NELSON] CONCEPTION OF NATURAL PHENOMENA 431 
come back during the next berry season. When the season designated 
had passed, the people of the village said that one of the shamans came 
back, coming a little out of the ground, looking like a doll, but he was 
very small and weak and there was no one outside the houses at the 
time to feed and care for him, except some children, so that he was 
overlooked and went away again. 
Nearly all epidemic diseases are supposed to come {from the moon, 
but occasionally they descend from the sun. An eclipse of the moon 
is said to foretell an epidemic, and the shamans immediately proceed to 
learn the cause in order to appease the being living there and, by 
diverting his anger, save the people. Among the inhabitants along 
the lower Yukon it is believed that a subtle essence or unclean influ- 
ence descends to the earth during an eclipse, and if any of it is 
caught in utensils of any kind it will produce sickness. As a result, 
-immediately on the commencement of an eclipse, every woman turns 
bottom side up all her pots, wooden buckets, and dishes, 
After an eclipse at St Michael the Unalit said that the sun had 
died and come to life again. The length of duration of an eclipse is — 
said to indicate the severity of the visitation to follow. In the village 
of Paimut, on the lower Yukon, in December, 1880, I overheard people 
talking about a recent eclipse of the moon and all agreed that it fore- 
boded either an epidemic or war. Some thought that it meant a raid 
of the Tinné, living higher up the river, as revenge upon the Eskimo 
for having killed some moose the year before, the Eskimo evidently 
thinking that the moose belonged to the people in the region where they 
are usually found, and their having killed some of the animals would 
eall for reprisals by the Tinné. 
South of Cape Vancouver, at the village of Chichinagamut, we were 
overtaken by a severe storm and, in order to witness the rites, I paid 
a shaman to change the weather. After dark he knelt on a straw mat 
in the middle of the kashim and enveloped himself, with the exception 
of his face, in a large gut-skin shirt; then, resting his knees and elbows 
on the floor, he uttered a long speech at the top of his voice. When 
this was ended he concealed his face in the shirt and made a great 
variety of grunts, groans, and other noises. During this time two men 
stood on each side of him and over his back passed a double cord, 
extending lengthwise of his body, with a stick fastened to each end, 
which was held fast to the floor on each side of him. When the sha- 
man finished making the noises mentioned a third man made a panto- 
mime with his hands as if lifting some invisible substance from the 
shaman’s back. This motion was repeated a number of times and then 
the two men raised the sticks to which the cords were tied and circled 
several times around the shaman, constantly turning their sticks end 
over end, and finally stopping in their former positions. The shaman 
then caused his voice to die away in the distance, after which he arose 
and said that we would have a change of weather in two days. 
