p. 159

M69a Battle with the Ghost People "The young man from the very start ... had strange powers. Very often he would make motions of throwing something at walking people and these would stagger and sometimes fall, not knowing what had caused them to stumble or fall. ... Even birds were known to fall dead by the motions of his hands. ...

p. 160

One day, a beautiful niece of his father died ... . ... "I can restore my beautiful cousin to life again. When I was taken by the ghost people I got much power from the. They have taken her soul, but I can get that and restore her to life again". ... The young man went to where the woman lay and there he ... went into a trance. While he was there in a trance his aide the eagle came down and he sent the aide to the ghost people’s country. It searched until it found the young woman’s soul and then returned with it to the young Prince who was still in a trance. All the while his companions who were helping him were singing and using their clapper sticks on clapper boards. When the man’s aide came with the woman’s soul, the young man took it and went to where the woman’s body was, and then put the soul into the body of the dead woman. He began to dance and sang his power song ... and circled the body many times. Soon ...

p. 161

The ghost chief said, "I will pretend to be ill, ... and ... invite the young shaman to come ... . ..." All of this was known to the Prince’s supernatural aides ... . ... Not long after a canoe came ... .

p. 162

... The Prince ... went down to the waiting canoe. And soon they came near ... the house of the ghost chief ... . The Prince’s aides were already flying around unseen by anyone. The Prince went beside where the ghost chief lay and blew a cloud of mist upon him. ... The Prince then called his companions around where the ghost chief lay and at the same time they all stamped their feet around where the ghost chief lay. At once a great hole opened and the ghost chief disappeared into this hole. The ghost people ran up to help their chief but the continual stamping of the shaman, aides, and companions made the ground open up and swallow down the ghost people ... . [cf. p. 173 : "The staff bearers stamped on the ground mightily".] The young shaman now took the charms and aides which belonged to the ghost chief ... . ...

p. 163

Just as he was going to die, he called ... : "... you will come out and take me from the burial box ... when the salmon berries ripen ... ." ... Then the great shaman died and was buried ... . ... First there seemed to be a flight of fire from the box in which the remains had been placed. Then there was also a constant drumming noise coming from the box ... . ...

p. 164

Every day these companions guarded the box very closely and one day without warning a huge owl began to crawl from the box. ... They knew now that at last the ghost people had taken the young shaman."

{"it is ... a big owl, who kills a group of ... cannibals" ("ASN", p. 42a).}

"the bushy-haired sorcerer of Segukla ... intoned ..., "And the Rainbow shall lift me from the lake on the path of the White Star aloft ... ." (Barbeau 1928:19)"

"a shamanic belief in a supernatural lake where most practitioners go, through visions, to acquire powers."

"if a woman dreams of a dead shaman prior to giving birth, the child will become a shaman."

Gitksan shamaness : "During an illness, she had a vision in which a number of different shamans came, "... urging me to acquire my inherited power, which if I did not use, it would destroy me" ... .

Another said dead shaman ancestors had caused her illness because of her refusal to become one ... .

... I used to go into trances during which time various beings used to come to me and urge me to become a halait. I would be approached by ancestors who have been many generations dead and whom I had only heard of. ... They told me that I could become a very good healing shaman."

p. 183

"Culturally, certain spots are known as spahalait, where shamans can go to get shamanic powers."

p. 184

"in a second variant of M70, three men actively search for shamanic powers, though only one receives it from a supernatural source (Boas 1916:331-32). The pain of entering a supernatural place felt by the other two men kept them from gaining powers, but this pain was not incurred by the recipient-to-be."

In M74, "the Chief of the Skies sends a slave with a glass nose to split open the bodies of women who offend him by being too loud. One of the women is menstruating, and her vagina beaks off the slave’s glass nose. ... "she now knew she had shaman’s powers, and brought back to life her companions"."

p.

animal-deity

186

"In M75a Tsak, prior to a boy being given powers by a supernatural being, he is consumed y a grizzly, and then escapes".

187

"In M69b, upon his recovery a prince says, "I have had visions and I have been visited by

a frog

{Taliesin said, "I have fled with vigour, I have fled as a frog" (M, p. 475).}

and an owl; this was a large white owl and now I have the power to heal and to see events"".

188

A shaman "related to me what had happened to him. As he was walking along a trail he met.

a huge white bear and this bear immediately embraced him ... . Now he had met the supernatural being which was to control him.

{The Zun~i, Pawnee, and Cherokee likewise have a mythic white bear; besides the naturalistic Eskimo one.}

He felt that he was being engulfed in a huge river of foam and try as he might, he could not escape. It was then a white owl came ... and told me : "You shall become a halait ... .""

In M77, "A boy who constantly plays at being a shaman meets a strange man, a naxnox, who takes him to a village under a lake. Here he is formally instructed".

p. 191

"shamans’ names which come respectively from, "... the burthen of his song", and, "... one of his dream songs"."

p. 195

As songs-of-powers, "the actual words were not uttered, only meaningless syllables of the burthen. But their meaning was kept in thoughts, although they were not considered secret".

p. 198

"M78 talks about the deaths of ghosts; if the ghosts fall into the Boiling-Oil River, they become salmon. ...

p. 199

The Boiling-Oil River in M78, which is the cause of second-death, has a bridge joining the villages of ghosts and humans; the shaman crosses one to enter the ghosts’ domain, and almost dies by falling into the same river (Boas 1916:325-26)."

p. 208

"A shaman’s song ... provides a different interpretation of the bridge between the world of ghosts and humans. It is said to cross a river full of menstrual blood."

{[According to the Edda,] Rivers of blood were crossed by Hermo`d on his journey to the land of souls of the dead, in order to visit Baldr.}

In M23, humans learn from another species how to make the first salmon nets out of nettle fibres (Boas 1916:159)."

"M80 [Great Shaman] also presents an elderly shaman who had been invited to a baegwas village and becomes trapped there because a part of his body turns to stone."

{A young man is immobilized : "lo! the lower half of him appeared stone down to his feet while from his navel to the hair of his head he was man." ("FJ")}

on the head a crown of grizzly bear claw secured by a leather band, or a headdress of ... ermine skins and the hair well covered with eagle down."

One of the shamans, ... evidently the most noted of those present, ... went to the side of the sick; and kneeling beside her making strange noises, bent over her passing his arms and hands in a quivering movement over her, dropping his hand on her chest and then raising them. Then he put a neck girdle of cedar bark and bird skins over her head and under her chin. Then he rose and danced slowly with much movement of the body and hands around the fire and close to her, holding in his left hand a globular wooden rattle and a miniature canoe filled with eagle down and singing about a great lake that he saw with a canoe upon it and the girl’s spirit in the canoe".

p. 213

[2^nd verse] "It floats about among the whirlpools".

p. 214

In my vision, I was taken in my canoe to many places ... . My canoe kept floating about, on land or in the water."

This woman was called upon to see what was causing this severe sickness. So she went into a trance and she visualized a large canoe travelling into the skies and there two men were in the bow of this sky canoe each with a harpoon and spearing the people as they went by. She saw that there was only one way it could be stopped".

M79a "he went into a trance holding his quartz frog in his hand. When he was in a trance his white owl aide came to him informing him".

M79b "one of the supernatural aides of the young halait was a white land otter, and he called on this aide to know what ailed the chief. He went into a dream and soon the white otter came".

Also I had ... two person who came to me in my sleep and instructed me as to whether a person would recover, and the cause of sickness."

"the shamans were render insensible in order that their spirit might go forth and find the lost soul of the sick ... . ... One, a woman practitioner, said that her spirit had seen that of the sick in company with that of a dead brother. She had almost caught it, when both disappeared in a cleft in the rock, which immediately closed after them, which gave them no hope and the sick immediately died."

p. 216

"I conjured my mind ... as I wanted to know for certain the cause of the death in the family. After I had done this for a year these two small beings children like very white appeared from the sky to me. It was at night, and I addressed them and asked them what I wanted. And they told me."

p. 217

"a charm which, when put in contact with a patient, allows its spirit to enter and see what is wrong with the sock person’s spirit. If the charm later becomes "transparently bright" a cure con be achieved. If not, then death is inevitable."

The shaman "takes a small skin bag containing dry powdered mineral paint which he rubs on his face, and may then paint the face, breast, hands and feet of the patient. This is done to keep evil spirits away."

"Guedon (1984b:196) postulates the possibility of ... something twirled, which may be the root term of halait (halhal)."

{cf. /H.ALH.ALah/ ‘writhing’ (Strong’s 2479)}

A halait hath peculiar dreams (.e.g., p. 214).

{/H.ALo^m/ ‘dream’ (Strong’s 2472)}

p. 220

When used in diagnosis, "the canoes are always painted red, and used with eagle down."

p. 221

The shaman "cures the patient by drawing a canoe out of her and placing it in his own chest."

"an item of shamanic paraphernalia, which is generally called a soul-catcher, ... is central to the treatment of soul loss. ... the object is a bone tube open at both ends and decorated with the figure of a naxnox met in trances, and is thus a manifestation of the shaman’s spirit helper. When the soul is found, it is stored in this tube. The ends are plugged to prevent the soul’s escape and it is taken to the patient. The soul is then either placed on the patient’s head and blown or patted into it, or the tube is used to blow it into the patient’s mouth."

Seeking a lost soul, in "an "extreme" case ... the healers conclude the soul could be found in a shaman’s grave and that they should go there to remove it from the corpse."

"When shamans die, ... Unlike nonshamans, they are not cremated prior to burial.

The locations are dangerous".

{Shamans’ graveyards are likewise deemed dangerous in Buryatia.}

p. 225

"Prophecy can be a specialization, and its practitioners were called laxelth ... . ... . ... the seer used supernatural means ... to for[e]cast the weather and fish runs, though the seer could ... see other events, such as the arrival of strangers ... . ...

p. 226

Shamans of this type ... had a number of other powers ... through ... telepathy and telekinesis ... . Two shamans living in different villages tested each other ... . One would communicate his desires through a song which the other would hear while in a trance. He would then send it [via telekinesis] to his counterpart’s house where it would arrive through the smoke hole."