in the wall some six or eight feet above the floor. Here food and water are offered to them, or rather to the spirits of the animals which are supposed to be present in the bladders; and the spirits signify their acceptance of the offering by causing the bladders to swing to and fro, a movement which is really produced by a man sitting in a dark corner, who pulls a string attached to the bladders. Further, the bladders are fumigated with torches of wild parsnip stalks, the aromatic smoke and red flames of which are believed to be well-pleasing to the souls of the animals dangling in the bladders. Moreover to amuse the souls men execute curious dances before them to the music of drums. First the dancers move slowly with a jerky action from side to side; then they gallop obliquely with arms tossed up and down; and lastly they hop and jump, always keeping perfect time to the beat of the drums. The dance is supposed to imitate the movements of seals and walrus; and again the spirits signify their pleasure by making the bladders swing backwards and forwards. During the continuance of the festival no loud noises may be made in the assembly-room for fear of alarming the souls of the animals in the bladders; if any person makes a noise by accident, all the men present raise a chorus of cries in imitation of the notes of the eider duck to let the souls of the animals think that the unseemly disturbance proceeds from the birds and not from the people. Further, so long as the festival lasts, no wood may be cut with an iron axe in the village, the men must keep rigidly apart from the women, and no female above the age of puberty may come near the bladders suspended in the assembly-room, the reason assigned being that such women are unclean and might offend the sensitive souls of the sea-beasts in the bladders. But immature girls, being untainted by the pollution which attaches to adult women, may go about the bladders freely. The last and crowning scene of the festival takes place at night or just at sunrise. The spears with the bladders attached to them are passed out by the shaman into the open air through the smoke-hole in the roof. When all are outside, a huge torch of wild parsnip stalks is lighted; the chief shaman takes it on his shoulder, and runs with it as fast as he can across the snow and out on the ice. Behind him troop all the men carrying each his spear with the bladders of the sea-beasts dangling and flapping from it; and in the rear race the women, children, and old men, howling, screaming and making a great uproar. In the darkness the lurid flame of the torch shoots high into the air, casting a red glare over the snowy landscape and lighting up the swarm of fantastic, fur-clad figures that stream along in wild excitement. Arrived at a hole, which had been cut on purpose in the sea-ice, the shaman plants his burning torch beside it in the snow, and every man as he comes up rips open his bladders and thrusts