boas] DESCRIPTION OF THE TSIMSHIAN 451 



It is believed that this copper lives in the form of salmon in the brooks. 

 It must be treated in the following manner: It must be caught only 

 by descendants of Tsauda's daughter. As soon as the salmon copper 

 is caught, it must be thrown into a fire. The fumes of the salmon 

 make the people who catch it rich, while they would kill any one who 

 does not belong to that particular family. The secret of the salmon 

 copper must not be told to any one. Those who catch the salmon 

 copper must chew gum of the white-pine bark and rub it over their 

 hands and faces before taking the copper. 



Another individual taboo is mentioned on 291. A number of men 

 who have been taken down into the house of the supernatural being 

 Na-gun-a'ks are instructed that they must not touch any live fish. 

 They find all the fish they need floating dead on the water. When 

 they break this taboo, they are killed by the supernatural being. 



A supernatural arrow given to a person is handed over with the 

 instruction that it shall be kept in good order and that nobody must 

 see it. It must not be kept in the house, but put into a box which 

 is to be placed on a tree. The person who owns it must keep away 

 from women (311). 



Purification. — Great strength and supernatural power may be 

 obtained by boys who bathe in cold water and who are then whipped 

 (116). Their strength is then tested by their ability to pull up trees 

 (118) or tear out branches of trees (117). Purification for success is 

 mentioned at other places (163). In N 197 a supernatural woman 

 washes a man in four deep water-holes until clean and beautiful. 

 In N 155 it is also said that a boy who has obtained supernatural 

 power is very white. A prince tries to gain success by bathing in 

 a brook in the woods (308). Children, in order to grow up well, 

 should be washed regularly (58, 61). Another means of purifica- 

 tion was the drinking of a decoction of devil's-club, which was re- 

 sorted to before a potlatch, but also at other times (1.165, N 37). 

 The purification of the Wolverene is described (175, 176). The 

 Wolverene tries to keep the secret of his purification, and tells the 

 hunter who threatens him, first, that he uses devil's-club bark in 

 his bath every morning and that he eats some of it, next that he eats 

 roots of floating plants and their leaves, then that he eats a small 

 piece of blue hellebore root and rubs it over his body while bathing 

 in the morning. After this, he says that he eats skunk-cabbage 

 roots and rubs his body with them while bathing in the morning. 

 Finally he tells the man that he is using rotten fern (176). The 

 purification for bear hunting is described in some detail (280 et seq.). 



Sacrifices. — In order to obtain success, sacrifices are offered which 

 are supposed to go to the home of the supernatural beings (273). 

 The offerings are burned (164, 309). Food, fat, tobacco, bird's- 



