INNUIT LIFE AND LAND. 



Another festival, in honor of the spirits of the sea (ugiak), is 

 celebrated by the coast tribes during a whole month. The prep- 

 arations for this gathering begin early in the autumn. Every 

 hunter preserves during an entire year the bladders from all such 

 animals as he kills with arrows ; the mothers also save with the 

 greatest care the bladders of all rats, mice, ground-squirrels, or 

 other small animals killed by their children. At the beginning of 

 December all these bladders are inflated, painted in various colors, 

 and suspended in the kashga ; and among them the men hang up 

 a number of fantastically carved figures of birds and fish. Some 

 of the figures of birds are quite ingeniously contrived, with mov- 

 able eyes, heads, and legs, and are able to flap their wings. Before 

 the fireplace there is a huge block wrapped up in dry grass. From 

 morning until night these carved figures are kept in motion by 

 means of strings, and during the whole time a chanting of songs 

 continues, while dry grass and weeds are burned to smoke the sus- 

 pended bladders. This fumigating process ends the day's per- 

 formances, which are begun anew in the morning. In the evening 

 of that culminating day of this festival those strings of bladders are 

 taken down and carried by men upon painted sticks prepared for 

 the occasion ; the women, with torches in their hands, accompany 

 them to the sea-shore. Arrived there, the bladders are tied to 

 sticks and weighted with stones, and finally thrown into the water, 

 where they are watched with the greatest interest to see how long 

 they float upon the surface. From the time of sinking and the 

 number of rings upon the water where a bladder has disappeared 

 the shamans prophesy success or misfortune in hunting during the 

 coming year. 



A final memorial feast in honor of a distinguished ancestor is 

 conducted as follows : 



Eight old men clad in parkas enter the kashga, or council-house, 

 each carrying a stone lamp, which they deposit around the fire- 

 hole. They next produce three small mats and spread them upon 

 the floor in three corners of the building, and from the spectators 

 three men are selected who are willing to go to the grave. The 

 three nearest relatives of the deceased then seat themselves on the 

 mats and divest themselves of all their clothing, wash their bodies, 

 and don new clothes, girding themselves with belts manufactured 

 several generations back and preserved as heirlooms in the family. 

 To each of these men a staff is given, and they advance together to 



