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.