386 THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT [BTH. ANN. 18 
wild-parsnip stalks was lighted and waved flaming, toward the cardinal 
points, after which the charred stumps were laid at the foot of the 
stake. About noon two men took the small bundles of parsnip stalks 
and lighted them, waving the flame about the bladders, and after 
carrying them around the room went out through the passageway 
to the outer door. The charred staiks were then brought back and 
laid on the floor under the large bundle of stalks on the stake. Noth- 
ing more was done until just after noon, when a bag made of sealskin 
was brought in. The men then took their urine buckets and went out- 
side, carrying the bag, and each poured urine from his bucket upon it, 
shouting loudly some unintelligible words, after which all came back 
into the room and stripped themselves to the waist. 
Soon afterward the cover was removed from the smoke hole in the 
roof, and the sealskin bag, having attached to it the four helmets worn 
by the men who had entered with the paddles on the previous evening, 
was lowered through the hole by a rawhide line and was hung on the 
stake at the head of the room; then the owners went to the helmets 
and removed the grass that was fastened to them, and each tied a few 
blades to his bunch of bladders. The helmets were then taken down 
and placed on the floor at the foot of the stake. 
Up to this time the seal bag had been empty, but it was now taken 
down and inflated and hung up by the nose on the middle of the sheaf 
of spears to which the bladders were fastened; to each hind-flipper 
was tied a primary wing-feather of the Pacific glaucous gull. There 
was then an interval without ceremonies lasting until evening. 
Early in the evening everyone gathered in the kashim and the wal- 
rus skull and the grass mats were placed in the same position as on the 
previous evening. Suddenly a burning stalk of wild parsnip was 
waved in the entrance hole from below, a man’s head appeared, and a 
dish of food was placed on the floor and slid across to the corner of the 
room between the bladders and the stake; the man entered and went 
over to the bladders, where he stopped. Another manthen went through 
the same performance, waving the burning stalk and siiding in a dish 
of food, etc, succeeded by two others, until the four men were ranged 
side by side in front of the bladders. They were the same who had 
come in with the paddles during a former ceremony. 
The first lighted a bunch of parsnip stalks, to which was tied all the 
points taken from the fallen spears on the preceding night. Waving 
this about a few times in the corner where his wooden dish had been 
slid, he raised it over his head and turned once slowly around. After 
this the blazing mass was waved over the four wooden dishes which 
had been slid into the corner, over the two empty buckets which had 
contained the water symbolizing the sea during the last night’s cere- 
monies, and about the bladders and the charred stumps were then laid 
at the foot of the stake. 
He went next to the four wooden dishes and made motions as though 
