WINTER CEREMONIAL DANCES 27

uninitiated are expelled, with the exception of the susaok to whom, as guests, a meal is served. Then they too leave and the kukusiut eat together. Finally, the singers strike up one of the dancer’s songs, and he dances to it to end the evening’s rites.

The fourth day is nebusam, “That Which Is Opened.”’ During the day the carpenters work to complete the masks, and towards dusk the house is again put in order. The suku- siut are summoned again to practise the songs, if necessary, and always to arrange who shall wear the masks, a matter left to the marshals and the carpenters. Then the uninitiated are called in to see the masked figures and watch any dramatic representation. After their exclusion, the masks are burnt. Then the kukusiut gather outside the dancer’s house where his song is sung once more to send his call back above. Frequently another kusiut now receives a call, so that the nebusam of one dancer is likewise the /suxtémem for another. The Aukusiut assemble in the latter’s house, but the uninitiated are not al- lowed to return to that from which they have been ejected until the platform-enclosure has been destroyed at the end of the season.

A word might be said about £usiut paraphernalia, although much of this will have to be described in detail for special dances. Boas gives illustrations of a large number of £usiut masks and gives such an admirable description of them that little need be added. They are carved from the solid wood, the larger of beech, the smaller of alder, and each carpenter endeavours to make a striking effigy of the being portrayed. Ano'likwoisaix is present at every dance and has become so well standardized that she can always be recognized. This is true, also, for Thunder, Echo, the Aaohao, the Laugher, the Hermaphrodite, and a few other supernatural beings, but so much variation occurs in others that even a kusiut of much experience cannot always tell what being is represented. The masks are painted, and sometimes the designs indicate the being, even though the carving fails to do sO; verisimilitude is