524 HEPofiT— 1900. 



instructed \\?hat to do with it and its contents. Wlien he came out of 

 his trance, he cut away the bark which had grown over the hole 

 completely and took out the box and opened it. The various divisions of 

 the box no longer contained bones, but only a little dust. Some of this 

 dust got on his hands and fingers, and he took some moss and went down 

 to the river and washed his hands in the water with the moss. As he 

 washed a gale of wind arose, and little fish darted out from the moss in 

 hundreds. He now put the box back into the hole in the tree again and 

 went home. It was evening when he arrived, and his wife, who had been 

 alarmed at his long absence, asked him where he had been all day. Not 

 desiring to tell her yet of his strange adventure he said that he had gone 

 to the river and had fallen asleep on the bank. Early next morning he 

 goes down to the river where he had left the moss, and where the little 

 fish had so suddenly appeared, and found to his great joy that the waters 

 were teeming with fish, amongst which was a new kind afterwards 

 called tsai'aniik. It would seem that the people had been aware of the 

 reason of the disappearance of the fish from the river, and had a tradition 

 among them that they would return again some day when the dust of 

 the boaes, which had been hidden away by the father of the twins, 

 should be found and placed in the water. The man now saw from the 

 quantity of the fish in the river that he had truly l>rought back the 

 fish, and ran home and told his wife. From that time on the people of 

 this village had plenty of fish, which aroused the jealousy of the other 

 villagers, and one day the box containing the bone dust was stolen by 

 some one and taken to another villace. This brought about the death of 

 the man who had first found the box, for on its being taken from the 

 tree a gale arose which overwhelmed his canoe and drowned him. 

 From that time the people on the river every year put a little of the bone 

 dust in the water and never lacked fish again. 



I was unable to identify the tsai'anuk. They are a kind of small 

 fish like smelts or oolicans, but differ from these in that they are never 

 found floating dead on the water, and they come and go in a mysterious 

 manner. The Sk'qo'mic always regarded them as the descendants of the 

 twins. Twins, according to the beliefs of the Sk-qo'mic, had power over 

 the wind; hence the rising of the wind when the bone dust was disturbed. 

 If any one ate tsai'anuk and sicHivas (oolicans) at the same meal he 

 would drop dead, the Sk'qO'mic believed. 



Te M£n-tlE-Saie'lEm. 

 (The Son of the Bright Day.) 



Long time ago a shaman named TcuIq had two daughters. One fine 

 day the two girls got in their canoe and went out on the water. When 

 they were some distance from the shore they ceased paddling and lay 

 down in the canoe one at each end. They then began to sing. Their 

 song was addressed to a certain mysterious youth who was supposed to 

 live at the bottom of the water. The words of the song which they 

 repeated many times were as follows : — 



Atcina' ! AtcinI' ! Atcina' ! Kwi'na yatesi its tEm 

 Kwina'-si-a'll - - - i, 

 which, freely translated, may be rendered as follows ; — ' O dear ! O ray I 

 We have been told that a handsome young man lies below ! Oh that he 

 would come up ! ' 



When they had been singing a little while they saw a form rising 



