boas] DESCRIPTION OF THE TSIMSHIAN 463 



order (1.103); by sprinkling the face with the cold water of life and 

 slapping the cheeks (305) ; by sprinkling ashes over a skeleton four 

 times and fanning it with a shaman's eagle tail (328) ; or by singing 

 over the skeleton that has been laid out on a mat and covered with 

 another mat that has been painted red (N 214). The Salmon 

 Woman (Bright-Cloud Woman) restores her husband's eyesight by 

 washing his eye-socket (77). Persons who are sick may also be cured 

 by being boiled in a bathtub until their bones are perfectly clean. 

 Then the bones are laid out on a mat and revived in the manner just 

 described (188, 298). 



A person who has been revived rubs his eyes as though he had slept 

 (151). A man who has been resuscitated has a beautiful white skin 

 (1 88) . Blindness is cured by a supernatural being by removing blood 

 and rubbish from the eyes (24S). Animals revive when their flesh 

 and skin are burned (N 215). The supernatural beings are capable 

 of making children grow rapidly by putting their feet on the children's 

 feet and pulling the forehead (273, 1.81; see also 173). They flatten 

 out mountains so that the hunter may pass them easily (103). Pur- 

 suing Snails cause a rock-slide (165). The supernatural beings are 

 able to make short the distance from their home to the human villages 

 (209). They travel over the surface of the water, following the " belt 

 of water," that is, a tide-line (213). A being of supernatural power 

 thai is sent out to cut firewood just touches the tree and makes it fall 

 into pieces of the right length (1.101). 



Supernatural beings come to marry people, to visit them, or to 

 take them home. Here belong the numerous marriages with super- 

 natural beings. When all the people of the Squirrel chief have been 

 killed by the human beings, the Squirrel chief takes into his house 

 the man who has slain them. The Bear Woman who marries a man 

 is the subject of the tale in N 203. She accompanies her husband 

 to the village of the people, whom she frightens by gathering berries 

 in her stomach instead of using a basket. Marriages of this kind are 

 those of the chief who marries the Robin and the Sawbill Duck 

 (179 et seq.), and of the princess who marries the Mouse who came to 

 her room every night (232). 



It is a characteristic trait of many tales of this kind that animals 

 that have been insulted send messengers to take the offender (gen- 

 erally a girl) to their village, where she must marry a man, the son 

 of the chief of the offended animals (see p. 749). Thus a girl is made 

 to marry a Snail (162); another one, a Bear (279, 1.151). When 

 the woman is taken to the village of the animals, she is left standing 

 outside, and the chief asks the typical question, "Did you get what 

 you went for?" Then she is taken inside. The same happens to 

 a hunter who is taken to the sky. He is induced to pursue the slave 

 of the Sky chief, who has taken the form of a white bear by putting 



