NELSON] MAGEMUT AND YUKON ESKIMO WARFARE 329 
sake was a famous bowman. On one occasion he was said to have 
pinned an enemy to a wall of a house with an arrow so that he could 
not release himself. 
If a fight lasted a long time, so that both parties became tired and 
hungry or sleepy, a fur coat would be waved on a stick by one side as 
a sign of truce, during which both parties would rest, eat, or sleep, and 
then renew the conflict. During the truce both sides stationed guards 
who watched against surprise. Sometimes, the old man said, a man 
would be shot so full of arrows that his body would bristle with them, 
and, falling, be held almost free from the ground by their number. 
At times volleys of arrows were fired in order to render it more diffi- 
cult for the enemy to escape being hit. When one of the warriors had 
shot away all his arrows and chanced to be surrounded by the enemy, 
he could sometimes escape death for a long time by dodging and leap- 
ing from side to side, but finally would be killed by some of them strik- 
ing him upon the head with a warclub having a sharp spur of bone or 
ivory on one side. The defeated party was always pursued and, if 
possible, exterminated. ' 
The Magemut are said to have been stronger in battle than the 
Yukon men, and a larger number of the latter were always killed in a 
conflict between these two people. Neither side had any recognized 
chief, but each fought as he pleased, with the exception that some of 
the older men had general supervision and control of the expedition. 
When a man on either side had relatives in the opposing party, and 
for this reason did not wish to take part in the battle, he would blacken 
his face with charcoal and remain a noncombatant, both sides respect- 
ing his neutrality. In this event, a man with his face blackened had 
the privilege of going without danger among the people of either side 
during a truce. 
The Magemut always carried off the women after a successful raid, 
but my Yukon informant told me this was not done by his people, which 
statement was probably made merely from a desire on his part to give 
his own people the advantage in my eyes. He admitted, however, the 
superior fighting qualities of his enemies, the Magemut. 
When possible night raids were made by the villagers on both sides, 
and the people were usually clubbed or speared to death. The con- 
quered village was always pillaged, and if a warrior saw any personal 
ornament on a slain enemy which pleased him, he seized it and wore it 
himself, even placing in his lips the labrets taken from the face of a 
dead foe. If one of the conquerors chanced to see a woman wearing 
handsome beads or other ornaments, he would brain her and strip 
them off. 
The old man told me that in battles between the people of lower 
Kuskoquim river and those of Bristol bay the victors made a practice 
of cutting off the heads of their slain enemies and placing them on the 
top of sharp stakes set in the ground, with arrows thrust crosswise 
through their noses. 
