44 THE BELLA COOLA INDIANS

snatches from old songs. The Bella Bella are said to use the
same compositions from year to year, and recently some of
these, both tunes and foreign words, have been adopted by
the Bella Coola. Long ago the marshals would have pro-
hibited this custom even if the user had legitimately obtained
the foreign prerogative by marriage.

As the time draws near for Nodkxnum to start his voyage,
X anxiously consults any of the elder kukusiut who may be
calendrical experts as to the exact date. Thesystem of reckon-
ing time is not sufficiently exact to avoid errors, but the day
ultimately arrives on which, after much discussion, it is agreed
that Nodkxnum is leaving. Word is passed around to the
singers’ who sleep that night in X’s house, ready for their
duties on the morrow.

Early in the morning X stands up, gazes fixedly towards
the west, and calls out:

“Once more I see what I saw last year,’ or some other more
or less specific claim to a vision.

It is believed that Nodkxnim must round four points before
reaching Bella Coola; in fact, his journey beneath the sea is
similar to that of a canoe pushing up one of the long fiords.

Some of the marshals are always in readiness and one of
them tells a herald to go to every house, repeating what X has
said. This serves both to impress the uninitiated, and to
notify the kukusiut of what is about to take place. The mes-
senger does so, and when all have gathered, the singers, seated
behind the fire, begin to beat out one of the songs composed
during the summer months. The theme is of X’s phenomenal
eye-sight, due to his patron having sent to him the super-
natural being, Nudalsumtnam, at the moment of his departure.
This being does not seem to possess corporeal form, but is
rather a sight-producing medium. In the song he is often
likened to a swift-flying bird; when the uninitiated hear of this
they are suitably impressed with the remarkable ability of X
at having such a creature sent to him. X, who has donned a
head-dress consisting of the white tails of two eagles, dances