418 
Even the souls of the dead inspired them with fear, for they held 
unusually vague and contradictory notions concerning the after- 
life, and frequently attributed misfortune to the malicious souls of 
kinsmen recently deceased.^ So gloomy, indeed, was their religion 
that it hindered more than it helped them in their hard struggle to 
exist. If the Eskimo had been morose or disj^irited we might be 
tempted to conjecture that it was tlie very hardness of this struggle 
that made their religion gloomy; on the contrary, they were the 
most cheerful and laughter-loving j:)eople in America. We dare not 
assert that environment has absolutely no influence on temperainent, 
and that temperament does not affect the religous beliefs, and yet 
the religion of the Eskimo and their temperament seem bewilderingly 
at variance. 
Ajiart from the performances of the shamans there were very 
few public ceremonies to interrupt the normal current of life. In 
parts of tlic eastern Arctic, there was a festival every autumn to 
ensure an abundant supply of game;- it was known in some districts 
as the “dai'kening of lamps.” The natives of northern Alaska per- 
formed cei'tain rituals on the eve of the whale-hunting season in 
the early s]:)ring; and farther south, where there was closer contact 
with Athapaskan tribes, the Eskimo feebly imitated at second hand 
the potlatches of the Pacific Coast Indians. In this part of Alaska, 
around the deltas of the Yukon and Kuskokwim, performers at the 
winter “potlatches” frequently wore wooden masks, which were not 
common in other parts of the Arctic. Everywhere the long winter 
gave rise to almost nightly song-fests and dances, for darkness 
drove the seal-hunters home between three and four o’clock in the 
afternoon and favourable conditions for sled travelling permitted 
frequent visits to neighbouring villages. 
Life, on the whole, was fairly orderly and peaceful in these 
Eskimo communities. Whether their dwellings were of logs, snow- 
blocks, or skins stretched round a framework of ])oles, each was 
almost identical with its neighbours, for no family could burden 
itself with more possessions tlian were strictly necessary. There 
were no distinctions of rich and ])oor. The successful hunter un- 
1 C/. RasmuFsen, Knurl,; " Inlr'llectual Culture nf the Iglulik Kskiiuos"; Report of the Fifth Thule 
Expedition, 1E>21-It)24, vol. vii, No. 1, p. .‘56 f (Copenhagen, 1929). 
“ C/. Roa.s, P. : “The Central Kskimo.” p. 604 ff : Sixth Ann. Kept., Bur. .\m. Etlm, (Washington, 
1888). “The Eskimos of Badin I.and anti Hudson Ba\'’’; .Anth. Papers, .Am. Mus. of Nat. Hist., vol. 
XX, p. 139 ff (1901). 
