NELSON] TOYS—SONGS 317 
hide harness on the neck and back, similar to that used fur 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 AND 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 ocea- 
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 asarefrain. 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 
