40 THE BELLA COOLA INDIANS

a woman about sixty years of age, vividly recalled her fears
when she, a young woman, gave her first performance. It was
the Dance of Winwina (II, p. 187), in which she had to call out
loudly when a large number of uninitiated persons, including
Carrier Indians, were present. One of the marshals was her
great-uncle and he had carefully taught her what she was to
say. A few minutes before the time for her announcement he
came to where she lay hidden in an enclosure behind the fire:

“Do you see your relatives here?” he said. “Look at your
father, your mother, and your uncles. If you fail to say what
you are expected to say, they will all die in a few weeks, and
so will you. Be bold!”

The woman asserted that it was the most terrifying experi-
ence in her whole life because, though she knew there was
deception in the rites, she also knew the power of the society
and that the threat of death in case of error was no idle one.
She was so frightened that she forgot the carefully learnt words
and it required the prompting of the hidden marshal to get her
through the ordeal.

But once the first rite has been successfully negotiated, it
is a proud day for the novice. He feels himself a real kustut
and glories in his superiority over his former associates. For
the rest of the season he, like everyone else who has performed
a dance, must attend every rite. Energetic novices sometimes
give their dances on two, or even three, successive years,
though usually a man allows five or six to elapse between
displays.

If X should die during the year’s interval between his ini-
tiation and his first dance, he is secretly buried by his fellow
kukusiut without the customary mourning rites, and with no
uninitiated persons present at the grave. His song, if one has
been composed for him, is sung softly, and he is interred
adorned with his collar of dyed cedar-bark. During the next
ceremonial season, that at which he should have danced, it is
necessary for a brother, or other near relative, to receive a call
since it is felt that a dance once begun must be completed,