WINTER CEREMONIAL DANCES 133

be slaughtered before one is found with skin to match.67 The
marshals carefully supervise all these arrangements, but of
course on this night the work alone is allotted. The entrails of
several dogs are kept and worn by X between his false stomach
and the wooden frame.

After the allotment of tasks in connection with the mech-_
anical work required, the marshals ask four women to come
forward. Those selected are usually old people with good
voices who, from long experience at the dances, have mastered
the two®’ songs used at each kusiotem dance. The theme of
these never varies and is believed to have been handed down
from the distant past. No prerogative is attached; the mar-
shals and singers merely choose four women whom they think
will be good performers. The songs resemble those sung at
mourning ceremonies; in fact, they are used with that signi-
ficance when X has been “killed” by disembowelling. The
singers, the women chosen, the marshals, and any other duku-
stut who feel competent to do SO, discuss in an animated man-
ner the exact wording and tunes of the songs. Then the musi-
cians beat out the time and the women sing one after another,
while the audience drones. In view of the solemnity of the
occasion, it often happens that senior singers from adjacent
villages are invited to be present to render assistance. The
necessity for practising X’s songs, apportioning the carpentry,
and rehearsing the mourning songs has taken up more time
than is usual on a nusiutalsap night, and it is late before all is
completed. Then, after the usual mea! and admonishments,
the people disperse.

Early the following morning the Carpenters and those to
whom work has been allotted gather early in X’s house. A
band, about two feet long, composed of alternate strands of
dyed and undyed cedar-bark is prepared and placed on the

*"Informants offered no explanation as to why this wholesale slaughter of dogs
failed to arouse curiosity and suspicion in the uninitiated.

*8Or four; there was difference of opinion among Bella Coola informants on
this point.