WINTER CEREMONIAL DANCES 183

Tlogots follows, wearing a huge mask, and goes around the
fire, incessantly saying to all:

“No. No. Don’t come.”

When he has withdrawn from sight he continues to contra.
dict the herald’s invitation. Ano likwotsaix explains that
4Atxwolétunm is herald to the mighty Thunder, while Tiogots is
a jealous-minded individual who does his best to ruin all cere-
monials. She adds that he will not succeed on this occasion,
and that Thunder will presently appear.

As evidence of Thunder’s near approach there next emerges
Rainwater, a masked figure who dances silently around the
fire, raising and lowering his outstretched arms. Jno%hwo-
fsaix hurriedly gives the name of the visitor, then the an-
nouncer cries out as loudly as possible: “Thunder the mighty,
the leading kusiut of all the supernatural ones is coming; he
will condescend to speak to the uninitiated.”

The women drone and the kukusiut beat violently with
sticks on the floor, then the matting is drawn back to disclose
Thunder himself, standing on a raised box. He wears a huge
mask, with hooked nose and bulbous forehead, which is so heavy
that the wearer must have pads of soft cloth to ease the weight
against his skin. The upper part of his body is en tirely covered
with dyed and undyed cedar-bark, his wrists and ankles are
similarly adorned, around his stomach js a dance-apron, and in
either hand he carries a stick embellished with more bark.
Sometimes for a considerable period he does not move from
his stand, but remains silent, throwing his arms back and forth
towards the corners of the house where a number of men are
rattling heavy stones in boxes to imitate the reverberations of
thunder; this extension of the arms serves to concentrate in
himself his power which is manifest in the sound. When he has
sufficiently impressed the audience, he turns around and leaps
down; the drums beat, the sticks rattle, the men working the
boxes with stones shake them violently, and Thunder shrieks
out, all of which, added to the crash with which he has landed
upon the floor, makes a colossal din. He dances around the