NELSON] HUMOR—TRADING—TREATMENT OF DISEASE 309 
amusement. During my hunting excursions, whenever I had several 
young men along they were continually telling stories, joking, singing, 
ete. When in camp and during all-night festivals in winter I fre- 
quently heard them laugh at one another for being sleepy. At one 
of the bladder feasts a young fellow who could scarcely keep his eyes 
open replied to the sallies made at his expense by saying that he saw 
three of everything he looked at and accused his comrade sitting next 
to him of being unable to find his mouth with the food before him. 
Among the furs offered us at Point Hope was the skin of an Arctic 
hare with the tail of a fox sewed upon it as a practical joke. After 
they had sold all of their valuable articles, they were persistent in 
offering worthless things, and would laugh heartily when these were 
rejected. The same men would return again and again, repeatedly 
offering something which had been refused, and seemed to be greatly 
amused each time., 
They are quick to express their ideas by signs when dealing with 
people who do not understand their language. At Point Hope the 
men kept holding up their hands together in a cup-shape position, 
locking the palms and wagging their heads from side to side in a droll 
way to indicate that they wished to get some whisky with which to 
become drunk. 
On the lower Yukon and southward there is a trading custom known 
as pd-tukh’-tik. When a person wishes to start one of these he takes 
some article into the kashim and gives it to the man with whom he 
wishes to trade, saying at the same time, “It is a pd-tukh’-tik.” The 
other is bound to receive it, and give in return some article of about 
equal value; the first man then brings something else, and so they 
alternate until, sometimes, two men will exchange nearly everything 
they originally possessed; the man who received the first present bemg 
bound to continue until the originator wishes to stop. 
The fur traders sometimes take advantage of this custom to force an 
Eskimo to trade his furs when they can get them in no other way. A 
fur trader told me of securing in this way from one man the skins of 
30 mink, 8 land otters, 4 seals, and 2 cups and saucers; finally the 
Eskimo wished to give his rifle, but at that the trader stopped the 
transaction. 
TREATMENT OF DISEASE 
In treating diseases the most common method is for the shamans to 
perform certain incantations. There are cases, however, in which more 
direct methods are pursued; blood letting is commonly practiced to 
relieve inflamed or aching portions of the body. For this purpose 
small lancets of stone or iron are used. In one instance I saw a man 
lanecing the scalp of his little girl’s head, the long, thin, iron point of 
the instrument being thrust twelve or fifteen times between the scalp 
and the skull. 
