416 EEPORT— 1891. 



Ler the secrets of the Ku'siut. She wore ornaments of red cedar-bark 

 around her head, wrists, and ankles ; her face was blackened, her hair 

 strewn with eagle-down. She commanded the woman to dance in the 

 same way as she saw her dancing. The people should accompany her 

 dance with songs, and, after she had finished, they should dance with 

 masks. She said, ' Whenever a person sees me your people shall dance 

 the Ku'siut. If you do not do so I shall punish you with death and 

 sickness. In summer, while I am in my house, you mnst not dance the 

 Kii'siiit.' 



Ever since that time the Bilqula dance the Kii'siiit. When a man has 

 seen Auaiilikiitsai'H sitting before her cave he will invite the people to a 

 Kii'siiit. A ring made of red and white cedar-bark is hung up in his 

 house, and the uninitiated are not allowed to enter it. Only in the 

 evening, when dances ai'e performed, they may look on, standing close to 

 the door. As soon as the dances are over they must retire from the 

 taboo house. Each Ku'siut lasts three days. 



The various dances performed by members of the Ku'siut are also the 

 property of the gentes, and the right of performing them is restricted 

 to members of the gens. They must not be given to a daughter's husband, 

 as is the case with the Sisau'kii dances (see above), but belong to the 

 members of the gens alone. They maj', however, be loaned and borrowed 

 by members of the gens, who have a light to a particular dance, but who 

 do not own it. Permission to use a mask or dance is obtained from the 

 owner by payments. The owner may reclaim the dance or the borrower 

 may return it at any time. Membership of the Ku'siiit is obtained through 

 an initiation. At this time the novice is given his Kii'siiit name, which 

 he retains throughout life. Each gens has its peculiar Ku'siut names, 

 which are inherited by young persons from their parents or from other 

 relatives. Thus a young man who had the name of Po'po until he was 

 about seventeen years old obtained at his initiation the name of Tl'ako'otl. 

 I have not reached a very clear understanding of the details of the initia- 

 tion ; it seems that the dance is simply given to the novice in the same 

 way as the Sisau'kn, this initiation being connected with a potlatch. But 

 still it seems possible that he must ' dream ' of the dance which he is to 

 perform. Only the highest degrees of the Kii'siiit have to pass through a 

 religious ceremony of some importance. The hjghest degrees are the 

 Elaqo'tla (the Ha'mats'a of the Kwakiutl), the O'lEq (the Nii'tlmatl of 

 the Kwakiutl), and the Da'tia (the No'ntsistatl of the He'iltsuk). These 

 grades are also hereditary. A Kii'siiit novice may acquire them at 

 once at his first initiation. 



When the Elaqo'tla is initiated he goes into the forest, where he 

 encounters his guardian spirit. It is believed that he goes up to the sun, 

 and formerly he had to take human flesh along for food. The chiefs held 

 a council the night preceding the beginning of the ceremonies, and any- 

 one who wanted to show his liberality offered one of his slaves to be 

 killed, in order to serve as food for the Elaqo'tla. The ofi'er was accepted 

 and a payment of from ten to twenty blankets made for the slave. The 

 latter was killed, and the members of the Elaqo'tla order devoured one- 

 half of the body before the departure of the novice to the woods. There 

 the latter is tied up and left to fast. He may stay there for twenty or 

 thirty days until the spirit appears to him and takes him up to the sun, 

 where he is initiated. Early one morning he returns, and is heard outside 

 the houses. He has lost all his hair, which, it is believed, has been torn 



