191 4] Northwestern D]feN:fes and Northeastern Asiatics 173 



Speaking of funerals we are reminded of those monuments which 

 are often raised to perpetuate the memory of the departed ones. Ail 

 of my readers are, no doubt, aware of the existence of the earth mounds 

 which cut such a figure in the archaeology of the f reat American 

 plains. But the same obtain in Siberia, as can be ascertained by a refer- 

 ence to pp. 86, 151 and 191 of Atkinson's "Travels". 



From funerals to popular amusements there seems to be a long cry. 

 Not so, however, with aboriginal races, which very often blend them 

 together. The amusements of the Kamtchadales seem to be a duplicate 

 of those in vogue among the primitive Americans. Grieve and Jefferys 

 write in this connection: 



"Toutes leurs rejouissances consistent dans la danse, dans le chant 

 et dans divers autres amusemens. Deux femmes qui veulent danser 

 mettent i terre une natte au milieu de la cabane, prennent un peu de 

 filasse dans chaque main, se mettent a genoux sur la natte vis-d-vis 

 I'une de I'autre. Au commencement elles chantent fort doucement, en 

 faisant un peu mouvoir leurs epaules et leurs mains. Puis elles aug- 

 mentent peu a peu la vivacite des mouvements de tout le corps et 

 61^vent leurs voix jusqu'a ce qu'elles tombent enfin hors d'haleine. . . 



"Un autre passetemps des femmes de Kamtschatka c'est de contre- 

 faire les gestes et les paroles des autres, par moquerie. . . 



"Toutes ces rejouissances se font ordinairement la nuit. lis ont 

 meme des bouffons de metier; mais leurs fanfaronnades sont insupport- 

 ables, indecentes et destituees de pudeur".^ 



Each and every one of these points apply to the Western D6nes. 



XI. 



But I wander from the spirits of the Asiatic and American shaman- 

 ists. These manifest themselves to individuals chiefly by means of 

 dreams. Hence the great importance those aborigines attach thereto, 

 "lis sont grands observateurs des songes", we read of the Kamtcha- 

 dales.2 "They also attached to dreams the same importance as did most 

 peoples of antiquity", I wrote myself of the Western Den^s. "It was 

 while dreaming that they pretended to communicate with the super- 

 natural world, that their shamans were invested with their wonderful 

 power over nature, and that every individual was assigned his particular 

 nagwal, or tutelary animal-genius".^ 



1 Op. cit., pp. 74-75. 



^ Grieve and Jefferys, op. cit., p. 72. 



^ "The Western Denes, p. 161 {uhi suprd). 



