392 THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT : ETH. ANN. 18 



noise. Any slight noise served to raise a few eider-duck notes, and 

 once when a dog strayed in every one in the kashiiu grunted vocifer 

 ously, at which the dog slunk out abashed. 



Xo work was permitted here during this day, and no one was per 

 mitted to leave tbe village until after all had taken a bath on the mid 

 night following. Should this rule be broken they believed that some 

 one would surely die before another feast. 



On a December afternoon in 1878 I arrived at Chifukhlugumut, a 

 village near the Yukon, south of Andreivsky, while the people were 

 celebrating the bladder feast. They were gathered in the kashim 

 singing to the beating of three drums, two of which were very large 

 and the other of ordinary size. The large drums were about two and 

 a half feet in diameter and covered with tanned reindeer skin. The 

 isougs were sung in very slow time and were descriptive of the wars 

 and exploits of their fathers in ancient times. 



The only decorations in the kashim consisted of a bundle of wild- 

 parsnip stalks fastened horizontally to the rear end of the room by 

 means of two wooden pegs, and layers of these stalks about six feet long 

 which were fastened to the wall like screens on the sides of the room. 



The drumming and songs were repeated three times during the fol 

 lowing afternoon. One of the old men told me that, as they lived far 

 from the seacoast. they had killed no seals nor walrus, so had no 

 bladders to put in the water, consequently they did not burn the stalks 

 of the wild parsnips but put tliein in the kashim to make offerings to 

 them. At the end of the feast the stalks are laid on the frozen surface 

 of a small river near bj r , where they remain until carried away by tbe 

 ice in spring. 



Here, as in other villages, no work of any kind was permitted during 

 the festival, and no wood must be cut with an iron ax, but when abso 

 lutely iiiectssary bone wedges may be used for splitting firewood. At 

 Knshunuk they used for this purpose a large pick, consisting of a 

 wooden handle with a walrus tusk for the point, the use of iron axes 

 being tabooed there as elsewhere in this region during the continuance 

 of this festival. All loud noises are also forbidden, even out of doors. 



At a little village on the Yukon near Andreivsky, on January 17, 

 ]S81, I found the people performing their final dance at the close of the 

 bladder feast. This date is a month later than is customary. 



The bladders used in this festival are supposed to contain the shades 

 or inuas of the slain animals. After an animal is killed the hunter 

 carefully removes and preserves the bladder until the time approaches 

 for the festival. When this time arrives songs are sung and the bladder 

 is inflated and hung in the kashim; the shade of the animal to which 

 the bladder belonged is supposed to remain with it and to exist in the 

 inflated bladder when it is hung in the kashim. 



The feast is given for the purpose of pleasing and amusing the shades 

 and thus propitiating them, after which the bladders are taken to a 



