ox TlIK ETHNOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 489 



ledge. After a while she returns to the building again and performs a 

 new dance. When a novice performs his or her tirst dance it is called 

 their luiv.sd'lktl. Nearly all the spectatoi's of the dances beat time with 

 sticks on loose cedar boards placed on the beds. The movements of the 

 dnncers are various, agility and endurance being more aimed at than 

 what we should call grace. Prancing like a high-stepping horse is a 

 noted feature in some of the men's dances. An old resident of the dis- 

 trict, Mr. Jonathan Miller, now postmaster of Vancouver City, but who 

 formerly had much to do with the Indians in his capacity of provincial 

 constable, informed me that at the close of one of their dances, whicli 

 took place about thirty-eight years ago at the village of QoiQoi (=masks), 

 in Stanley Park, which then had a population of 700, and now contains 

 but one family, a noted medicine-man, or sQom'tEti, gave a performance. 

 He came into the circle with a small living dog in his teeth. As he 

 danced he devoured the creature piecemeal. He bit the skin from its 

 nose and tore it backwards with his teeth till he reached the throat. 

 He then tore off pince after piece of the flesh and danced round the 

 building, devouring it as he went. This dance was known as the ' dog- 

 dance.' This is no longer practised even by the pagan bands, as far as I 

 can learn. 



There was a custom among the Sk-qo'mic of ' bringing out ' a girl, not 

 altogether unlike the custom among ourselves. In the case of a girl who 

 had lost her mother when she had reached the age of puberty she was 

 publicly ' brought out ' at the next dance, and sang and danced her 

 mother's song and dance before the whole community. She was attired 

 for the occasion in a special garment or head-dress. When the people 

 were assembled for the dancing an elderly man of the girl's family would 

 proclaim aloud that Soand-.so was going to dance and sing her mother's 

 song. Her brothers or her cousins would now prepare and robe her. 

 This ceremony was called sd'yTniiaitl, and consisted in placing upon her 

 head a kind of Acil composed of tails made from the wool of the moun- 

 tain-goat, which hung down all round her person, and bobbed and 

 swayed as she moved. The garment was called no y Fi dieu . If the girl 

 were a good industrious si.ster the brothers would .show their esteem and 

 regard for her by seating her on a pile of blankets, afterwards to be 

 given away to mark the occasion. Usually the ceremony took place in 

 the house, but sometimes a platform would be erected on several canoes 

 joined together on the water, and the dance would take place there. 

 When the announcement would be made of the dance all the people 

 would show their pleasure by clapping their hands much as a Avhite 

 audience does. In earlier times the girl danced on a blanket, which 

 was afterwards S(iii1s, or scrambled for by the onlookers, each wildly 

 endeavouring to get a piece of it. Every one who secured a grip of the 

 blanket was entitled to cut off all he held in his hand. These pieces of 

 blanket were not prized as mere souvenirs of the occasion, as might be 

 thought, but rather as precious material to be rewoven into another 

 blanket. That is the reason why blankets at potlatches and other feasts 

 were cut into pieces if there were not enough Avhole ones to go round 

 among the guests. Mountain-goat wool was a valuable commodity, 

 and not easy to secure ; hence the value of even a small piece of blanket. 

 This sQiilg, or scrambling, was always an exciting scene, and because of 

 an accident that happened on one of these occasions to the debutante by 

 the over-eagerness of the crowd to get at the blanket, it was afterwards 



