meat had been cooked, were thrown upon the fire, and in conclusion, six women were called in and instructed to go out and give six times the prayer cry, “_Ho-o-o!_” Perhaps the following ceremony noted by Zeisberger[57] may have been of this kind: “A fourth kind of feast is held in honor of a certain voracious spirit, who, according to their opinions, is never satisfied. The guests are, therefore, obliged to eat all the bear’s flesh and drink the melted fat. Though indigestion and vomiting may result they must continue and not leave anything.” OTTER CEREMONY Similar to the Bear ceremony in many ways, both in traditional origin and in rites, was the observance called _A‛ʹtcigamuʹLtiⁿ_, said to mean “compulsory hog-eating,” held to propitiate the Otter spirit, a cult whose paraphernalia the writer was fortunate enough to collect for the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. MYTH OF ORIGIN Many years ago, so runs the story, a little girl about ten years of age was given a young otter for a pet, and this she kept and cared for until it was well grown. About this time she began to feel that she should keep him no longer, for she had come to realize that he was _piʹlsŭⁿ_, meaning “pure” or “sacred,” and, like all wild things, belonged to the Powers Above. The old people told her what she must do, so she took her otter down to the creek, and, first tying a little bag of tobacco on his neck, said to him: “Now I shall set you free. I have raised you and cared for you until now you are full grown. Go, then, and follow the ways of your kind.” The otter disappeared into the waters, and the little girl returned to her home, feeling that she had done well. But before a year had passed, a sickness came upon her, which the Indian doctors told her was caused by her pet otter, which wanted something to eat. The only way for the child to get well, they said, was for her to have a hog killed and cooked, and then to invite a number of men to eat it all, in the name of the otter. This was done, and when the men finished eating the hog and the soup, they said that the girl would recover, and so she did. For this ceremony they took an otter-skin (fig. 16, _a_) to represent the girl’s pet, which was used every two years, and when the owner died was passed to the oldest survivor of the family which owned it, and kept in the belief that it would benefit the health of all of them. It was the only one of its kind in the tribe, and is called “_Kunuⁿʹxäs_.” [Illustration: FIG. 16.—_a_, Regalia of otter-skin used in the Otter Rite; _b_, Regalia as worn. (Length of _a_, 56.5 in.)] THE CEREMONY