ON THE NORTH-WESTERN TRIBES OF CANADA. 575 



Maa'athi, wUme'tliHl tlguhjcamqk' tlgutii'rdt tlguyO'hak-'altl'Q 



Where he came from with his little black little face with his little club 



yafl'abd't. 

 running down. 



And the second one :— 



(rund'dct, gund'dcf, flund.'dct, (jnuri'dct. 

 friend, O friend, O friend, O friend. 



Wvlninno'otle, SEmtlid'/i, linnqsanr,, hanflyd'olsflu. 



They are very white, the real elks, which he won gambling', which he found when 



ihey drifted down to him. 



Marriage. — When a young man desires a girl for his wife he sends a 

 certain amount of property (hana'k's) to her parents for the purchase of 

 the girh If the suitor and tlie amount of property are acceptable, they 

 send word to him stating that they accept his suit. Then the young man 

 takes a number of slaves, who accompany him. They are called lodd'mEk-s- 

 gut (= always close to him). They arm themselves, and the young man 

 embarks with them in a canoe and sails to the bride's house. As soon as 

 her relatives see them coming, they arm themselves with clubs and stone 

 hammers and rush down to the landing-place. They break the canoe and 

 try to drive off the companions of the young man. They fight seriously, 

 and sometimes one of the lodd'viF.k-sgut is killed. This foretells that the 

 couple will never part. After the tight is over the bridegroom and his 

 companions are carried into the bride's house. Then her friends strew 

 eagle down, which is kept in a bag made of sea-lion's intestines, on the 

 companions of the bridegroom, and the fighting ceases. Her father puts 

 on his head-dress and dances while her friends sing. Then a feast is given, 

 during which the young man pays the remainder of the purchase money. 

 In the evening the girl's clan gives a considerable amount of property to 

 the bridegroom {logyinam), which he distributes among his clan according 

 to the amount which they have contributed to the purchase money. Her 

 father and brothers give the groom a new canoe in place of the one which 

 was broken in the morning. Then the bride is carried down to the canoe 

 and she departs with her husband to his village, where they live. 



If the groom belongs to the same village, the couple often stay with the 

 girl's parents. 



The ivinter ceremonial. — I did not see any part of the winter ceremonial 

 of the Nisk'a', but I received descriptions which, in the light of our 

 knowledge of these ceremonies among the Kwakiutl, bring out suflSciently 

 clearly their similarities. There are si.x; secret societies among the Nisk-a', 

 which rank in the following order : the SEmhalai't, Meitla', LotlE'ni, 

 Olala', Nanesta't, Honana'tl, the last being the highest. The SEmhalai't 

 is really not confined to the winter ceremonial, but is obtained when 

 a person obtains the first guardian spirit of his clan and performs the 

 ceremony belonging to this event. 'The tradition of the origin of these 

 ceremonies is the same as that found among the Tsimshian, to which I 

 alluded in the Fifth Report of the Committee, p. 853 (see the full 

 legend in 'Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologic,' 1888). The version of the legend 

 which I obtained from the Nisk-a' localises the events at Bellabella, and 

 it is added that the ceremonies were obtained first by the Gyitqa'tla 

 (a Tsimshian tribe located on the islands south-west of Skeena River) 



