440 



THK POINT HARROW ESKIMO. 



grua. The natives have a great dread, apparently superstitious, of 

 these bees and the large gadflies (CEstens tarandi), one of which I 

 have seen scatter halt a do/en people. A man one day caught one of 



these, and whittled out a little 

 box of wood, in which he shut 

 the insect up and tied it up 

 with a shred of sinew, telling 

 ( apt. Heremleen that it was 

 &quot;turifiamun,&quot; for &quot;tuniia.&quot; 



A small lump of indurated 

 gravel (No. 50725) [273] was 



J io. 428. liox f dried bees amulet. 



one day brought over from 

 &quot;medicine&quot; for driving away 



Utkiavwiii, with the story that it was a 

 the ice. The man who uses this charm stands on the high bank at the 

 village, and breaking off grains of the gravel throws them seaward. 

 This will cause the ice to move off from the shore. 



The essential identity of the amulets of the Point Barrow natives 

 with those used by the Eskimo elsewhere is shown by the following- 

 passages from other writers. Egede says: 1 



A Superstition very common among them is to load themselves with Amulets or 

 Pomanders, dangling about their Keeks and Arms, which consist in some Pieces of 

 old Wood, Stones or Hones, Hills and Claws of Hints, or Anything else which their 

 Fancy suggests to them. 



Crantz says: 2 



They are so different in the amulets or charms they hang on people, that one laughs 

 at another s. These powerful preventives consist in tt bit of old wood hung around 

 their necks, or a stone, or a lione, or a beak or claw of a bird, or else a leather strap 

 tied round their forehead, breast, or arm. 



Parry speaks 3 of what he supposes were amulets at Iglulik, consist 

 ing of teeth of the fox, wolf, and musk-ox, bones of the &quot;kablgfiarioo&quot; 

 (supposed to be the wolverine), and foxes noses. Kumlien says 4 that 

 at Cumberland Gulf, &quot; among the many Superstitious notions, the wear 

 ing of charms about the person is one of the most curious. These are 

 called angoouk or amiitsit, and may be nothing but pieces of bone or 

 wood, birds bills or claws, or an animal s teeth or skin.&quot; A little 

 girl &quot;had a small envelope of sealskin that was worn on the back of her 

 inside jacket&quot; containing two small stones. 



Such little pockets of skin sewed to the inner jacket are very com 

 mon at Point Barrow, but we did not succeed in any case in learning 

 their contents. At Kotzebue Sound, Beechey saw ravens skins on 

 which the natives set a high value, while the beaks and claws of these 

 birds were attached to their belts and headbands. 5 Petitot describes 6 

 the amulets used in the Mackenzie district, in the passage already quoted, 

 as &quot;deTroques empaillees de corbeau, de fancon ou d hermine.&quot; It is 



Greenland, p. 194. 



a History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 216. 



&quot;Second voyage, p. 497. 



4 Contributions, p. 45. 

 Voyage, p. 333. 

 &quot;Monograpliie, etc., p. xv. 



