THE WESTERN DENES. 163 



Furthermore, the girl's fingers, wrists and legs at the ankles and 

 immediately below the knees, were encircled with ornamental rings 

 and bracelets of sinew intended as a protection against the malign 

 influences she was supposed to be possessed with. To a belt girding 

 her waist were suspended two bone implements called respectively 

 Tsoenkuz (bone tube) and Tsiltscet (head scrateher). The former was 

 a hollowed swan bone to drink with, any other mode of drinking 

 being unlawful to her. The latter was fork-like and was called into 

 requisition whenever she wanted to scratch her head — immediate con- 

 tact of the fingers with the head being reputed injurious to her health. 

 "While thus secluded, she was called asta, that is " interred alive " in 

 Carrier, and she had to submit to a rigorous fast and abstinence. 

 Her only allowed food consisted of dried fish boiled in a small bark 

 vessel which nobody else must touch, and she had to abstain especially 

 from meat of any kind, as well as fresh fish. Nor was this all she 

 had to endure ; even her contact however remote with these two 

 articles of diet was so dreaded that she coidd not cross the public 

 paths or trails, or the tracks of animals. Whenever absolute necessity 

 constrained her to go beyond such spots, she had to be packed or 

 carried over them lest she should contaminate the game or meat 

 which had passed that way, or had been brought over these paths ; 

 and also for the sake of self-presei-vation against tabooed, and con- 

 sequently to her, deleterious food. In the same way she was never 

 allowed to wade in streams or lakes, for fear of causing death to the 

 fish. 



It was also a prescription of the ancient ritual code for females 

 during this primary condition to eat as little as possible, and to 

 remain lying down, especially in coui-se of each monthly flow, not 

 only as a natural consequence of the prolonged fast and resulting 

 weakness ; but chiefly as an exhibition of a becoming penitential 

 spirit which was believed to be rewarded by long life and continual 

 good health in after years. 



These mortifications or seclusion did not last less than three or four 

 years. Useless to say that during all that time marriage could not 

 be thought of, since the girl could not so much as be seen by men. 

 When mari-ied, the same sequestration was practised relatively to 

 husband and fellow villagers — without the particular head-dress and 



