224 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



had finished my story he had improvised a song about it; wherever he was at a 

 loss for any word he simply filled up the gap with the meaningless syllables ai 

 ye yanga. 



The most usual dance is the -pisik, and the natives always commence with 

 this. The dancer, whether a man or a woman (for the Copper Eskimos make no 

 difference in this respect), begins with a few beats of the drum as though testing 

 it, then holds it up in both hands and waves it up and down, or else taps the 

 middle of the membrane lightly on the under side. Then he starts his song, 

 balancing himself alternately on either foot. The audience join in when they 

 recognize the words, and as soon as the song is going with a good swing the inan 

 begins his dance proper, beating his drum, swaying his body and circling round 

 the ring to the accompaniment of the music. , Often he lowers his drum towards 

 the end of the refrain, raps it in the middle a few times and starts the next verse 

 lest his audience may have forgotten the sequence. The time of the music is 

 always very irregular. If the tune runs too high up the scale at any place the 

 men drop an octave for a few notes. The dancer will call on his audience to 

 sing louder if the chorus is not maintained with full vigour, and will himself 

 raise his voice to its highest pitch. Not infrequently though, if the song is a new 

 one, his audience' will tell him to change it and he has to begin over again. It 

 is very amusing sometimes to see the wife vigorously leading the singing when 

 her husband is dancing, so that he will be spurred on to put forth his best efforts. 

 A father will often do this for his favourite child, or he will shout words of en- 

 couragement and advice. Wild whoops of joy from the dancer always greet 

 support from the ring.' 



The Eskimos wear their finest clothes in the dance-house, clothes with 

 coloured bands and tasselled fringes. They are often hung with trophies, such 

 as the teeth or claws of a polar bear, or the knuckle-bones of the seal.^ The 

 white skin of the weasel, worn either on a parti-coloured dancing cap surmounted 

 by a loon's bill or on the back of the coat, is a particularly favourite ornament. 

 Relatives, especially wives, frequently borrow these ornaments when it comes 

 to their turn to dance. Ikpakhuak wore a beautifully striped cap at a dance 

 one evening; half an hour later his niece was wearing it; then soon afterwards 

 his nephew. Fashion ordains the wearing of gloves while dancing, and whenever 

 possible, even in the spring and summer, the feet should be shod with the winter 

 shoes of white seal-skin, especially the kind called tuatuatsiak, which are crimped 

 all round the bottom and have a black triangular insertion over the toes. Hence 

 one occasionally sees a curious medley of costumes in the spring; some of the 

 natives will be wearing their finest winter clothes, while others who have cached 

 their property on the sea-shore are forced to appear in their oldest garments, 

 with their feet tucked into long water-boots. 



When the Puivlik and Kanghiryuak natives met at Lake Tahiryuak in 

 the beginning of June, 1915, the occasion was celebrated by every variety of 

 dancing known to these Eskimos. A dance-house was erected in a deep snow- 

 drift at the foot of a bank. Only the walls were built of snow, the roof being 

 formed of deerskins and the cloth covering of my sled, as the heat of the sun at 

 this time of the year would have melted a dome of snow. On the first day only 

 one Kanghiryuak family had arrived, Kunana and his wife AUikammik, with their 

 httle baby and a young man named Imerak. Ikpakhuak was the most influential 

 man in our party, so it was only natural that his wife Higilak should lead off in 

 the dancing. Despite her portly figure she danced very well, and gave a good 

 exhibition of the ordinary pisik in which she beat the drum herself. She called 

 out her visitor AUikammik to run around her, first in one direction, then in the 



^A special memoir on Copper Eskimo music will be published later in this series, based on a large 

 collection of phonographic records now stored in the Victoria Memorial Museum of the Department of 

 Mines, at Ottawa. 



2A Prince Albert sound native wore at a dance a complete set of polar bear's claws suspended in pairs 

 around his coat like a belt. 



