ox THE ETHxVOLOGICAL .SOnVEV OF CANADA. 485 



branches till her skin was almost torn off and her body was sore and 

 covered from head to foot with scratches from the severe treatment she 

 had received. The prickly brambles of the trailing blackberry {Rubiissp.) 

 were often employed for this purpose, and my informant told me that it 

 was no uncommon thing for a girl to toss and turn in agony the night 

 following this bath, unable to close her eyes in sleep for the pain and 

 smarting of her body. 



If she were the daughter of a chief or a noble she would be bathed by 

 the sQd'vi'tEn or siu (medicine man or woman). These would be paid for 

 their services with gifts of blankets or skins. 



The object of these heroic measures was to make the girl ' bright and 

 smart.' After the bath she was given food and drink and permitted to 

 come to the fire. Sometimes a friend of the family would mark the 

 occasion by putting a nice new blanket over the girl's shoulders. After 

 her meal her face would be painted with streaks of red paint, and the 

 girl would then go to the forest and pull down the branches of all the 

 cedar and spruce trees she passed and rub her face and body with their 

 tips, and then let them spring up again. The object of this practice was 

 to make her charming and attractive in the eyes of men. She would also 

 take a quantity of fern-roots of the edible kind [Fteris aquilina) and 

 offer them to the biggest trees she could find. This was supposed to give 

 her a generous nature and keep her from becoming stingy and mean. 



After a girl had arrived at puberty she was never allowed to play or 

 mingle with the boys. She was kept indoors at work all day long. The 

 lot of a girl among the Sk-qo'mic in the olden days does not appear to 

 have been an enviable one. 



A girl or woman during her monthly periods was ' bad medicine ; ' 

 that is, she was supposed to carry ill-luck with her. If she entered a 

 sick-room the invalid was sure to get worse ; and if she crossed the path 

 of a hunter or a fisher he would get no luck that trip. 



When people were sick they were rubbed with dog-fish oil. 



When the sci'eech-owl (cai'u) was heard hooting around a house it 

 was regarded as a sure sign that some of the inmates would shortly die. 

 Cai'u signifies 'ghost,' or 'shade.' 



Dn-elllni/x. 



The dwellings of the old Sk-qo'mic were of the communal kind, 

 whether they were the ordinary .slab and cedar-board structure or whether 

 they were the winter keekwilee-house. As far as I have been able to 

 gather, only the upper tribes on the Sk-qo'mic River used the sk'umi'n, or 

 keekwilee-house. That this structure was known to them is clear from 

 the name of one of their villages, which signifies in English ' keekwilee- 

 house.' The lower tribes commonly used the cedar structure all the year 

 round. Each village contained one and sometimes two of these placed at 

 right angles to one another, or in parallel lines according to the local 

 peculiarities of the village site. Some of them, in the more populous 

 villages, were of enormous length, extending in an inibroken line for 

 upwards of 600 feet. Houses of two or three hundred feet in 

 length were very ordinary dwellings. In width they varied from 20 

 to 40 feet. The walls, too, were of variable height, ranging from S to 

 15 feet when the roofs were gabled. If the roof contained but one slope, 

 then the higher side would rise to 25 or even 30 feet. Both sides and 

 roof were built of cedar boards or slabs split with hammer and wedges 



