THE PUBERTY DANCE. 85 
descent of the mountain, through the grateful coolness of the fir-trees and 
the madronos, past many a murmuring spring, down into the sunny valley 
of the Trinity, straw-colored in its glorious autumn ripeness, and tinted 
with a mellow lilac haze. There in the home of her fathers, when her 
nine days were fully accomplished, in the shadow of a grove of little thin- 
leafed oaks, the Hupa danced around her and chanted the ancient chorals 
of the puberty dance. Then the chief lifted her by the hand and the 
maiden Nish-Fang became a woman of her tribe. 
The puberty dance (kin'-alkh-ta) above referred to is celebrated in the 
following manner: For the space of nine days the male relatives of the girl 
dance all night, but her female relatives do not join in the dancing, only in 
the singing. The girl eats no meat, and remains apart and blindfolded all 
this while. During the tenth night she is in the house, but keeps close in a 
corner. The finishing stroke of the ceremony is participated in by two old 
women and two young men, her relatives, the young men having around 
their heads leather bands thickly set with sea-lions’ teeth—a ferocious-looking 
head-dress consecrated especially to this ceremony. ‘These five persons are 
in a row, the girl in the center, the two young men standing on either side 
of her and the two old women squatting on the outside. The girl goes for- 
ward a few steps, then backward. She does this ten times, chanting and 
throwing her hands up to her shoulders. The last time she runs forward, 
and gives a leap; then the ceremony is ended. 
She is now ready for marriage, and she will bring in the market from 
three to ten strings (about half the valuation of a man); that is, from $15 
to $50. If her husband after paying for her is not pleased with his bar- 
gain, he can return her to her father and receive back his money. If she 
has children and the father-in-law takes them he returns all the money; 
but if the father keeps them he is obliged to content himself with half the 
money. Sometimes each child she has reared is reckoned at a string in 
estimating the woman’s commercial value. The Indians relate an instance 
where a man wished to marry his deceased brother’s widow. ‘The woman 
had cost seven strings, and he demanded that she must either marry him or 
