4O UNIVERSITY MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGICAL PUBLICATION VOL. VI 



THE INVITING-IN FESTIVAL 



The Inviting- In Festival (Aithukaguk) is a great inter- 

 tribal feast, second in importance to the Great Feast to the Dead. 

 It is a celebration on invitation from one tribe to her neighbors 

 when sufficient provisions have been collected. It takes place 

 late in the season, after the other festivals are over. Neighbor- 

 ing tribes act as hosts in rotation, each striving to outdo the 

 other in the quality and quantity of entertainment offered. 

 During this festival the dramatic pantomime dances for which 

 the Alaskan Eskimo are justly famous, are performed by 

 especially trained actors. For several days the dances continue, 

 each side paying the forfeit as they lose in the dancing 

 contests. In this respect the representations are somewhat 

 similar to the nith contests of the Greenlanders. As I have 

 noticed the dances at length elsewhere, 1 I shall only give a brief 

 survey here, sufficient to show their place in the Eskimo festival 

 dances. 



The main dances of the Inviting-In Festival are totemic 

 in character, performed by trained actors to appease the totems 

 of the hunters, and insure success for the coming season. These 

 are danced in pantomime and depict the life of arctic animals, 

 the walrus, raven, bear, ptarmigan, and others. Then there are 

 group dances which illustrate hunting scenes, like the Reindeer 

 and Wolf Pack dance already described, also dances of a purely 

 comic character, designed for the entertainment of the guests. 

 During the latter performances the side which laughs has to pay 

 a forfeit. 



1 Canadian Geological Survey. Memoir 45. The "Inviting-In" Feast of the Alaskan 

 Eskimo. 



