WINTER CEREMONIAL DANCES ° 149

and must never gossip or mingle casually with the outsiders.
In addition to a band of dyed cedar-bark on his head he wears
one around his stomach.

A number of years ago, when the influence of the white man
had become strong enough to undermine the old ritual, a Bella
Coola kusiotem dancer, instead of remaining in seclusion after
the dance, ran away to Kimsquit where lived a young woman
with whom he was in love. In the old days this would have led
to punishment by a third tribe. When the offender wished to
return to Bella Coola he was afraid of the wrath of the mar-
shals, but plucked up courage to come back after several
months. The marshals seized him and scratched his stomach
with a metal nail so that the uninitiated, seeing the wound,
might be led to believe that the man had been severely cut.
Periodically the scabs were pulled off to re-enflame the injury
and make it appear that a deep gash was slowly healing. The
offender, of course, could not protest, since he was a kusiut who
had broken the law and was fortunate in escaping so lightly.

The Beheading Dance

Another of the dramatic dances which can be performed by
a kusiotem is that of having his head pulled off. Like the
Stomach-Cutting dance, it is the prerogative of a Kimsquit
man named Onixwaltcua. He carried out the rite a few years
after he had performed the one just described. The main
points of ritual being identical for all Ausiotem dances, minor
points already recorded can be omitted. As before, it will be
convenient to term Onixwaltcua X, and to describe the dance
in the present tense.

Early in the summer X informs one of the marshals of his
desire to have his head pulled off the following winter. The
one consulted discusses the matter with his fellows; in this
case no objections were raised as Onixwaltcua had already per-
formed a kusiotem dance and it was felt that he was reliable.
As soon as permission is granted, the would-be dancer asks the
best carpenters to meet him in a lonely place in the forest and