448 TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY [ETH. ANN. 31 



children scolded by their mother leave the house (127); a scolded 

 gambler leaves the village (208) ; a scolded woman refuses to go back 

 home with her husband (140). 



Here may also be added remarks on beauty of the body. Long 

 hair (181) of reddish color (140), or long dark-yellow hair (189), blond 

 hair and a soft skin (78), are enumerated as traits of beauty. The 

 chieftainess has also long, slender fingers (220, N 183). 



Religious and Magical Practices 



Taboos. — In former times there were a great many taboos. Hunters 

 should not waste the meat of the game. Mountain goats punish the 

 people who leave the bodies on the mountains, so that the bones 

 decay and are scattered about (134). The taboo requires that bones 

 and meat shall be burned (132). It is told in the same tale that the 

 people repent, and heap up all the bones of the goats, the meat, and 

 the skins, burn them and walk around the fire (135). At the same 

 place it is stated that the people did not speak badly of animals 

 of any kind, and that the burning of the bones had the effect that the 

 animals would recover from their sickness, while the sickness would 

 grow worse if the bones remained scattered on the ground. The 

 same idea is brought out in the injunction requiring part of the body 

 of the salmon to be thrown into the fire (202). This is explained on 

 195, where the salmon child that had been killed is transformed 

 into a small spring salmon. When the bones are burned, the child 

 comes back to life; but since by mistake an eye, and later on 

 a rib, have not been burned, the child has a sore eye and a sore rib. 

 It recovers, however, when these parts are found and thrown into 

 the fire. This idea is also given as an explanation why water must 

 be drunk after eating salmon. It serves to revive it (195). This 

 injunction is said to refer only to fresh salmon (202). 



Hunters are instructed in a general way to count the days (224), 

 or, more particularly, to count four days. That means that they 

 have to keep taboos during these days (173). During this time they 

 must fast and wash. They must eat the bark of devil's-club {Fatsia 

 Jiorrida); and after having done so for four days, they must bathe 

 and dive in a brook. One particular boy, the son of the Devil's- 

 Club, is instructed more in detail in the following way (173). He 

 must not wash his body for twelve months. Then he is told to dive 

 in a stream twelve times, and every time after doing so he is to go 

 back to the village. He is forbidden to get married as long as he wants 

 to obtain riches, because, if his wife should not be true to him, he 

 would have bad luck. As long as he " counts the days in the months 

 and years" (that is to say, as long as he keeps the taboos), his father 

 tells him he will be blessed; but if he should go after women, he will 



