_General ideas._--It was exceedingly difficult to get any idea of the
religious belief of the people, partly from our inability to make
ourselves understood in regard to abstract ideas and partly from
ignorance on our part of the proper method of conducting such
inquiries. For instance, in trying to get at their ideas of a future
life, we could only ask “Where does a man go when he dies?” to which
we, of course, received the obvious answer, “To the cemetery!”
Moreover, such a multitude of other and easier lines of investigation
presented themselves for our attention that we were naturally inclined
to neglect the difficult field of religion, and besides under the
circumstances of our intercourse it was almost impossible to get the
attention of the natives when their minds were not full of other
subjects.
Nevertheless, many of the fragments of superstition and tradition that
we were able to collect agree remarkably with what has been observed
among the Eskimo elsewhere, so that it is highly probable that their
religion is of the same general character as that of the Greenlanders,
namely, a belief in a multitude of supernatural beings, who are to be
exorcised or propitiated by various observances, especially by the
performances of certain specially gifted people, who are something of
the nature of wizards. So much has been written by many authors about
these wizards or “doctors,” the angekut of the eastern Eskimo, the
so-called “shamans” of Alaska and Siberia, that I need make no special
reference to their writings except where they happen to throw light on
our own observations. Dr. Simpson succeeded in obtaining more
information concerning the religious belief of these people than our
party was able to do, and his observations,[N610] to which ours are in
some degree supplementary, tend to corroborate the conclusion at which
I have arrived.
[Footnote N610: Op. cit., p. 273 et seq.]
Our information in regard to the special class of wizards was rather
vague. We learned that many men in the village, distinguishable from
the rest by no visible characteristics, were able to heal the sick,
procure good weather, favorable winds, plenty of game, and do other
things by “talking” and beating the drum. We did not learn the number
of these men in either village, but we heard of very many different
men doing one or the other of these things, while others of our
acquaintance never attempted them. Neither did we learn that any one
of these men was considered superior to the rest, as appears to be the
case in some regions, nor how a man could attain this power. Some of
these men, who appeared to give particular attention to curing the
sick, called themselves “tû´ktĕ” (“doctor”), but, probably for want of
properly directed inquiries, we did not learn the Eskimo name of these
people. We were definitely informed, however, that their “talk,” when
treating disease or trying to obtain fair weather, etc., was addressed
to “tu´ɐña,” or a supernatural being. This name, of course, differs
only in dialectic form from that applied in other places to the
universal familiar spirits of Eskimo superstition.
We at first supposed that “tuɐña” meant some particular individual
demon, but Dr. Simpson is probably right in saying that the Point
Barrow natives, like the rest of the Eskimo, recognize a host of
tuɐñain, since “tuɐña” was described to us under a variety of forms.
Most of the natives whom we asked if they had seen tuɐña, said that
they had not, but that other men, mentioning certain “doctors,” had
seen him. One man, however, said that he had seen tuɐña in the
kûdyĭgĭ, when the people “talked” sitting in the dark, with their
heads bowed and faces covered, and tuɐña came with a noise like a
great bird.[N611] He had raised his head and saw tuɐña, like a man
with bloodless cheeks.[N612] Tuɐña again was called “a bad man, dead”
(apparently a ghost), sometimes as large as a man and sometimes
dwarfish, sometimes a fleshless skeleton, while one man, to describe
him, made the same grimace that a white man would use to indicate a
hobgoblin, with staring eyes, gaping mouth, and hands outstretched
like claws. Apparently “tuɐña” in conversation with us was used to
designate all the various supernatural objects of their belief, ghosts
as well as familiar spirits. For instance, in Greenland, according to
Rink,[N613] a ghost “manifests himself by whistling or singing in the
ears.” Now, Lieut. Ray was walking rapidly one day in the winter with
an Eskimo and his wife, and the woman suddenly stopped and said she
“heard tuɐña”--that he made a noise like _singing in the ears_.
[Footnote N611: Compare Graah’s account of the ceremony of
summoning a _torngak_ in East Greenland (Narrative, p. 123). “Come
he did, however, at last, and his approach was announced by a
strange rushing sound, very like the sound of a _large bird_
flying beneath the roof.” (The italics are my own.) The _angekut_
evidently have some juggling contrivance, carefully concealed from
laymen, perhaps of the nature of a “whizzing-stick.”]
[Footnote N612: Compare Rink’s description of the ceremony of
summoning a tornak to ask his advice, in Greenland (Tales, etc.,
p. 60). This was performed before a company in a darkened house.
The angekok lay on the floor, beside a suspended skin and drum,
with his hands tied behind his back and his head between his legs.
A song was sung by the audience, and the angekok invoked his
tornak, beating on the skin and the drum. The spirit announced his
arrival by a peculiar sound and the appearance of a light or
fire.]
[Footnote N613: Tales, etc., p. 14.]
The people generally have a great dread of “tuɐña,” who they say would
kill them, and are very averse to going out alone in the dark. One of
each party that came over from the village in the evening usually
carried a drawn knife, preferably one of the large double-edged
knives, supposed to be Siberian and already described, in his hand as
defense against tuɐña, and a drawn knife was sometimes even carried in
the daylight “nanumunlu tuɐñamunlu,” “for bear and demon.”
Notwithstanding their apparently genuine dread of “tuɐña,” they are by
no means averse to talking or even joking about him.
The knife also serves as a protection against the aurora, which most
of them agree is bad, and when bright likely to kill a person by
striking him in the back of the neck. However, brandishing the knife
at it will keep it off. Besides, as a woman told me one night, you can
drive off a “bad” aurora by throwing at it dog’s excrement and
urine.[N614]
[Footnote N614: Compare Rink (Tales, etc. p. 56): “Several fetid
and stinking matters, such as old urine, are excellent means for
keeping away all kinds of evil-intentioned spirits and ghosts.”]
Lieut. Ray saw in one of the houses in Utkaiwiñ, a contrivance for
frightening away a “tuɐña” from the entrance to a house should he try
to get in. The man had hung in the trapdoor the handle of a seal-drag
by means of a thong spiked to the wall with a large knife, and told
Lieut. Ray that if “tuɐña” tried to get into the house he would
undoubtedly catch hold of the handle to help himself up, which would
pull down the knife upon his head and frighten him off. We never had
an opportunity of witnessing the ceremony of summoning “tuɐña,” nor
did we ever hear of the ceremony taking place during our stay at the
station, but we were fortunate enough to observe several other
performances, though they do not appear to be frequent. The ceremony
of healing the sick and the ceremonies connected with the
whale-fishery have already been described.
On the 21st of February, 1883, Lieut. Ray and Capt. Herendeen happened
to be at the village on time to see the tuɐña, who had been causing
the bad weather, expelled from the village. Some of the natives said
the next day that they had _killed_ the tuɐña, but they said at the
same time he had gone “a long way off.” When Lieut. Ray reached the
village, women were standing at the doors of the houses armed with
snow-knives and clubs with which they made passes over the entrance
when the people inside called out. He entered one house and found a
woman vigorously driving the tuɐña out of every corner with a knife.
They then repaired to the kûdyĭgi, where there were ten or twelve
people, each of whom, to quote from Lieut. Ray’s note book, “made a
charge against the evil spirit, telling what injuries they had
received from it.” Then they went into the open air, where a fire had
been built in front of the entrance, and formed a half circle around
the fire. Each then went up and made a speech, bending over the fire
(according to Simpson, who describes a similar ceremony at Nuwŭk on
p. 274 of his paper, coaxing the tuɐña to come under the fire to warm
himself). Then they brought out a large tub full of urine, to which,
Simpson says, each man present had contributed, and held it ready near
the fire, while two men stood with their rifles in readiness, and a
boy stood near the fire with a large stone in his hands, bracing
himself firmly with his feet spread apart for a vigorous throw. Then
they chanted as follows (the words of this chant were obtained
afterward by the writer):
Tâk tâk tâk tohâ!
Nìju´a hâ!
He! he! he!
Haiyahe!
Yaiyahe!
Hwi!
And instantly the contents of the tub were dashed on the fire, the
stone thrown into the embers, and both men discharged their rifles,
one into the embers, and one into the cloud of steam as it rose. Then
all brushed their clothes violently and shouted, and the tuɐña was
killed. By a fortunate coincidence, the next day was the finest we had
had for a long time.
Sacrifices are also occasionally made to these supernatural beings as
in Greenland “gifts were offered to the inue of certain rocks, capes
and ice firths, principally when traveling and passing those
places.”[N615]
[Footnote N615: Rink, Tales, etc., p. 56.]
Capt. Herendeen, in the fall of 1882, went to the rivers in company
with one of the “doctors.” When they arrived at the river Kuaru, where
the latter intended to stay for the fishing, he got out his drum and
“talked” for a long time, and breaking off very small pieces of
tobacco threw them into the air, crying out, “Tuɐña, tuɐña, I give you
tobacco! give me plenty of fish.” When they passed the dead men at the
cemetery, he gave them tobacco in the same way, asking them also for
fish.[N616] We noticed but few other superstitious observances which
have not been already described. As in Greenland and elsewhere,
superstition requires certain persons to abstain from certain kinds of
food. For instance, Mûñialu, and apparently many others, were not
permitted to eat the burbot, another man was denied ptarmigan, and a
woman[N617] at Nuwŭk was not allowed to eat “earth food,” that is,
anything which grew upon the ground. Lieut. Ray also mentions a man
who was forbidden bear’s flesh.[N618]
[Footnote N616: “When an Innuit passes the place where a relative
has died, he pauses and deposits a piece of meat near by.” Baffin
Land, Hall, Artic Researches, p. 574.]
[Footnote N617: Report Point Barrow Expedition, p. 46.]
[Footnote N618: Compare Rink, Tales, etc., p. 64; Crantz, vol. 1,
p. 215, and Parry, 2d voyage, p. 548: “Seal’s flesh is forbidden,
for instance, in one disease, that of the walrus in the other; the
heart is denied to some, and the liver to others.”]
We observed some traces of the superstition concerning the heads of
seals and other marine animals taken in the chase, which has been
noticed elsewhere. Crantz says:[N619] “The heads of seals must not be
fractured, nor must they be thrown into the sea, but be piled in a
heap before the door,[N620] that the souls of the seals may not be
enraged and scare their brethren from the coast.” And Capt. Parry
found that at Winter Island they carefully preserved the heads of all
the animals killed during the winter, except two or three of the
walrus which he obtained with great difficulty. The natives told him
that they were to be thrown into the sea in the summer, but at Iglulik
they readily sold them before the summer arrived.[N621]
[Footnote N619: Vol. 1, p. 216.]
[Footnote N620: Beechey saw the skulls of seals and other animals
kept in piles round the houses at Hotham Inlet (Voyage, p. 259).]
[Footnote N621: Second Voyage, p. 510.]
I tried very hard to get a full series of skulls from the seals taken
at Utkiavwĭñ in the winter of 1882-’83, but though I frequently asked
the natives to bring them over for sale, they never did so, till at
last one young woman promised to bring me all I wanted at the price of
half a pound of gunpowder a skull. Nevertheless, she brought over only
two or three at that price. We did not observe what was done with the
skulls, but frequently observed quantities of the smaller bones of the
seals carefully tucked away in the crevices of the ice at some
distance from the shore. We had comparatively little difficulty in
obtaining skulls of the walrus, but I observed that the bottom of
Tûseráru, the little pond at the edge of the village, was covered with
old walrus skulls, as if they had been deposited there for years. The
superstition appears to be in full force among the Chukches, who live
near the place where the _Vega_ wintered. Nordenskiöld was unable to
purchase a pair of fresh walrus heads at the first village he visited,
though the tusks were offered for sale the next day[N622] and at
Pitlekaj.[N623] “Some prejudice * * * prevented the Chukches from
parting with the heads of the seal, though * * * we offered a high
price for them. ‘Irgatti’ (to-morrow) was the usual answer. But the
promise was never kept.”
[Footnote N622: Vega, vol. 1, p. 435.]
[Footnote N623: Vega, vol. 2, p. 137.]
_Amulets._--Like the Greenlanders[N624] and other Eskimos, they place
great reliance on amulets or talismans, which are carried on the
person, in the boat, or even inserted in weapons, each apparently with
some specific purpose, which indeed we learned in the case of some of
those in the collection. Like the amulets of the Greenlanders, they
appear to be[N625] “certain animals or things which had belonged to or
been in contact with certain persons (e.g., the people of ancient
times, or fortunate hunters) or supernatural beings,” and “objects
which merely by their appearance recalled the effect expected from the
amulet, such as figures of various objects.” To the latter class
belong the rudely flaked flint images of whales, already mentioned,
and probably many of the other small images of men and animals already
described, especially those fitted with holes for strings to hang them
up by.
[Footnote N624: John Davis describes the Greenlanders in 1586 as
follows: “They are idolaters, and have images great store, which
they wore about them, and in their boats, which we suppose they
worship.” (Hakluyt, Voyages, etc., 1589, p. 782.)]
[Footnote N625: Rink, Tales, etc., p. 52.]
[Illustration: FIG. 421.--Whale flaked from glass.]
The flint whale is a very common amulet, intended, as we understood,
to give good luck, in whaling, and is worn habitually by many of the
men and boys under the clothes, suspended around the neck by a string.
The captain and harpooner of a whaling crew also wear them as pendants
on the fillets already described, and on the breast of the jacket. We
obtained five of these objects, all of very nearly the same shape, but
of different materials and varying somewhat in size. Fig. 421
represents one of these (No. 56703 [208] from Utkiavwĭñ) made of a
piece of hard colorless glass, probably a fragment of a ship’s
“deadlight.” It is rather roughly flaked into a figure of a “bowhead”
whale, 3.4 inches long, as seen from above and very much flattened
with exaggerated flukes. The flippers were rudely indicated in the
outline, but the left one is broken off.
No. 89613 [771] from Utkiavwĭñ is a very similar image, 2.4 inches
long, which perhaps is of the same material, though it may be made of
rock crystal. No. 56707 [159] from Utkiavwĭñ is a very small whale
(1.4 inches long), chipped in large flakes out of a water-worn pebble
of smoky quartz, while No. 89577 [939] Fig. 422, from the same
village, which is a trifle larger (2 inches long), is made of dark
crimson jasper. The large black flint whale, No. 56683 [61], also from
Utkiavwĭñ, which is 3.9 inches long, is the rudest of all the figures
of the whales. It is precisely the shape of the blade of a skin
scraper, except for the roughly indicated flukes.
[Illustration: FIG. 422.--Whale flaked from red jasper.]
Fig. 423 (No. 89524 [1299] from Utkiavwĭñ) is a rude wooden image of
the same animal, 3½ inches long, very broad and flat-bellied. It is
smoothly carved and has a fragment of sky-blue glass inlaid to
represent the left eye and a bit of iron pyrites for the right. The
flukes have been split wholly off and fastened on with a lashing of
narrow whalebone passing through a vertical hole in the “small” and
round the edge of the flukes. The flukes themselves have been split
across and appear to have been doweled together. This shows that the
owner attached considerable value to the object, or he would not have
taken the trouble to mend it when another could have been so easily
whittled out. In the middle of the belly is an oblong cavity,
containing something which probably adds greater power to the charm.
What this is can not be seen, as a band of sealskin with the hair
shaved off has been shrunk on round the hinder half of the body and
secured by a seam on the right side. A double turn of sinew braid is
knotted round the middle of the body, leaving two ends which are tied
together in a loop, showing that this object was meant to be attached
somewhere about the person.
[Illustration: FIG. 423.--Ancient whale amulet, of wood.]
To this class also probably belong the skins or pieces of animals worn
as amulets, probably with a view of obtaining the powers of the
particular animal, as in so many cases in the stories related in
Rink’s Tales and Traditions. We frequently saw men wearing at the belt
bunches of the claws of the bear or wolverine, or the metacarpal bones
of the wolf.[N626] The head or beak of the gull or raven[N627] is also
a common personal amulet, and one man wore a small dried
flounder.[N628]
[Footnote N626: Parry mentions bones of the wolverine worn as
amulets at Fury and Hecla’s Strait (second voyage, p. 497).]
[Footnote N627: Compare the Greenland story told by Rink (Tales,
etc., p. 195), when the man who has a gull for his amulet is able
to fly home from sea because the gull seeks his prey far out at
sea, while the one whose amulet is a raven can not, because this
bird seeks his prey landward. Such an amulet as the latter would
probably be chosen with a view to making a man a successful deer
hunter.]
[Footnote N628: Compare the Greenland story, where a salmon amulet
makes a man too slippery to be caught by his pursuers. (Rink
Tales, etc., p. 182.)]
We collected a number of these animal amulets to be worn on the
person, but only succeeded in learning the special purpose of one of
them, No. 89532 [1307], from Utkiavwĭñ, which was said to be intended
to give good luck in deer hunting. It is a young unbranched antler of
a reindeer, 6 inches long, and apparently separated from the skull at
the “bur,” with the “velvet” skin still adhering, though most of the
hair is worn off except at the tip. A bit of sinew is tied round the
base.
No. 89522 [1573], from Utkiavwĭñ, is an amulet consisting of the last
three joints of the foot of a reindeer fawn, with the skin and hoof
and about 1½ inches of tendon attached behind, through a hole in the
end of which is knotted about 3 inches of seal thong. No. 89525 [1314]
from the same village, is a precisely similar charm. No. 89699 [779]
from Utkiavwĭñ, is the subfossil incisor tooth of some ruminant with a
hole drilled through the root for a string to hang it up by. It was
said to be the tooth of the “ug’ru´nû,” a large animal, long extinct.
As the natives said, “Here on the land are none, only the bones
remain.” No. 89743 [1110], from Utkiavwĭñ, is a molar tooth of the
same animal, probably, weathered and old, with a hole freshly drilled
through one root and a long piece of sinew braid with the ends knotted
together looped into it. There are also in the collection two very old
teeth which probably were inclosed in little sacks of skin and worn as
amulets.
No. 89698 [1580], from Utkiavwĭñ, is the tusk of a very young walrus,
only 2½ inches long, and No. 89452 [1148] from Utkiavwĭñ, is the
canine tooth of a polar bear. No. 56547 [656], from the same village,
is a similar tooth.[N629]
[Footnote N629: Compare Kumlien, Contributions, p. 45. “Another
charm of great value to the mother who has a young babe is the
canine tooth of the polar bear. This is used as a kind of clasp to
a seal-skin string, which passes round the body and keeps the
breasts up. Her milk supply cannot fail while she wears this.”
(Cumberland Gulf.)]
The only amulet attached to a weapon, which we collected, is the
tern’s bill, already alluded to, placed under the whalebone lashing on
the seal-spear, No. 89910 [1694]. Perhaps the idea of this charm is
that the spear should plunge down upon the seal with as sure an aim as
the tern does upon its prey.[N630]
[Footnote N630: Compare the story in Rink’s Tales and Traditions
(p. 445), where the kaiak, which had a piece of sheldrake fastened
into the bow for an amulet, went faster than the sheldrake flies.]
A number of amulets of this class are always carried in the
whaling-umiak. I have already mentioned the wolf-skulls, stuffed
ravens and eagles, fox-tails[N631] and bunches of feathers used for
this purpose. Most of these charms are parts of some rapacious animal
or bird, but parts of other animals seem to have some virtue on these
occasions.
[Footnote N631: Compare Crantz, vol. 1, p. 216. “The boat [for
whaling] must have a fox’s head in front, and the harpoon be
furnished with an eagle’s beak.” The latter statement is
interesting in connection with the tern’s bill on the seal
harpoon, from Point Barrow, already referred to.]
For instance, I noticed the axis vertebra of a seal in one
whaling-umiak, and we collected a rudely stuffed skin of a godwit
(Limosa lapponica baueri), which, we were informed, was “for whales.”
This specimen (No. 89526 [1328], Fig. 424, from Utkiavwĭñ) is soiled
and ragged, and has a stick thrust through the neck to hold it out.
The neck is wrapped around with a narrow strip of whalebone and some
coarse thread, part of which serves to lash on a slip of wood,
apparently to splice the stick inside. A bit of white man’s string is
passed around the body and tied in a loop to hang it up by. This charm
is perhaps to keep the boat from capsizing, since Crantz says that the
Greenlanders “like to fasten to their kajak a model of it * * * or
only a dead sparrow or snipe, or a bit of wood, stone, some feathers
or hair, that they may not overset” (vol. 1, p. 216), and perhaps the
bone of a marine animal, like the seal, is to protect the crew from
drowning should the boat upset, after all.
No. 89529 [1150] from Utkiavwĭñ is a bunch of feathers to be carried
in the boat. It consists of nine wing feathers of the golden eagle,
four tied in a bunch with a bit of sinew round the quills, four tied
up with one end of the short bit of seal thong which serves to tie the
whole bundle together, one of which has all the light-colored parts of
the feather stained with red ocher, and a single feather shaft
carefully wrapped up in a piece of entrail and wound spirally with a
piece of sinew braid.
[Illustration: FIG. 424.--Amulet of whaling; stuffed godwit.]
No. 89527-8 [1327] from Utkiavwĭñ is the charm which will secure good
success in deerhunting if it is hung up outside of the snow house in
which the family is encamped. It consists of two roughly stuffed skins
of the black bellied plover (Charadrius squatarola), each with a stick
run through the body so that one end supports the neck and the other
the tail, and the necks wound with sinew. One has no head. A string of
sinew braid is tied around the body of each, so as to leave a free end
at the back, to which is fastened a little cross piece of bone, by
which it may be secured to a becket. Like the rest of the amulets in
the collection this has evidently seen service, being very old, worn,
and faded.
The other class of amulets, namely objects which have belonged to or
been in contact with certain persons or supernatural beings, or I may
add apparently certain localities, is represented by a number of
specimens. To the custom of using such things as amulets, we
undoubtedly owe the preservation of most of the ancient weapons and
other implements, especially those made of wood, bone, or other
perishable substances, like the ancient harpoon heads already
described, one of which, No. 89544 [1419], is still attached to the
belt on which it was worn.
[Illustration: FIG. 425.--Amulet consisting of ancient jade adz.]
Fig. 425, No. 56668 [308], from Utkiavwĭñ is one of the ancient black
jade adzes 5.1 inches, slung with thong and whalebone, making a becket
by which it can be hung up. We did not learn the history of this
amulet, which at the time of collecting it was supposed to be a net
sinker. There would, however, be no reason for using so valuable an
object for such a purpose, when a common beach pebble would do just as
well, unless it was intended as a charm to insure success in fishing.
It may even have been carried as a charm on the person, since we
afterwards saw a still more bulky object used for such a purpose.
Such an object seems rather heavy to be carried on the person, but a
well known man in Utkiavwĭñ always carried with him when he went
sealing a large pear-shaped stone, which must have weighed upwards of
two pounds, suspended somewhere about his person. It is not unlikely
that this stone acquired its virtue as an amulet from having been a
sinker used by some lucky fisherman in former time or in a distant
country. Mr. H. W. Henshaw has already referred to the resemblance of
this amulet to the plummet-like “medicine stones” of some of our
Indians.[N632]
[Footnote N632: American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 1.]
[Illustration: FIG. 426.--Little box containing amulet for whaling.]
Fig. 426, (No. 89534 [1306] from Utkiavwĭñ) is an amulet for success
in whaling. It consists of three little irregular water-worn fragments
of amber carefully wrapped in a bit of parchment and inclosed in a
little wooden box 1½ inches long, made of two semicylindrical bits of
cottonwood, with the flat faces hollowed out and put together and
fastened up by three turns of sinew braid round the middle, tied in a
loose knot. The box is old and brown from age and handling. We heard
of other pieces of amber and earth (“nuna”) worn as amulets, wrapped
up in bits of leather and hung on the belt.
[Illustration: FIG. 427.--Amulet for catching fowl with bolas.]
No. 89533 [1247], from Utkiavwĭñ, is simply a nearly square pebble,
1.4 inches long, of dark red jasper, slung in a bit of sinew braid so
that it can be hung on the belt. Fig. 427 (No. 89525 [1308] from
Utkiavwĭñ) is some small object, placed in the center of the grain
side of a square bit of white sealskin, the edges of which are folded
up around it and tied tightly round with deer sinew, so as to make a
little round knob. I collected this amulet, and was particularly
informed how it was to be used. If it be fastened on the right
shoulder it will insure success in taking ducks with the “bolas.” Fig.
428 (No. 89535 [1244] from Utkiavwĭñ) is an amulet whose history we
did not learn. It is a little oblong box 3.3 inches long, carved from
a block of cottonwood, with a flat cover tied on with nine turns of
sinew braid, and contains twenty-one dried humble-bees, which it was
said came from the river Kulugrua. The natives have a great dread,
apparently superstitious, of these bees and the large gadflies (Œstens
tarandi), one of which I have seen scatter half a dozen people. A man
one day caught one of these, and whittled out a little box of wood, in
which he shut the insect up and tied it up with a shred of sinew,
telling Capt. Herendeen that it was “tuɐñamun,” for “tuɐña.”
[Illustration: FIG. 428.--Box of dried bees--amulet.]
A small lump of indurated gravel (No. 56725) [273] was one day brought
over from Utkiavwĭñ, with the story that it was a “medicine” for
driving away the ice. The man who uses this charm stands on the high
bank at the village, and breaking off grains of the gravel throws them
seaward. This will cause the ice to move off from the shore.
The essential identity of the amulets of the Point Barrow natives with
those used by the Eskimo elsewhere is shown by the following passages
from other writers. Egede says:[N633]
A Superstition very common among them is to load themselves with
Amulets or Pomanders, dangling about their Necks and Arms, which
consist in some Pieces of old Wood, Stones or Bones, Bills and Claws
of Birds, or Anything else which their Fancy suggests to them.
[Footnote N633: Greenland, p. 194.]