WINTER CEREMONIAL DANCES 45

if he so desires. The kukusiut listen to the song, and when it
is resung they join in. They practise it repeatedly, until
familiar with both words and tune. This part of the ceremony
lasts for about two hours.

The singers, and any others who are prepared to beat time,
are always provided with long, flat, thin sounding-boards to
increase the din of the pounding. When the marshals decide
that the song is sufficiently familiar, they tell some of the
kukusiut to carry these boards to the lowest house of the vil-
lage. They do this, and also scatter clean sand on the floor,
as is customary whenever a supernatural being is to enter.
The uninitiated persons within the house watch with great
interest. The singers enter and take their places behind the
fire, then other kukusiut and finally X himself; his face is
unblackened, but he wears his two eagle tails in his hair and
a collar of dyed cedar-bark. On his head is a thin cylindrical
circlet, about four inches high, of the same material, orna-
mented with swan’s down by the inhabitants of the villages
of the upper Bella Coola valley. The collar consists of a roll
of grass, entirely covered with dyed cedar-bark from which
pendant tassels of the same hang down over his chest; similar
ones are worn by sisaok dancers, except that the tassels hang
down their backs. Every kusiut dancer wears these two orna.
ments, and those who have the necessary prerogative adorn
themselves with an apron of deer hooves or puffin beaks.
Blankets are always worn. Kukusiut women wear in addition
woollen pubic garments.

As the singers beat out X’s tune, accompanied by the
voices of themselves and other kukusiut, he dances. Since his
style is typical of all kukusiut except Cannibals and a few
others, it will be well to digress at this point in order to describe
it. X raises his arms until their upper parts are approximately
the height of his shoulders, and project outwards and slightly
to the front; they are bent at the elbows with the forearms
vertical, thus bringing the hands opposite the top of the head.
Both wrists are shaken constantly, the muscles of the lower