NELSON] BLADDER FESTIVAL 383 



releasing this cord, the image could be made to glide up and down. 

 Behind this, at the back of the room, was planted a pole about ten feet 

 long, to the upper end of which a bundle of wild-parsnip stalks was 

 bound like a great brush or besom. The pole was banded along its 

 entire length with red and white paint, and fastened on two sides of it, 

 near the middle, were two pairs of reindeer-skin strips which hung down 

 two or three feet. On the left side of the room, hung horizontally mid 

 way between the floor and ceiling, was a large sheaf of seal and walrus 

 spears, their heads partly in one direction and partly in another. 

 Attached to these, a bunch being fastened to each spear, were sev 

 eral hundred seal and walrus bladders, all of which were spotted 

 and blotched with grayish- white paint; each spear had tied to it the 

 bladders belonging to its owner. Hanging about the room, singly or 

 in bunches, were a number of reindeer bladders, but none of these were 

 hung with those of the seal and the walrus. On the side of the room 

 opposite the spears and bladders, at an equal height from the floor, 

 hung a large bundle of wild-parsnip stalks. All about the room and 

 on the sides were arranged various spears used in hunting seals and 

 walrus. Under the wild-parsnip stalks and beneath the spears and 

 bladders was a pile of thirty or forty wooden hunting helmets of various 

 shapes, some of which were ornamented with carved ivory images, 

 while others were not thus ornamented; they were painted white or 

 brown, with white blotches, and on many of them were depicted female 

 phallic symbols. Back of the entrance hole in the floor stood a large 

 walrus skull. 



When I entered the room one of my dogs followed, and immediately 

 a man seized a drum and began beating it to exorcise the evil influence 

 of the dog s presence until it was hastily expelled. I looked about the 

 room and went over to the bladders and felt one to learn the nature of 

 the paint with which it Avas spotted; my movements seemed to startle 

 the men very much and all raised a loud outcry. I afterward heard 

 the same cry raised if any loud noise was accidentally made near these 

 objects. When our camping outfit was brought in from the sledges, 

 two men took drums, and as the clothing and goods of the traders who 

 were with me were brought in, the drums were beaten softly and a song 

 was sung in a low, humming tone, but when our guns and some steel 

 traps were brought in, with other articles of iron, the drums were beaten 

 loudly and the songs raised in proportion. This was done that the 

 shades of the animals present in the bladders might not be frightened. 



Early in the evening the boys of the village gathered outside the 

 kashim and raised a great outcry. An hour later the hunting helmets 

 were ranged around the kashim, forming a circle on the floor inclosing 

 the walrus skull and the stake. Very soon after this a bundle of straw, 

 such as is used for pads in boot soles, was thrown down from, the hole 

 in the roof; a man took this, and holding it at arm s length over his 

 head while he marched around the ring of helmets, deposited it on the 



