Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/240
Dancing (muminguarneq) is one of the greatest pleasures of the Iglulik Eskimos. In former times the dance went on in a special, large snow-house, qâgi. which has been referred to in the foregoing; it was in the severe winter time, whilst they still lived in part upon the supplies left over from the summer and where a number of people lived at the same place, that this dancing took place.
As a rule only the men danced, one at a time; he took the drum and, with a rocking movement, allowed the frame to fall upon the drumstick, he himself swaying his body from side to side and singing; when one man was tired, another continued in his place. I did not find a single drum (qilaut) preserved among the Iglulik Eskimos except as a child's toy. Hall[1] describes the drum of the Aiviliks: A frame of wood or baleen, 2½ inches wide, 1½ inches thick, 3 feet in diameter, covered with caribou skin; when the skin is not in use it is kept frozen; it is saturated with water before being stretched over the frame.
An old man, Ivaluartjuk, described the mask dances which were danced at Iglulik in former days: A man and his wife danced together, the man with a whip in his hand, the woman with a stick.
- ↑ 1879 p. 97.