NELSON] TALISMANS AND AMULETS 



Sometimes the influence of the amulet or fetich is supposed to bring 

 the game to the hunter. 



Among the people of Kaviak peninsula and Kotzebue sound a body 

 of the common weasel, which is said to be one of the totem animals of 

 the Eskimo, is very highly prized as a fetich. The body is dried entire 

 and is worn on the belt or carried in a pouch by boys and young men; 

 for this purpose they are valued at the price of a marten skin. The 

 possession of these weasel mummies is supposed to endow their owners 

 with agility and prowess as hunters. In all cases it follows that the 

 owner of a mummy of any animal or of a child carries with it po\wr 

 over its shade, which becomes the servant of the possessor. 



The hunter is believed to be able to propitiate and control to a certain 

 extent the shades of sea animals which he kills by keeping them with 

 their bladders and, after the ceremonies and offerings described in the 

 Bladder feast, dismissing them back to the sea to reenter other animals 

 of their kind and so return that he may be able to kill them again. In 

 this way the hunter is believed to be able to procure more game than 

 would be possible were he to allow the shades of the animals killed to 

 go to the land of the dead or to wander freely. 



The same belief extends to inanimate objects. When a hunter sells 

 fnrs it is a common custom for him to cut a small fragment from each 

 skin, usually from the end of the nose, and place it carefully in a pouch. 

 If he sells a seal entire he must cut off the tip of its tongue and swallow 

 it, and sometimes I saw natives swallow fragments from skins they were 

 selling to the traders. Fragments are even cut from garments that 

 they sell, a minute portion being retained in an amulet pouch. In 

 retaining these pieces it is believed that the possessor keeps the essen 

 tial essence or spirit of the entire article, and is thus certain to become 

 possessed, through its agency, of another of the same kind. Should he 

 neglect to do this in any of the foregoing cases the objects disposed of 

 would be gone forever, and although he might get articles of the same 

 kind, he would obtain fewer than if he had kept the fragment. 



In the same manner offerings of small particles of food and a little 

 water from the large quantities distributed at feasts are supposed to 

 convey to the shades the essence or essential parts of the entire amount. 

 In two of the tales it is related that small pieces were taken from skins 

 and afterward these again became full-size skins, to the benelit of their 

 possessor, thus indicating the meaning of this custom. 



In the Bladder festivals seen south of the lower &quot;Yukon, whenever 

 food and water were brought into the-kashim a little of each was cast 

 to the floor and up against the roof as offerings to the shades of the 

 upper and lower worlds. 



All places, things, and the elements are supposed each fo have a yu-a 

 or mystery which is human or semihuman in form, but with grotesque 

 features which are invisible except to shamans and others especially 

 gifted. Hunters at sea and elsewhere in lonely places, when about to 



