NELSON] DOLL FESTIVAL BLADDER FEAST 379 



festival to the dead a little later in the season. Later, during the same 

 evening, I sat with a lighted caudle before me in the kashiin writing my 

 journal when a number of men came very quietly and seated them 

 selves in a semicircle about me with their backs in my direction so that 

 the light of the candle was shut off from the rest of the room. I 

 inquired the reason for this and was told they wished to sing but could 

 not while the room was lighted, so they had arranged themselves in 

 this manner to shut off my light from the other part of the room with 

 out disturbing me. I immediately blew out the light, leaving the room 

 in intense darkness, and the song began. I did not obtain the song, 

 but a chorus of the common syllables, uii -ai-ya-liai -ya-ya, occurred 

 between every few words as they were given out by some of the old 

 men. About twenty-five men were singing, their heavy bass voices 

 sounding very well. Each time they came to the end of the portion 

 recited, they closed with a curious kind of howl, and waited until the 

 next words were chanted by the prompters and then went on again. 

 They told me afterward that their reason for practicing this song in 

 utter darkness was that any shade which desired to be present to hear 

 the singing might do so without being driven away by the light. 



DOLL FESTIVAL 



For notes on the Doll festival ( Yu-gi-yMk or I -tt-M-tah ), observed at 

 Ikogmut, the reader is referred to the tale of the Yu-gi-yliik among the 

 legends, and in this connection attention is also called to the Doll festi 

 val, or Tuh-tuhn , among the Tiune near Anvik. The Eussiau priest at 

 Mission (Ikogmut) regards this festival as idolatrous, and has tried for 

 many years to prevent the people from observing it at that place and 

 in the neighboring villages. As a consequence, I found it difficult to 

 learn much about it from the Eskimo during my brief stay in that 

 vicinity. 



One old man at Ikogmut told me the legend of the Yu-gi-yhik , giving 

 an account of the origin of this festival as kept in their traditions, and 

 added that the day after the images were set up in the kashim the men 

 and the large boys of the place go out to bring firewood to the village, 

 which they leave at the doors of the women and girls with whom they 

 are paired during the festival. 



During the continuance of the festival the namesakes of dead men 

 are paired with namesakes of their deceased wives without regard to 

 age, and during this period the men or the boys bring their temporary 

 partners firewood, and the latter prepare food for them, thus symboliz 

 ing the former union of the dead. 



BLADDER FEASTS 



The bladder feast (Chau-t-ytik) occurs annually at St Michael, com 

 mencing between the 10th and the 20th of December, the exact date 

 depending on the phase of the moon. 



