Among the Inuit or Esquimaux of Bering Strait “the dead bodies of various animals must be treated very carefully by the hunter who obtains them, so that their shades may not be offended and bring bad luck or even death upon him or his people.” Hence the Unalit hunter who has had a hand in the killing of a white whale, or even has helped to take one from the net, is not allowed to do any work for the next four days, that being the time during which the shade or ghost of the whale is supposed to stay with its body. At the same time no one in the village may use any sharp or pointed instrument for fear of wounding the whale's shade, which is believed to be hovering invisible in the neighbourhood; and no loud noise may be made lest it should frighten or offend the ghost. Whoever cuts a whale's body with an iron axe will die. Indeed the use of all iron instruments is forbidden in the village during these four days. These Inuit have a special name (nu-na hlukh-tuk) “for a spot of ground where certain things are tabooed, or where there is to be feared any evil influence caused by the presence of offended shades of men or animals, or through the influence of other supernatural means. This ground is sometimes considered unclean, and to go upon it would bring misfortune to the offender, producing sickness, death, or lack of success in hunting or fishing. The same term is also applied to ground where certain animals have been killed or have died.” In [pg 206] the latter case the ground is thought to be dangerous only to him who there performs some forbidden act. For example, the shore where a dead white whale has been beached is so regarded. At such a place and time to chop wood with an iron axe is supposed to be fatal to the imprudent person who chops. Death, too, is supposed to result from cutting wood with an iron axe where salmon are being dressed. An old man at St. Michael told Mr. Nelson of a melancholy case of this kind which had fallen within the scope of his own observation. A man began to chop a log near a woman who was splitting salmon: both of them died soon afterwards. The reason of this disaster, as the old man explained, was that the shade or ghost (inua) of the salmon and the spirit or mystery (yu-a) of the ground were incensed at the proceeding. Such offences are indeed fatal to every person who may be present at the desecrated spot. Dogs are regarded as very unclean and offensive to the shades of game animals, and great care is taken that no dog shall get at the bones of a white whale. Should a dog touch one of them, the hunter might lose his luck; his nets would break or be shunned by the whales, and his spears would not strike. But in addition to the state of uncleanness or taboo which arises from the presence of the shades of men or animals, these Esquimaux believe in uncleanness of another sort which, though not so serious, nevertheless produces sickness or bad luck in hunting. It consists, we are told, of a kind of invisible, impalpable vapour, which may attach itself to a person from some contamination. A hunter infected by such a vapour is much more than usually visible to game, so that his luck in the chase is gone until he succeeds in cleansing himself once more. That is why hunters must avoid menstruous women; if they do not, they will be unable to catch game.673
These same Esquimaux of Bering Strait celebrate a great annual festival in December, when the bladders of all the seals, whales, walrus, and white bears that have been killed in the year are taken into the assembly-house of the village. [pg 207] They remain there for several days, and so long as they do so the hunters avoid all intercourse with women, saying that if they failed in that respect the shades of the dead animals would be offended.674 Similarly among the Aleuts of Alaska the hunter who had struck a whale with a charmed spear would not throw again, but returned at once to his home and separated himself from his people in a hut specially constructed for the purpose, where he stayed for three days without food or drink, and without touching or looking upon a woman. During this time of seclusion he snorted occasionally in imitation of the wounded and dying whale, in order to prevent the whale which he had struck from leaving the coast. On the fourth day he emerged from his seclusion and bathed in the sea, shrieking in a hoarse voice and beating the water with his hands. Then, taking with him a companion, he repaired to that part of the shore where he expected to find the whale stranded. If the beast was dead he at once cut out the place where the death-wound had been inflicted. If the whale was not dead, he again returned to his home and continued washing himself until the whale died.675 Here the hunter's imitation of the wounded whale is probably intended by means of homoeopathic magic to make the beast die in earnest. Among the Kaniagmuts of Alaska the men who attacked the whale were considered by their countrymen as unclean during the fishing season, though otherwise they were held in high honour.676
The central Esquimaux of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay think that whales, ground seals, and common seals originated in the severed fingers of the goddess Sedna. Hence an Esquimau of these regions must make atonement for each of these animals that he kills, and must observe strictly certain taboos after their slaughter. Some of the rules of conduct thus enjoined are identical with those which are in force after the death of a human being. Thus after the killing of one of these sea-mammals, as after the decease of a person, it is forbidden to scrape the frost from the window, [pg 208] to shake the bed or to disturb the shrubs under the bed, to remove the drippings of oil from under the lamp, to scrape hair from skins, to cut snow for the purpose of melting it, to work on iron, wood, stone, or ivory. Furthermore, women are forbidden to comb their hair, to wash their faces, and to dry their boots and stockings. All these regulations must be kept with the greatest care after a ground seal has been killed, because the transgression of taboos that refer to this animal makes the hands of Sedna very sore. When a seal is brought into the hut, the women must stop working until it is cut up. After the capture of a ground seal, walrus, or whale, they must rest for three days. Not all kinds of work, however, are forbidden; they may mend articles made of sealskin, but they may not make anything new. Working on the new skins of caribou, the American reindeer, is strictly prohibited; for a series of rules forbids all contact between that animal and the sea-mammals. Thus reindeer-skins obtained in summer may not be prepared before the ice has formed and the first seal is caught with the harpoon. Later, as soon as the first walrus has been killed, the work must stop again until the next autumn. Hence everybody is eager to have his reindeer-skins ready as quickly as possible, for until that is done the walrus season will not begin. When the first walrus has been killed a messenger goes from village to village and announces the news, whereupon all work on reindeer-skins immediately ceases. On the other hand, when the season for hunting the reindeer begins, all the winter clothing and the winter tents that had been in use during the walrus hunting season become tabooed and are buried under stones; they may not be used again till the next walrus hunting season comes round. No walrus-hide or thongs made of such hide may be taken inland, where the reindeer live. Venison may not be put in the same boat with walrus-meat, nor yet with salmon. If venison or the antlers of the reindeer were in a boat which goes walrus-hunting, the boat would be liable to be broken by the walrus. The Esquimaux are not allowed to eat venison and walrus on the same day, unless they first strip naked or put on clothing of reindeer-skin that has never been worn in hunting walrus. The transgression of these taboos gives umbrage to the souls of walrus; and a [pg 209] myth is told to account for the mutual aversion of the walrus and the reindeer. And in general the Esquimaux say that Sedna dislikes the reindeer, wherefore they may not bring the beast into contact with her favourites, the sea-mammals. Hence the meat of the whale and the seal, as well as of the walrus, may not be eaten on the same day with venison. It is not permitted that both sorts of meat lie on the floor of the hut or behind the lamps at the same time. If a man who has eaten venison in the morning happens to enter a hut in which seal meat is being cooked, he is allowed to eat venison on the bed, but it must be wrapped up before it is carried into the hut, and he must take care to keep clear of the floor. Before they change from one food to the other the Esquimaux must wash themselves.
But even among the sea-beasts themselves there are rules of mutual avoidance which these central Esquimaux must observe. Thus a person who has been eating or hunting walrus must strip naked or change his clothes before he eats seal; otherwise the transgression will become fastened to the soul of the walrus in a manner which will be explained presently. Again, the soul of a salmon is very powerful, and its body may not be eaten on the same day with walrus or venison. Salmon may not be cooked in a pot that has been used to boil any other kind of meat; and it must always be cooked at some distance from the hut. The salmon-fisher is not allowed to wear boots that have been used in hunting walrus; and no work may be done on boot-legs till the first salmon has been caught and put on a boot-leg. Once more the soul of the grim polar bear is offended if the taboos which concern him are not observed. His soul tarries for three days near the spot where it left his body, and during these days the Esquimaux are particularly careful to conform rigidly to the laws of taboo, because they believe that punishment overtakes the transgressor who sins against the soul of a bear far more speedily than him who sins against the souls of the sea-beasts.677
The native explanation of the taboos thus enjoined on [pg 210] hunters among the central Esquimaux has been given us by the eminent American ethnologist Dr. Franz Boas. As it sets what may be called the spiritual basis of taboo in the clearest light, it deserves to be studied with attention.
The goddess Sedna, he tells us, the mother of the sea-mammals, may be considered to be the chief deity of the central Esquimaux. She is supposed to bear supreme sway over the destinies of mankind, and almost all the observances of these tribes have for their object to retain her good will or appease her anger. Her home is in the lower world, where she dwells in a house built of stone and whale-ribs. “The souls of seals, ground seals, and whales are believed to proceed from her house. After one of these animals has been killed, its soul stays with the body for three days. Then it goes back to Sedna's abode, to be sent forth again by her. If, during the three days that the soul stays with the body, any taboo or proscribed custom is violated, the violation (pitssēte) becomes attached to the animal's soul, and causes it pain. The soul strives in vain to free itself of these attachments, but is compelled to take them down to Sedna. The attachments, in some manner not explained, make her hands sore, and she punishes the people who are the cause of her pains by sending to them sickness, bad weather, and starvation. If, on the other hand, all taboos have been observed, the sea-animals will allow themselves to be caught; they will even come to meet the hunter. The object of the innumerable taboos that are in force after the killing of these sea-animals, therefore, is to keep their souls free from attachments that would hurt their souls as well as Sedna.
“The souls of the sea-animals are endowed with greater powers than those of ordinary human beings. They can see the effect of contact with a corpse, which causes objects touched by it to appear dark in colour; and they can see the effect of flowing human blood, from which a vapour rises that surrounds the bleeding person and is communicated to [pg 211] every one and every thing that comes in contact with such a person. This vapour and the dark colour of death are exceedingly unpleasant to the souls of the sea-animals, that will not come near a hunter thus affected. The hunter must therefore avoid contact with people who have touched a body, or with those who are bleeding, more particularly with menstruating women or with those who have recently given birth. The hands of menstruating women appear red to the sea-animals. If any one who has touched a body or who is bleeding should allow others to come in contact with him, he would cause them to become distasteful to the seals, and therefore to Sedna as well. For this reason custom demands that every person must at once announce if he has touched a body, and that women must make known when they are menstruating or when they have had a miscarriage. If they do not do so, they will bring ill-luck to all the hunters.
“These ideas have given rise to the belief that it is necessary to announce the transgression of any taboo. The transgressor of a custom is distasteful to Sedna and to the animals, and those who abide with him will become equally distasteful through contact with him. For this reason it has come to be an act required by custom and morals to confess any and every transgression of a taboo, in order to protect the community from the evil influence of contact with the evil-doer. The descriptions of Eskimo life given by many observers contain records of starvation, which, according to the belief of the natives, was brought about by some one transgressing a law, and not announcing what he had done.
“I presume the importance of the confession of a transgression, with a view to warning others to keep at a distance from the transgressor, has gradually led to the idea that a transgression, or, we might say, a sin can be atoned for by confession. This is one of the most remarkable traits among the religious beliefs of the central Eskimo. There are innumerable tales of starvation brought about by the transgression of a taboo. In vain the hunters try to supply their families with food; gales and drifting snow make their endeavours fruitless. Finally the help of the angakok678 is invoked, and he discovers that the cause of the [pg 212] misfortune of the people is due to the transgression of a taboo. Then the guilty one is searched for. If he confesses, all is well; the weather moderates, and the seals allow themselves to be caught; but if he obstinately maintains his innocence, his death alone will soothe the wrath of the offended deity....
“The transgressions of taboos do not affect the souls of game alone. It has already been stated that the sea-mammals see their effect upon man also, who appears to them of a dark colour, or surrounded by a vapour which is invisible to ordinary man. This means, of course, that the transgression also affects the soul of the evil-doer. It becomes attached to it, and makes him sick. The angakok679 is able to see these attachments with the help of his guardian spirit, and is able to free the soul from them. If this is not done, the person must die. In many cases the transgressions become fastened also to persons who come in contact with the evil-doer. This is especially true of children, to whose souls the sins of their parents, and particularly of their mothers, become readily attached. Therefore, when a child is sick, the angakok first of all, asks its mother if she has transgressed any taboos. The attachment seems to have a different appearance, according to the taboo that has been violated. A black attachment is due to removing oil-drippings from under the lamp, a piece of caribou-skin represents the scrapings removed from a caribou-skin at a time when such work was forbidden. As soon as the mother acknowledges the transgression of a taboo, the attachment leaves the child's soul, and the child recovers.
“A number of customs may be explained by the endeavours of the natives to keep the sea-mammals free from contaminating influences. All the clothing of a dead person, the tent in which he died, and the skins obtained by him, must be discarded; for if a hunter should wear clothing made of skins that had been in contact with the deceased, these would appear dark, and the seal would avoid him. Neither would a seal allow itself to be taken into a hut darkened by a dead body; and all those who entered such a hut would appear dark to it, and would be avoided.
[pg 213]“While it is customary for a successful hunter to invite all the men of the village to eat of the seal that he has caught, they must not take any of the seal-meat out of the hut, because it might come in contact with persons who are under taboo, and thus the hunter might incur the displeasure of the seal and of Sedna. This is particularly strictly forbidden in the case of the first seal of the season.
“A woman who has a new-born child, and who has not quite recovered, must eat only of seals caught by her husband, by a boy, or by an aged man; else the vapour arising from her body would become attached to the souls of other seals, which would take the transgression down to Sedna, thus making her hands sore.
“Cases of premature birth require particularly careful treatment. The event must be announced publicly, else dire results will follow. If a woman should conceal from the other people that she has had a premature birth, they might come near her, or even eat in her hut of the seals procured by her husband. The vapour arising from her would thus affect them, and they would be avoided by the seals. The transgression would also become attached to the soul of the seal, which would take it down to Sedna.”680
In these elaborate taboos so well described by Dr. Boas we seem to see a system of animism in the act of passing into religion. The rules themselves bear the clearest traces of having originated in a doctrine of souls, and of being determined by the supposed likes and dislikes, sympathies and antipathies of the various classes of spirits toward each other. But above and behind the souls of men and animals has grown up the overshadowing conception of a powerful goddess who rules them all, so that the taboos come more and more to be viewed as a means of propitiating her rather than as merely adapted to suit the tastes of the souls themselves. Thus the standard of conduct is shifted from a natural to a supernatural basis: the supposed wish of the deity or, as we commonly put it, the will of God, tends to supersede [pg 214] the wishes, real or imaginative, of purely natural beings as the measure of right and wrong. The old savage taboos, resting on a theory of the direct relations of living creatures to each other, remain in substance unchanged, but they are outwardly transformed into ethical precepts with a religious or supernatural sanction. In this gradual passage of a rude philosophy into an elementary religion the place occupied by confession as a moral purgative is particularly interesting. I can hardly agree with Dr. Boas that among these Esquimaux the confession of sins was in its origin no more than a means of warning others against the dangerous contagion of the sinner; in other words, that its saving efficacy consisted merely in preventing the innocent from suffering with the guilty, and that it had no healing virtue, no purifying influence, for the evil-doer himself. It seems more probable that originally the violation of taboo, in other words, the sin, was conceived as something almost physical, a sort of morbid substance lurking in the sinner's body, from which it could be expelled by confession as by a sort of spiritual purge or emetic. This is confirmed by the form of auricular confession which is practised by the Akikuyu of British East Africa. Amongst them, we are told, “sin is essentially remissable; it suffices to confess it. Usually this is done to the sorcerer, who expels the sin by a ceremony of which the principal rite is a pretended emetic: kotahikio, derived from tahika, ‘to vomit.’ ”681 Thus among these savages the confession and absolution of sins is, so to say, a purely physical process of relieving a sufferer of a burden which sits heavy on his stomach rather than on his conscience. This view of the matter is again confirmed by the observation that these same Akikuyu resort to another physical mode of expelling sin from a sinner, and that is by the employment of a scapegoat, which by them, as by the Jews and many other people, has been employed as a vehicle for carting away moral rubbish and dumping it somewhere else. For example, if a Kikuyu man has committed incest, which would naturally entail his death, he produces a substitute in the shape of a he-goat, to which by an ignoble ceremony [pg 215] he transfers his guilt. Then the throat of the animal is cut, and the human culprit is thereby purged of his sin.682
Hence we may suspect that the primary motive of the confession of sins among savages was self-regarding; in other words, the intention was rather to benefit the sinner himself than to safeguard others by warning them of the danger they would incur by coming into contact with him. This view is borne out by the observation that confession is sometimes used as a means of healing the sick transgressor himself, who is supposed to recover as soon as he has made a clean breast of his transgression. Thus “when the Carriers are severely sick, they often think that they shall not recover, unless they divulge to a priest or magician every crime which they may have committed, which has hitherto been kept secret. In such a case they will make a full confession, and then they expect that their lives will be spared for a time longer. But should they keep back a single crime, they as firmly believe that they shall suffer almost instant death.”683 Again, the Aurohuaca Indians, who, under the tropical sun of South America, inhabit a chilly region bordering on the perpetual snows of the Sierra Nevada in Colombia, believe that all sickness is a punishment for sin. So when one of their medicine-men is summoned to a sick bed, he does not enquire after the patient's symptoms but makes strange passes over him and asks in a sepulchral voice whether he will confess his sins. If the sick man persists in drawing a veil of silence over his frailties, the doctor will not attempt to treat him, but will turn on his heel and leave the house. On the other hand if a satisfactory confession has been made, the leech directs the patient's friends to procure certain odd-looking bits of stone or shell to which the sins of the sufferer may be transferred, for when that is done he will be made whole. For this purpose the sin-laden stones or shells are carried high up into the mountains and laid in some spot [pg 216] where the first beams of the sun, rising in clear or clouded majesty above the long white slopes or the towering crags of the Sierra Nevada, will strike down on them, driving sin and sickness far away by their radiant influence.684 Here, again, we see that sin is regarded as something almost material which by confession can be removed from the body of the patient and laid on stones or shells. Further, the confession of sins has been resorted to by some people as a means of accelerating the birth of a child when the mother was in hard labour. Thus, “among the Indians of Guatemala, in the time of their idolatry when a woman was in labour, the midwife ordered her to confess her sins; and if she was not delivered, the husband was to confess his; and if that did not do they took off his clouts and put them about his wife's loins; if still she could not be delivered, the midwife drew blood from herself and sprinkled it towards the four quarters of heaven with some invocations and ceremonies.”685 In these attempts of the Indians to accelerate the birth of the child it seems clear that the confession of sins on the part first of the wife and afterwards of the husband is nothing but a magical ceremony like the putting of the husband's clothes on the suffering woman686 or the sprinkling of the midwife's blood towards the four quarters of the heaven. Amongst the Antambahoaka, a savage tribe of Madagascar, when a woman is in hard labour, a sorcerer is called in to her aid. After [pg 217] making some magical signs and uttering some incantations, he generally declares that the patient cannot be delivered until she has publicly confessed a secret fault which she has committed. In such a case a woman has been known to confess to incest with her brother; and immediately after her confession the child was born.687 In these cases the confession of sins is clearly not a mode of warning people to keep clear of the sinner; it is a magical ceremony primarily intended to benefit the sinner himself or herself and no other. The same thing may perhaps be said of a confession which was prescribed in a certain case by ancient Hindoo ritual. At a great festival of Varuna, which fell at the beginning of the rainy season, the priest asked the wife of the sacrificer to name her paramour or paramours, and she had to mention their names or at least to take up as many grass-stalks as she had lovers.688 “Now when a woman who belongs to one man carries on intercourse with another, she undoubtedly commits a sin against Varuna. He therefore thus asks her, lest she should sacrifice with a secret pang in her mind; for when confessed the sin becomes less, since it becomes truth; this is why he thus asks her. And whatever connection she confesses not, that indeed will turn out injurious to her relatives.”689 In this passage of the Satapatha Brahmana confession of sin is said to diminish the sin, just as if the mere utterance of the words ejected or expelled some morbid matter from the person of the sinner, thereby relieving her of its burden and benefiting also her relatives, who would suffer through any sin which she might not have confessed.
Thus at an early stage of culture the confession of sins wears the aspect of a bodily rather than of a moral and spiritual purgation; it is a magical rather than a religious rite, and as such it resembles the ceremonies of washing, scouring, fumigation, and so forth, which in like manner are applied by many primitive peoples to the purification of what we should regard as moral guilt, but what they [pg 218] consider rather as a corporeal pollution or infection, which can be removed by the physical agencies of fire, water, fasts, purgatives, abrasion, scarification, and so forth. But when the guilt of sin ceases to be regarded as something material, a sort of clinging vapour of death, and is conceived as the transgression of the will of a wise and good God, it is obvious that the observance of these outward rites of purification becomes superfluous and absurd, a vain show which cannot appease the anger of the offended deity. The only means of turning away his wrath and averting the fatal consequences of sin is now believed to be the humble confession and true repentance of the sinner. At this stage of ethical evolution the practice of confession loses its old magical character as a bodily purge and assumes the new aspect of a purely religious rite, the propitiation of a great supernatural and moral being, who by a simple fiat can cancel the transgression and restore the transgressor to a state of pristine innocence. This comfortable doctrine teaches us that in order to blot out the effects of our misdeeds we have only to acknowledge and confess them with a lowly and penitent heart, whereupon a merciful God will graciously pardon our sin and absolve us and ours from its consequences. It might indeed be well for the world if we could thus easily undo the past, if we could recall the words that have been spoken amiss, if we could arrest the long train that follows, like a flight of avenging Furies, on every evil action. But this we cannot do. Our words and acts, good and bad, have their natural, their inevitable consequences. God may pardon sin, but Nature cannot.
It seems not improbable that in our own rules of conduct, in what we call the common decencies of life as well as in the weightier matters of morality, there may survive not a few old savage taboos which, masquerading as an expression of the divine will or draped in the flowing robes of a false philosophy, have maintained their credit long after the crude ideas out of which they sprang have been discarded by the progress of thought and knowledge; while on the other hand many ethical precepts and social laws, which now rest firmly on a solid basis of utility, may at first have drawn some [pg 219] portion of their sanctity from the same ancient system of superstition. For example, we can hardly doubt that in primitive society the crime of murder derived much of its horror from a fear of the angry ghost of the murdered man. Thus superstition may serve as a convenient crutch to morality till she is strong enough to throw away the crutch and walk alone. To judge by the legislation of the Pentateuch the ancient Semites appear to have passed through a course of moral evolution not unlike that which we can still detect in process among the Esquimaux of Baffin Land. Some of the old laws of Israel are clearly savage taboos of a familiar type thinly disguised as commands of the deity. This disguise is indeed a good deal more perfect in Palestine than in Baffin Land, but in substance it is the same. Among the Esquimaux it is the will of Sedna; among the Israelites it is the will of Jehovah.690
But it is time to return to our immediate subject, to wit, the rules of conduct observed by hunters after the slaughter of the game.
When the Kayans or Bahaus of central Borneo have shot one of the dreaded Bornean panthers, they are very anxious about the safety of their souls, for they think that the soul of a panther is almost more powerful than their own. Hence they step eight times over the carcase of the dead beast reciting the spell, “Panther, thy soul under my soul.” On returning home they smear themselves, their dogs, and their weapons with the blood of fowls in order to calm their souls and hinder them from fleeing away; for being themselves fond of the flesh of fowls they ascribe the same taste to their souls. For eight days afterwards they must bathe by day and by night before going out again to the chase.691 [pg 220] After killing an animal some Indian hunters used to purify themselves in water as a religious rite.692 When a Damara hunter returns from a successful chase he takes water in his mouth and ejects it three times over his feet, and also into the fire on his own hearth.693 Amongst the Caffres of South Africa “the slaughter of a lion, however honourable it is esteemed, is nevertheless associated with an idea of moral uncleanness, and is followed by a very strange ceremony. When the hunters approach the village on their return, the man who gave the lion the first wound is hidden from every eye by the shields which his comrades hold up before him. One of the hunters steps forward and, leaping and bounding in a strange manner, praises the courage of the lion-killer. Then he rejoins the band, and the same performance is repeated by another. All the rest meanwhile keep up a ceaseless shouting, rattling with their clubs on their shields. This goes on till they have reached the village. Then a mean hut is run up not far from the village; and in this hut the lion-killer, because he is unclean, must remain four days, cut off from all association with the tribe. There he dyes his body all over with white paint; and lads who have not yet been circumcised, and are therefore, in respect to uncleanness, in the same state as himself, bring him a calf to eat, and wait upon him. When the four days are over, the unclean man washes himself, paints himself with red paint in the usual manner, and is escorted back to the village by the head chief, attended with a guard of honour. Lastly, a second calf is killed; and, the uncleanness being now at an end, every one is free to eat of the calf with him.”694 Among the Hottentots, when a man has killed a lion, leopard, elephant, or rhinoceros he is esteemed a great hero, but he is deluged with urine by the medicine-man and has to remain at home quite idle for three days, during which his wife may not come near him; she is also enjoined to restrict herself [pg 221] to a poor diet and to eat no more than is barely necessary to keep her in health.695 Similarly the Lapps deem it the height of glory to kill a bear, which they consider the king of beasts. Nevertheless, all the men who take part in the slaughter are regarded as unclean, and must live by themselves for three days in a hut or tent made specially for them, where they cut up and cook the bear's carcase. The reindeer which brought in the carcase on a sledge may not be driven by a woman for a whole year; indeed, according to one account, it may not be used by anybody for that period. Before the men go into the tent where they are to be secluded, they strip themselves of the garments they had worn in killing the bear, and their wives spit the red juice of alder bark in their faces. They enter the tent not by the ordinary door but by an opening at the back. When the bear's flesh has been cooked, a portion of it is sent by the hands of two men to the women, who may not approach the men's tent while the cooking is going on. The men who convey the flesh to the women pretend to be strangers bringing presents from a foreign land; the women keep up the pretence and promise to tie red threads round the legs of the strangers. The bear's flesh may not be passed in to the women through the door of their tent, but must be thrust in at a special opening made by lifting up the hem of the tent-cover. When the three days' seclusion is over and the men are at liberty to return to their wives, they run, one after the other, round the fire, holding the chain by which pots are suspended over it. This is regarded as a form of purification; they may now leave the tent by the ordinary door and rejoin the women. But the leader of the party must still abstain from cohabitation with his wife for two days more.696