along conventional lines; the favorite colors for the inua masks are red (Karékteoak),[11] black (Auktoak), green (Cúngokyoak), white (Katéktoak), and blue (Taúkrektoak), in the order named. These colors[12] may hold a sacred or symbolic significance. The inua masks are decorated with some regard to the natural colors of the human face, but in the masks of the túnghat the imagination of the artist runs riot. The same is true of the comic masks, which are rendered as grotesque and horrible as possible. A mask with distorted features, a pale green complexion, surrounded by a bristling mass of hair, amuses them greatly. The Eskimo also caricature their neighbors, the Dènè, in this same manner, representing them by masks with very large noses and sullen features.

THE DANCE FESTIVALS

The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo are held during that cold, stormy period of the winter when the work of the year is over and hunting is temporarily at an end. At this season the people gather in the kásgi to celebrate the local rites, and at certain intervals invite neighboring tribes to join in the great inter-tribal festivals. This season of mirth and song is termed “Tcauyávik” the drum dance season, from “Tcaúyak” meaning drum. It lasts from November to March, and is a continuous succession of feasts and dances, which makes glad the heart of the Eskimo and serves to lighten the natural depression caused by day after day of interminable wind and darkness. A brisk exchange of presents at the local festivals promotes good feeling, and an interchange of commodities between the tribes at the great feasts stimulates trade and results in each being supplied with the necessities of life. For instance, northern tribes visiting the south bring presents of reindeer skins or múkluk to eke out the scanty supply of the south, while the latter in return give their visitors loads of dried salmon which the northerners feed to their dogs.

The festivals also serve to keep alive the religious feeling of the people, as evidenced in the Dance to the Dead, which allows free play to the nobler sentiments of filial faith and paternal love. The recital of the deeds of ancient heroes preserves the best traditions of the race and inspires the younger generation. To my mind, there is nothing which civilization can supply which can take the place of the healthy exercise, social enjoyment, commercial advantages, and spiritual uplift of these dances. Where missionary sentiment is overwhelming they are gradually being abandoned; where there is a mistaken opinion in regard to their use, they have been given up altogether; but the tenacity with which the Eskimo clings to these ancient observances, even in places where they have been nominal christians for years, is an evidence of the vitality of these ancient rites and their adaptation to the native mind.

The festivals vary considerably according to locality, but their essential features are the same. Taken in order of celebration they are as follows

Local Festivals.

1. The Aiyáguk or Asking Festival.
2. The Tcaúiyuk or Bladder Feast.
3. The Ailī́gi or Annual Feast to the Dead.

Inter-tribal Festivals.

4. The Aíthukā́tukhtuk or Great Feast to the Dead.
5. The Aithúkaguk or Inviting-In Feast.

The Asking Festival, which begins the round of feasting and dancing, takes place during the November moon. It is a local ceremony in which gifts are exchanged between the men and women of the village, which result in offers of temporary marriage. It takes its name from the Aiyáguk or Asking Stick,[13] which is the wand of office of the messenger or go-between. The Annual Feast to the Dead is held during the December moon, and may be repeated again in spring after the Bladder Feast, if a large number of Eskimos have died in the interim. It consists of songs and dances accompanied by offerings of food and drink to the dead. It is a temporary arrangement for keeping the dead supplied with sustenance (they are thought to imbibe the spiritual essence of the offerings) until the great Feast to the Dead takes place.

This is held whenever the relatives of the deceased have accumulated sufficient food, skins and other goods to entertain the countryside and are able to properly honor the deceased. At the same time the namesakes of the dead are richly clothed from head to foot and showered with presents. As this prodigal generosity entails the savings of years on the part of the feast givers (náskut), the feast occurs only at irregular intervals of several years. It has been termed the Ten Year Feast by the traders (Kágruska), but so far as I have been able to inquire, it has no fixed date among the Eskimo. It is by far the most important event in the life of the Alaskan native. By it he discharges all debts of honor to the dead, past, present and future. He is not obliged to take part in another festival of the kind unless another near relative dies. He pays off 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 kásgi. 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 ūmiaks.

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 Aitekátah or Doll Festival of the Igomiut, which has also spread to the neighboring Dènè. 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 kásgi, 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