[sapir] GIRL'S PUBERTY CEREMONY 79 



remarks that so and so is presented with such and such a gift ''for 

 having finished his bathing." This alludes, of course, to the bathing 

 of the girl, she being supposed to have bathed for all. 



She then dons a hair ornament known as a hohopqtsitini^ (which 

 may be literally translated as ''round objects at the sides of the 

 head") ; this is worn at the sides of the head, the hair being 

 braided and made into two round clumps which are put into its 

 two sides. As soon as this article of headwear is put on, the 

 girl may begin to partake of food. There now starts for the girl 

 a longer period of less rigorous taboos (nomak) which lasts, from 

 the day of the puberty ceremony, for as many months as there 

 were "torches" employed therein. During this period (excluding, 

 of course, its first four days) she may eat dried salmon or other fish, 

 but fresh fish is strictly tabooed to her; if she transgresses this taboo, 

 it is believed that she will get old quickly. She must also eat no fresh 

 meat of any kind, such as whale meat, seal meat, or venison; nor should 

 she drink any but cold water, for else, it is believed, her teeth will soon 

 fall out. She has a comb of yew wood tied to a cord around her neck, 

 with which alone she is allowed to touch her hair for the ten or other 

 appropriate number of months; should she use her fingers on her hair, 

 it will soon fall out. The hair-comb is decorated with the carving 

 of a snake, eagle, or man's face. She must go to bed after everyone 

 else has retired, and she keeps under her blanket a little toy wedge 

 {Latsaqhil "to sleep with a wedge,") which she cuddles under her 

 blanket like a baby. If she goes to bed after the others and always 

 gets up first, she will live a long life. During this period of menstrual 

 taboo, whenever the girl is outside the house or goes into a canoe, she 

 must have her yellow-cedar bark cape (hlitinik) tied around her hair 

 and falling behind; otherwise her hair will soon fall out. Evidently 

 two main ideas are involved in these and similar menstrual taboos — 

 that of the impurity of the menstrual state itself and the consequent 

 necessity of avoidance of too close contact with the normal world, which 

 would suffer defilement (the infraction of the taboo against fresh fish 

 and meat would doubtless bring about the anger of the fish and game 

 animals and would thus lessen the game supply) ; and that of the train- 

 ing of the girl for her future duties as wife and mother (she must learn 

 to get up early and be useful around the house ; cuddling the toy wedge 

 is evidently a training, by sympathetic magic, of the maternal instinct, 

 or it may be intended to bring about fertility). These two ideas and, 

 indeed, the taboos and practices that go with them are peculiarly 

 widespread in aboriginal America. 



At the end of the longer period of taboo all the people may be 

 invited by the father or guaidian of the girl to a potlatch known as the 



