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 kasgi 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 "Tcauyavik" the drum dance
season, from "Tcauyak" 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 mukluk 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 Aiyaguk or Asking Festival.
2. The Tcauiyuk or Bladder Feast.
3. The Ail['=i]gi or Annual Feast to the Dead.
Inter-tribal Festivals.
4. The Aithuk['=a]tukhtuk or Great Feast to the Dead.
5. The Aithukaguk 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
Aiyaguk 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.
[13] The Asking Stick is also used in the Inviting-In Feast
(Aithukaguk).
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 (naskut), the feast
occurs only at irregular intervals of several years. It has been
termed the Ten Year Feast by the traders (Kagruska), 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 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.