WINTER CEREMONIAL DANCES 187

has retired from sight. Ano°likwoisaix gives her customary dance, her head bent as if she constantly wished to rest it on someone’s shoulder, and her opposite arm waving violently. After one circuit of the fire she withdraws from sight behind the matting. Then the marshals tell the uninitiated to with. draw, and the growling Cannibals hurry them forth. The evening’s ceremonials conclude in the usual way, except that the masks are not burnt.

The length of time required for the figures to appear and perform is so great that mebusam can seldom be completed on a single night. When the marshals decide that it is too late for further drama, they can call a postponement at any time; the uninitiated are told to withdraw and the Aukusiut disperse shortly afterwards. The following evening they are recalled and the ritual is carried on from the point where the break was made. In this account it has been assumed that it is possible to complete the display without postponement. _

Four nights later everyone is called back once again. The kukusiut first take their places, and then the uninitiated are summoned. The ritual on this occasion is identical with that just described for 7ebusam with the same promenade of super- natural beings and the same explanations by Ano’ ikwolsaix. After the uninitiated depart the masks are burnt, two at a time, in the manner previously described, this being the last event in the Mystery Dance.

THE DANCE OF Winwina

Noakxnwm is not, according to Bella Coola mythology, the only bringer of salmon to the river, nor is he the only one whose action has been dramatized as a kusiut dance. A similar purveyor of fish is Winwina** who comes every year to Bella Coola. Boas (p. 38) has recorded the origin myth connected with the rite, and states that the movements of this being influence the duration of the kusiut season; this observation was not confirmed. Winwina is supposed to return from the

Also called Kunkund?pstus, “What Brings Our Food.”