THE DANCE FESTIVALS OF THE ALASKAN 



ESKIMO 



THE DANCE IN GENERAL 



The ceremonial dance of the Alaskan Eskimo is a rhythmic 

 pantomime the story in gesture and song of the lives of the 

 various Arctic animals on which they subsist and from whom they 

 believe their ancient clans are sprung. The dances vary in 

 complexity from the ordinary social dance, in which all share 

 promiscuously and in which individual action is subordinated 

 to rhythm, to the pantomime totem dances performed by 

 especially trained actors who hold their positions from year to 

 year according to artistic merit. 1 Yet even in the totem dances 

 the pantomime is subordinate to the rhythm, or rather super- 

 imposed upon it, so that never a gesture or step of the character- 

 istic native time is lost. 



This is a primitive 2-4 beat based on the double roll of the 

 chorus of drums. Time is kept, in the men's dances, by stamping 

 the foot and jerking the arm in unison, twice on the right, then 

 twice on the left side, and so on, alternately. Vigorous dancers 

 vary the program by leaping and jumping at intervals, and the 

 shamans are noted for the dizzy circles which they run 

 round the pugyarok, the entrance hole of the dance hall. The 



1 This characterization applies to the Alaskan Eskimo only; so far as is now known the other 

 Eskimo branches do not have totemic dances. 



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