in realizing that this is a request to his supernatural patron
to be more explicit.*° This appeal is repeated in every house
of the village in order from bottom to top. The rite is so im-
portant that X often summons kukusiut from neighbouring
towns and, on the occasion described, the dancer proceeded to
Sinx? with his escort and there entered every dwelling with the
same request that he had made in his own village.

In the evening X returns to his home where presently the
kukusiut gather from the villages that he visited. The unini-
tiated from adjacent houses hear whistling so are not surprised
when heralds enter to announce that a call has come to X.
The ritual is of the regular /suxtamem pattern and a song is
composed and practised; the theme is of X’s ability to visit the
land above but the type is that of a shaman’s song. Theritual
concludes in the usual manner.

The next day, nusiutalsap, the customary raised enclosure
is erected and a number of kukusiut gather wood in the forest.
In the evening the carpenters are requested to make a long
ladder, the only paraphernalia required. The evening’s ritual
ends as usual.

8°The patron for this dance could not be learnt.