all old scores of
hospitality and lays his friends under future obligations by his
presents. He is often beggared by this prodigality, but he can be sure
of welcome and entertainment wherever he goes, for he is a man who has
discharged all his debts to society and is therefore deserving of
honor for the rest of his days.

In the Bladder Feast which takes place in January, the bladders of the
animals slain during the past season, in which the spirits of the
animals are supposed to reside, are returned to the sea, after
appropriate ceremonies in the kasgi. There they are thought to attract
others of their kind and bring an increase to the village. This is
essentially a coast festival. Among the tribes of the islands of
Bering Sea and the Siberian Coast this festival is repeated in March,
in conjunction with a whaling ceremony performed at the taking down
of the [=u]miaks.

The dance contests in the Inviting-In Feast resemble the nith songs
of Greenland. They are Comic and Totem Dances in which the best
performers of several tribes contest singly or in groups for
supremacy. The costumes worn are remarkably fine and the acting very
realistic. This is essentially a southern festival for it gives an
opportunity to the Eskimo living near the rivers to display their
ingenious talent for mimicry and for the arrangement of feathers.

There are a few purely local ceremonies, the outgrowth of practices of
local shamans. An example of this is the Aitekatah or Doll Festival of
the Igomiut, which has also spread to the neighboring Dene. Such local
outgrowths, however, do not appear to spread among the conservative
Eskimo, who resent the least infringement of the ancient practices
handed down from dim ancestors of the race.

It is not often that they will allow a white man to witness the
festival dances, but, owing to the friendliness of the chief of the
Diomede tribes, who always reserved a seat for me next to him in the
kasgi, I had the opportunity of seeing the local rites and the Great
Dance to the Dead. The same favor continuing with the chief of the
Unalit, during my residence on the Yukon, I witnessed the Inviting-In
Feast as celebrated by the southern tribes. Having described the
dances in general, I will proceed to a detailed account of each.

THE ASKING FESTIVAL

The Aiyaguk or Asking Festival is the first of the local feasts. It
occurs about the middle of November when the Eskimo have all returned
from their summer