WINTER CEREMONIAL DANCES 243

you choose. You will be more powerful than any of your brothers and
it will be you who will retaliate on the murderers of your parents, because
you will be a shaman.”

The man, a supernatural being, of course, told the six that their
repository would be the blue pool on the shores of which they had met
him; it was oval in shape, about twenty-five feet long and twenty wide.
He added that its name was Nuquwxuliogisin-i. Having given his instruc-
tions, the strange visitor vanished.

The six orphans returned in a somewhat bewildered condition to
Stux. They went into the house where they were staying and uxwal-a,
who was about eight years old, disturbed a cross old woman with his
harmless play. In unreasonable anger she spanked him severely, and
his older brothers told their sister to try her newly acquired power. She
passed behind the old woman; by so doing she attracted to herself the
latter’s spirit without making even the motion of taking anything, and
without the victim being aware of her loss. Qwaixosén-i stack the super-
natural element on a stick, as one spits a potato, and threw it on the heap
of excrement piled up behind the house. Presently, when the woman
wished to use the convenience, she took a stick with the intention of
breaking it for sanitary use. She went to the platform for the purpose
but it broke beneath her and she fell; the stick she was carrying pierced
her heart and she died. The accident was, of course, due to the loss of
her spirit. The five brothers were delighted with the realization that
their sister was really as powerful as the supernatural one had said she
would be.

The boys next told their sister to slay the principal chief, who had
instructed a sorcerer to kill their parents. Qwaixosén-i went behind him
and attracted his spirit to herself; she broke it between her hands and
presently the owner fell dead. Though secretly delighted, the brothers
thought it wise to appear grieved, and accordingly sent uvwal-a to weep.
As he was doing so, a kindly old woman patted him on the head, saying:

“Don’t distress yourself, little boy. It is the man who killed your
parents who is now himself dead.”

But she had no idea that it was one of the orphans who had caused
his death. Within a few days Qwaixosén-i captured and destroyed the
spirits of two other chiefs who had had a part in the slaying of her parents;
in each case the man died within a few hours of his loss. These four deaths
so worried the people of Stu that all the chiefs determined to leave,
since the malady, whatever it was, seemed to kill only those of impor-
tance. They took down the cedar boards forming the walls of the houses,
piled them on canoes and made ready for departure, taking no heed for
the poor people, including the six orphans, who were left shelterless.