NELSON] CEREMONIAL WANDS 415 
head of a small hair seal, with a slender rod about 9 inches in length, 
projecting from the mouth and turning upward, hav- 
ing fastened along its length at regular intervals five 
flat wooden disks about an inch and a half in diame- 
ter, representing bubbles rising on the surface of the 
water. The seal’s face is painted white, with black 
dots on the muzzle for the whiskers, and the eyes and 
nostrils are outlined in black. The inside of the mouth 
is painted red and the top of head light blue. This 
maskoid is 44 inches in diameter, and has the posterior 
side excavated. 
Numnber 33025 is a woman’s finger mask, from Chalit- 
mut, south of the Yukon delta, Itis a rounded wooden 
ring, with a wooden disk in the center, held in position 
by four small, spoke-like attachments from the outer 
ring. This wooden disk has upon one surface two 
incised eyes and a down-curved, crescentic mouth. 
Upon the other surface it has a grotesque mouth twist- 
ed far to one side, with a small wooden peg to repre- 
sent an eye and a small, deep hole for the single nostril. 
A strip of reindeer skin, with long, upstanding hair, 
is fastened in a groove extending around the edge of 
the outer ring. This is used by women during cere- 
monial dances; its meaning is unknown. 
OTHER CEREMONIAL OBJECTS 
In addition to the masks various other articles 
of personal adornment are used during ceremonial 
dances. Among these may specially be noted the 
feathered wands used by women and the fillets worn 
about the head by both men and women. At Cape 
Nome, on the northern shore of Norton sound, I ob- 
tained several specimens of wands made from the 
quill-feathers of eagles, each of which consists of a 
single primary feather with a short wooden rod thrust 
into the truncated quill and held in place by a lashing 
of sinew. At the tip of the feather are lashed two or 
three downy plumes from the eagle. 
On the coast of Bering sea from Norton bay south to 
the Kuskokwim somewhat similar wands were in use. 
On the lower Yukon and thence southward these 
wands are made by lashing an eagle quill-feather 
along the length of a slender rod, having fastened at 
its upper end two or three bare quills several inches in 
length, with downy plumes attached to the ends, like 7° US Ewe }e- 
:  p ‘ F feather wand 
that shown in figure 142, from Razbinsky. About the — asedindances (a). 
