560 BEPOBT— 1892. 



sick by pressure npon various parts of the body, by pincliing, &c. They 

 also practised blowing upon the patient, and extracted the supposed cause 

 of the malady by suction with the mouth. Blood-letting at the wrist 

 was also in use. The shaman was called ni'pik'ak-d'k-\l, from his having 

 to do with the nipi'lvas. 



Death and Burial. 



The Kootenays usually buried their dead in shallow holes amidst the 

 rocks and boulders, and often left them exposed to the air. Sometimes 

 they buried them on low lands, subject annually to be covered by the 

 Tiver at high water. In the early days the Indian was buried with all his 

 finery, and the members of the tribe seemed to have followed in the 

 funeral procession. Before the Church authorities put a stop to it, the 

 Indians used to betake themselves to the hills and shriek terribly over the 

 dead. They appear to have taken good care of their dead, and never 

 disturbed the graves of their people. It is impossible to obtain osteo- 

 logical material on account of the strong prejudice the Indians have in. 

 this matter. 



PAINTI^fG AND TATTOOING. 



The Upper Kootenays do not now paint {gi'tEnu'stih) or tattoo (hatlku) 

 their faces or persons, except in very rare instances. In the past, however, 

 they practised the same very much. It is said lovers' wooings and 

 ■challenges to fight were made known by painting the face in a peculiar 

 manner, and the answer was conveyed by the same means. Some of 

 the Indians are tattooed on the arms with small black dots, often 

 accompanied by black lines. In one case, which the writer investigated, 

 it turned out that the tattooing was done by Lum Kin, a Chinese doctor, 

 to cure a sore arm. The Indians, however, admitted that in the past 

 they had similar practices. 



Numbers of the Indians have on their arms one or several circular 

 scars, evidently made by burning. These, the Indians said, were 

 produced by pressing a hot tobacco-pipe of stone to the flesh. No reason 

 for so doing was assigned. 



The Lower Kootenays are still much given to painting the face, ears, 

 neck, and exposed portions of the breast in gaudy colours. Many, whom 

 the writer saw, had their whole faces, necks, and ears daubed thickly over 

 with bright red paint. Some had the face painted red and the forehead 

 yellow ; others, again, had the colours laid on in bands of red and yellow, 

 giving them a weird appearance as they danced by the huge fire at night. 



Not the men alone, but the women also, were thus decorated, and with 

 the same variety. The children, as a rule, seem not to be so much 

 bepainted as their elders. Some of the Indians contented themselves 

 with a few daubs here and there. One metis, who assured the writer 

 that he was a ' Boston man,' and not an Indian, was seen the very next 

 day with as much paint on as the most Indian of them all. 



The red ochre used for paint is called nami'ta. Other terms for 

 ' paint ' are : kdnd'su'mme, red paint ; kdmcl'ktsu'mrne, yellow paint. The 

 word gi'te,nu'stik, ' to paint,' is derived from nfis or nos, the radical of 

 kdnd'hos, ' red,' that being the colour. 



