Otherwise the questions turn upon whether the patient (if a woman) has worked upon forbidden sorts of skins, i.e., heavy and arduous work likely to upset her (if she is enceinte), at certain seasons; whether the meat of land and sea creatures has been eaten at the same meal; whether shell fish were gathered when seal should have been hunted; whether lamps were cleaned during a time of taboo, etc., etc. The underlying idea of half these prohibitions is lost in the obscurity of time immemorial, and the Eskimo to-day can account for them no better than by saying, “As our fathers did, so do we.” The invalid thoroughly believes in the authority and omniscience of the conjuror. He racks his brains for the remembrance of some breach of the unwritten social law, and generally succeeds in the effort, and so complies with what is required of him. Should he be so grievously ill, however, that the conjuror can elicit no sort of response, should the sickness be obviously leading to death, the failure of all these proceedings is taken as proof positive that a crime has been committed beyond the power of the witch doctor’s machinations to palliate, because beyond the power of the spirits to forgive. In any less serious case the practitioner has a peculiar method whereby to determine the probable duration of the sickness, and also its gravity. He has among his assistants minor conjurors called the head or leg lifter, as the case may be; and an incantor whose business it now becomes to squat upon the floor with covered head and improvise a chant for the occasion. He is called the Kunneyo. As soon as this wail begins the others assistants bind a piece of wood upon the sick man’s head with a length of thong, and lift it tentatively as if in the act of weighing it, asking the spirit meanwhile wherein the patient has offended. If the head is inert and heavy feeling, he is judged to be guilty; if it feels light, he is innocent. Sometimes the wood is bound upon the leg, and this is lifted instead of the head. When this examination is over and the patient has promised to comply with any orders given him, the conjuror commands, “Let the bindings be cast off.” This is done, and he pursues, “Let the cause of guilt be cast away, and let him recover.”