NELSON] ■ TOYS — SONGS 347 



hide harness on the neck and back, similar to that used for dogs. The 

 body is fashioned from a single piece, but the legs are made separately 

 and are attached to the body by a peg inserted in a hole and fastened 

 by other pegs. 



A toy sled from St Lawrence island (figure 132) is carved from a 

 single piece of ivory and has two small ivory figures of dogs attached 

 to it with sinew cord. 



Figure 133, from the same locality, represents a toy figure of a white 

 bear carved from a single piece of ivory. 



Figure 134 illustrates an ivory model of a kaiak, from St Lawrence 

 island, and is a representation of the boats in use at that place. Look- 

 ing up from the manhole is a human head carved in relief, and just 

 back of the manhole is represented an inflated sealskin float. 



The specimen from Norton bay, shown in figure 135, is an ivory 

 figure of a white bear with a man lying along its back. This toy is 

 intended as an illustration of an occurrence in one of the folktales. 



MUSIC AI^D DANCES 



The Eskimo of Bering sea and the lower Yukon are very fond of 

 singing. Songs have a prominent place in their religious observances 

 and festivals, as well as in their sports and dances. They also serve to 

 while away the time when traveling at sea and sometimes on shore. 

 Men are usually the singers, and will often keep up a monotonous 

 chant for hours when traveling a long distance by water, and I often 

 heard my men singing at night during sledge journeys when they were 

 unable to sleep from the severe cold or for other cause. On one occa- 

 sion I asked one of the men who was singing at night why he did so, 

 and he replied that it made him feel warmer. Frequently songs of this 

 kind, and some of those used while dancing, are a mere series of 

 meaningless syllables, such as at other times serve as a refrain. Songs 

 are composed for various other purposes, sometimes to preserve a rec- 

 ollection of past occurrences, to glorify some event, or for ridiculing 

 one another; these latter are similar to the nith songs of Greenland, and 

 are said to have been commonly used before white men came to Alaska. 

 During my residence at St Michael I heard of instances of their hav- 

 ing been sung by the Eskimo in some of the villages on the tundra, 

 between the mouths of Kuskokwim and Yukon rivers, before the assem- 

 bled people in the kashim. The only result was the satisfaction gained 

 by the victor's consciousness that he had enlisted the sympathy of his 

 fellow-townsmen and the chagrin of the one who felt himself worsted. 



Songs are employed by shamans in their incantations and during 

 religious festivals. Special songs are sung to the shades of the dead 

 or to the inuas of various kinds to which the people are addressing their 

 petitions, either for the purpose of propitiating the superior powers to 

 prevent evil or to secure successful hunting. The songs in memory 



