There appears to be no restriction against the women taking part in
the men's dances. They also act as assistants to the chief actors in
the Totem Dances, three particularly expert and richly dressed women
dancers ranging themselves behind the mask dancer as a pleasing
background of streaming furs and glistening feathers. The only time
they are forbidden to enter the kasgi is when the shaman is performing
certain secret rites. They also have secret meetings of their own when
all men are banished.[3] I happened to stumble on to one of these one
time when they were performing certain rites over a pregnant woman,
but being a white man, and therefore unaccountable, I was greeted with
a good-natured laugh and sent about my business.
[3] This custom appears to be widespread. Low writes of the Hudson Bay
Eskimo: "During the absence of the men on hunting expeditions, the
women sometimes amuse themselves by a sort of female "angekoking."
This amusement is accompanied by a number of very obscene rites...."
Low, The Cruise of the Neptune, p. 177.
On the other hand, men are never allowed to take part in the strictly
women's dances, although nothing pleases an Eskimo crowd more than an
exaggerated imitation by one of their clowns of the movements of the
women's dance. The women's dances are practiced during the early
winter and given at the Aiyaguk, or Asking Festival, when the men are
invited to attend as spectators. They result in offers of temporary
marriage to the unmarried women, which is obviously the reason for
this rite. Such dances, confined to the women, have not been observed
in Alaska outside the islands of Bering Sea, and I have reason to
believe are peculiar to this district, which, on account of its
isolation, retains the old forms which have died out or been modified
on the mainland. But throughout Alaska the women are allowed the
utmost freedom in participating in the festivals, either as naskuks[4]
or feast givers, as participants or as spectators.
[4] Literally "Heads" or directors of the feasts.
In fact, the social position of the Eskimo woman has been
misrepresented and misunderstood. At first sight she appears to be the
slave of her husband, but a better acquaintance will reveal the fact
that she is the manager of the household and the children, the
business partner in all his trades, and often the "oomialik," or
captain of the concern as well. Her husband is forbidden by tribal
custom to maltreat her, and if she owns the house, she can order him
out at any time. I have never known a woman being head of a tribe, but
sometimes a woman is the most influential member of a tribe.