WINTER CEREMONIAL DANCES 65

“Path Clearers” see to it that no one passes between him and
the fre. The uninitiated are not expelled from the house and
their curiosity is aroused. Meanwhile the singers prepare songs
for X, describing his supernatural patrons, and some kukusiut
carpenters are instructed to make in secret ten small pieces of
wood, about one foot in length and six inches wide, sometimes
half-moon shaped. They cover these with dyed cedar-bark on
which they paint the designs appropriate to each being.®2 On
the morning of the fourth day,®* X blackens his face with soot
or charcoal, obtained by pouring water on a fire, and dons the
usual kusiut costume. A herald then invites the kukusiut to
assemble in X’s house. Presently they proceed to the lowest
house of the village, where the singers beat out the tunes of
the “Path Clearers,”’ remembered from a previous year. They
dance, while X stands, shifting his feet and moving his apron
as if he also wished to perform but was too weary to do so.
This is repeated at every house of the village, except that in
which the potlatch was held; most of the kukusiut follow the
procession, as do some of the uninitiated. Finally, with X last
of all, they enter the potlatch house, where foreign guests and
many uninitiated have assembled.

In Kimsquit the preliminary four days of watching are
omitted, but from this point on, the rites of the two areas are
practically identical.** As X enters, all the kukusiut who have
pounding sticks begin to beat on the floor and the women
drone. Without delay, and without attention to the timeless
thumping, X begins to dance, sunwise, around the fire, at
intervals casting on it particles of eagle down which have the
effect of making the supernatural ones above take their places.
He calls out intermittently that he can see the beings above
sitting down, and a herald repeats his remarks loudly. In
Bella Coola the four ‘Path Clearers’’ walk close behind X.

“The distinctive designs are given by Boas, to whom the reader is referred.

“It is probable that X must first lie down when Nodkxnum’s dancer reports
that the canoe is at the mouth of the river.

“It is uncertain whether the differences in ritual are typical of Bella Coola
and Kimsquit, or merely represent variations in individual prerogatives.