ON THE NORTH-WESTERN TRIBES OF CANADA. 575 
todo any work. These practices are continued for a period of sixteen 
months. During this period they must not borrow canoes or paddles 
from other people ; they must use bucket and dishes of their own. If 
they should use the belongings of other persons, the latter would have 
also twin children. The woman must not dig clams and the man must 
not catch salmon, else the clams and the salmon would disappear. They 
must not go near a fire in which bracken roots are being roasted. It is 
believed that the birth of twins will produce permanent backaches in the 
parents. In order to avert this, the man, a short time after the birth, 
induces a young man to have intercourse with his wife, while she in turn 
procures a girl for her husband. It is believed that then the backache 
will attack them. A year after the birth of the twins the parents put 
wedges and hammers into a basket, which they take on their backs and 
carry into the woods. Then they drive the wedges into a tree, asking it 
to permit them to work again after a lapse of four months. 
All the young women go to the pit over which the twins were born and 
squat over it, leaning on their knuckles, because it is believed that after 
doing so they will be sure to bear children. 
BURIAL. 
When a person is about to die, his friends spit water all over his body. 
After death the body is carefully washed, so that every particle of the 
bodies of the survivors that might adhere to the corpse may be removed. 
Even the places where their breath might have touched the body must be 
carefully washed. This is done in order to prevent that the survivors 
might accidentally bewitch themselves (see Sixth Report, p. 610). If the 
death occurs during the night, the body is left in the house until day- 
light ; if it occurs during the day, it is removed at once. It must not 
be taken out of the door, else other inmates of the house would be sure to 
die soon. Either a hole is made in one of the walls, through which the 
Fig. 1. 
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body is carried out, or it is lifted through the roof. It is placed behind 
the house to be put into the box that is to serve as a coffin. . If it were 
placed in the coffin inside the house, the souls of the other inmates would 
enter the coffin too, and then all would die. The coffin is placed at the 
right-hand side of the body. Then a speaker calls the relatives of the 
deceased, saying: ‘Let the dead one take away all the sickness of his 
friends.’ Then they all come and sit down at the side of the corpse, wail- 
ing for a short time. Now they arise and give the body a kick. They 
turn once toward the left, and give the body another kick, repeating this 
