434 THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT [ETH.AXX. 18 



tbc kind of wood used for the fire, or some other necessary observance 

 had been neglected. This was known from the fact that after he had 

 been burned his body reappeared unharmed except for a small burn on 

 one shoulder, but he failed to become alive. The body was placed over 

 the pyre and a cone of upright drift logs raised over it to mark the spot. 

 My informant added that when people passed, this spot they always 

 made small offerings of food and other things to propitiate the shade 

 of the shaman. 



The following description of burning a shaman is from a village 

 south of the Yukon mouth, and was obtained from a fur trader who 

 knew the circumstances: The shaman gathered all the villagers into 

 the kashim and, after putting on his fur coat, told them that he wished 

 to be burned and return to them in order that he might be of greater 

 service to the village. He directed that a crib of drift logs should be 

 built waist high, in the form of a square, with an open space in the 

 center, where he could stand. He chose two assistants, whom he paid 

 liberally to attend to the fire and aid him in other ways. His hands 

 and feet were bound and a large mask, covering his face and body to 

 the waist, was put on him. Then the people carried him out and set 

 him inside the crib, after which everyone except the assistants returned 

 to the kashim and the assistants set fire to the pyre in front. Smoke 

 and flames rose from the logs so that the inside of the crib was ren 

 dered slightly indistinct 5 the assistants called out the people, who, 

 when they saw the mask as they had left it, facing them through the 

 smoke, were satisfied. After they had seen it they were ordered to 

 remain within doors until the next morning upon pain of calling down 

 upon them the anger of the tunyliiit. 



Immediately after the people went inside the assistants unbound the 

 shaman and substituted a log of wood behind the mask, while the 

 shaman concealed himself near by until the next morning. Mean 

 while, the mask and the crib burned to the ground. At daybreak 

 the shaman returned and, taking a couple of firebrands from the smol 

 dering pyre, mounted very quietly on the roof of the kashim and 

 sat by the smoke hole. The gut- skin cover to this outlet was raised 

 and bulging, as usual, from the heat within; over this translucent cover 

 the shaman waved his spark scattering firebrand, at the same time 

 moving his feet about on its surface. The people inside could distin 

 guish the fire and the faint outlines of the feet and said, &quot;He is walk 

 ing in the air over the window.&quot; When he was satisfied that he had 

 created sufficient sensation, he descended, entered the kashim, and was 

 ever afterward considered to be a great shaman. I was told that this 

 ordeal of fire was supposed to endow the person enduring it with the 

 power to cast oft or assume the bodily form at will and to greatly 

 increase his power in other ways. 



In addition to other supernatural aids that are invoked, amulets and 

 fetiches of wood, stone, bone, or in fact almost anything else will serve. 



