WINTER CEREMONIAL DANCES 233

preferably skilled carpenters. Heralds visit every house in
the village informing all that X has gone to meet, or to wait
for, Dark-Shade.

Meanwhile X and his companions are utilizing the last
hours of daylight in collecting a large quantity of gum. They
build a fire, and by its flickering light the dancer is coated with
gum so carefully that even his teeth and nails are invisible; in
this disguise he represents Dark-Shade. Early the following
morning the singers and those kukusiut who have already
danced during the current season set off on lashed canoes to
meet X and his party whom they take on board. Waiting till
the tide is favourable, the canoes are slowly poled up the river.
As they come in sight of the village, the singers strike up some
well-known tune, and in time to it everyone on the platform
between the canoes begins to dance, each using the style proper
to his prerogative. It is an animated scene. The uninitiated
watch the approach, and gaze with wonder upon the strange
dark figure; it is all so uncanny that they need little urging
from the kukusiut to withdraw to their houses, where they
peer curiously through chinks in the walls. Members of the
society line the river bank and, as Dark-Shade draws near, one
after another cries out that a call has come to him. The
marshals have previously decided who shall dance at this time
and informed those selected; sometimes it is a kusiut who has
already performed once during the season, or it may be a
person who has not performed for many years.

All the kukusiut accompany Dark-Shade and her escort to
X’s house from which all uninitiated have long been expelled.
The singers compose a new song of which the words are ar-
ranged as if Dark-Shade, not X, were speaking. The theme
of one, used a number of years ago, is:

“Let X fetch me to visit mortals.”’

Unfortunately, the details of X’s dance were unavailable.
Dark-Shade herself remains for four days hidden within X’s
house, though he attends the ceremonies of other kukusiut and
his presence there on the nights of gotdim and nebusam is a