332 TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY [etii. ass. 31 



body. While he was groping about there, he heard a noise like the 

 rolling of thunder in the bottom of the great pit. It resounded 

 again and again. Then a great door opened on the east side of the 

 bottom of the pit, and, behold! a hairy young man stood there, who 

 inquired of him why he had come to the pit. The man replied that 

 he had come because they were in need of a great shaman. So the 

 hairy man invited him in. The door which had opened looked like 

 the sun shining through a window. The steersman went in there. 

 Inside there were not many people, only a great chief sitting in front 

 of a large fire. He wore his crown of grizzly-bear claws filled with 

 eagle down. Two live rattles were on the ground on each side, and 

 he wore his dancing-apron. 



When the man came into the house, the chief did not look at him. 

 The man went in and sat down by the side of the great fire. No one 

 spoke to him. After a while another door opened on the east side 

 of the house, and a young shaman came in with his crown of grizzly- 

 bear claws on his head, his apron tied around his waist, and a rattle 

 in his right hand, an eagle tail in his left. Then the boards for 

 beating time ran hi through the door like serpents, and each laid 

 itself on one side of the large fire. Then weasel batons ran along 

 behind the boards. 



The young shaman began to sing his own song; and as he shook 

 his rattle, the weasel batons began to beat of themselves, and a skin 

 drum ran ahead and beat of itself. Then a great many shamans came 

 out, and each took his own supernatural power out of his mouth, 

 and put it into the mouth of the visitor. When they had all done 

 so, the great chief who had been sitting by the fire stood up and 

 stepped up to the man, put his hands on him, and rubbed his eyes 

 four times. Then he went back to his place and sat down, and all 

 the shamans were gone. The man did not see where they had gone 

 to, but they all vanished from his sight. 



Suddenly he was again in complete darkness, and he felt that the 

 line was still tied around his body. He shook it, and shouted, and 

 they pulled him up. Then the men went back to their own town; and 

 when they had gone halfway, the man in the bow of the canoe fell 

 back in a faint, but the two others poled up the river. Before they 

 arrived at home, the man in the middle of the canoe fell back in a 

 faint, and the man in the stern poled the canoe up to their home. 



The two men who had fainted vomited blood as a sign that they 

 had obtained supernatural power, and they became shamans. 

 Only one of them had not obtained supernatural power, and no dream 

 had come to him. He was still waiting. After a long while these 

 two men went about and healed the sick. 



Now, at the end of the summer the supernatural powers took the 

 man away from home. Nobody knew where he had gone. At the 



