The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo

An ethnographic study records ceremonial dance festivals among Arctic communities in the Bering Strait region, describing rhythmic pantomime and a drum-based chorus that enact animal lives and clan origins. It details the kásgi (dance house), costumes, masks, painted bodies, and ritual paraphernalia; distinctions between common social dances and trained totemic performances; gender roles and seating and order of honor; named festivals (Asking, Bladder Feast, feasts for the dead, annual and great feasts, and the Inviting-In rite) and their sequences; use of bladders, namesake practices, symbolic numbers, and regional dialect and stylistic differences. Observations emphasize ceremony, social function, and technical aspects of rhythm, choreography, and ritual.