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closely parallels the accounts given by the western Carrier of an intangible,
invisible force called kyan, which strikes a man senseless and then renders
him crazy for a period. Such an experience qualifies him for membership
in a secret society, the “ cannibal” society found under various forms all
along the British Columbia coast.

The T’lotona or Long Grass band, hybridized by intermarriage and
close contact with Tahltan and Gitksan Indians, had a different conception
of medicine power. Dreams still remained its basis, but the distinction
between hunting and sickness medicine was drawn along other lines. Both
were obtained at the same time, and by the same procedure, but few men
obtained more than the hunting medicine; and the sickness medicine had ¢wo
grades, the lower giving only the power of diagnosis, not of cure.

Every youth at the age of puberty was sent to climb a mountain, either
alone or with a companion of the same age. He carried with him, or found
on the mountain, a flake of obsidian, with which he cut out the tongue of a
ptarmigan, an ermine, or an owl. He threw the tongue into the fire, and as
it burned he prayed, “ May I become a swift runner, an accurate shot, a
powerful medicine-man able to cure all diseases.” For four days and four
nights he fasted, neither eating nor drinking. The higher he ascended the
mountain the more certainly his prayer would be answered. On the fifth
day he rejoined his people camped below and built a hut beyond the range
of their hearing. There he remained -from spring until autumn, supplied
by a boy with food from his parent’s home. He might eat meat of any kind,
but only the minimum necessary for life, and the heads and hearts of all
animals were forbidden him.1 Herbs were permitted, and an occasional
draught or pill of devil’s club, which induces stupor and is favourable for
dreaming. No woman might pass near his lodge, and if he visited his parents
he but lengthened the term of his isolation. He stayed alone in his lodge,
seeking the dream that would give him medicine power.

Not every youth obtained a significant dream that gave him medicine
power; but if he performed the ritual faithfully he was sure to receive
one of the three blessings for which he had prayed, swiftness of foot,
accuracy of aim, or medicine power. Power came through dreaming of
some animal, a caribou, or a grizzly bear; and it would be the greater the
nearer the animal approached him, the more familiarly it allowed him to
handle it. If he could touch it, if he could place his hand in its mouth, he
was certain of great power. It would be greater still if he dreamed of three
animals, and obtained medicine from each one. With each medicine went
a song, a song sung by the animal about itself. Two caribou medicine
songs ran as follows:

(a) O mother caribou bring your young.
Bring them slowly and feed on the grounds where you will find plenty.
When you come come carefully.

The spirit of my patient hovers near.
Don’t crowd your young, lest they trample on my patient’s spirit.
(i.e. as you slowly come so will the health of my patient return)

1 No Long Grass hunter would eat the head of any animal lest his tongue should hang out while he was pursuing
game and make him short of wind.