The next day a hole is made in the ice near the kásgi, and each hunter dips his spear in the water, and, running back to the kásgi, stirs up the bladders with it. The presence of the sea water reminds the inua of their former home, and they make ready to depart. The bladders are then tied into one large bundle, and the people await the full moon.
At sunrise the morning after the full moon each hunter takes his load of bladders, and filing out of the kásgi starts for the hole in the ice on a dead run. Arriving there, he tears off the bladders one by one, and thrusts them under the water. This signifies the return of the inua to the sea.
As the bladders float or sink success is prophesied for the hunter by the shaman in attendance.
In the meantime the old men build a fire of driftwood on the ice in front of the kásgi. The small bundle of parsnip stalks which stood in front of the bladders is brought out and thrown on the fire, and as the stalks kindle to the flame, each hunter utters a shout, takes a short run, and leaps through in turn. This performance purifies the hunter of any matter offensive to the inua, and concludes the ceremony.
During the Bladder Feast all intercourse between the married men and their wives is tabooed. They are required to sleep in the kásgi with the bachelors. Neither is any girl who has attained puberty (Wingiktóak) allowed near the bladders. She is unclean (Wáhok).
The Eskimo idea of the life after death and the rationale for their most important ritual, the Feast to the Dead, is nowhere better illustrated than in a quaint tale current along the Yukon, in which the heroine, prematurely buried during a trancelike sleep, visited the Land of the Dead. She was rudely awakened from her deathlike slumber by the spirit of her grandmother shaking her and exclaiming, “Wake up. Do not sleep the hours away. You are dead!” Arising from her grave box, the maiden was conducted by her guide to the world beneath, where the dead had their dwellings in large villages grouped according to the localities from which they came. Even the animal shades were not forgotten, but inhabited separate communities in human shape.[19] After some travel the girl found the village allotted to her tribe, and was reclaimed by her departed relatives. She was recognized by the totem marks on her clothing, which in ancient times the Eskimo always wore. She found the inmates of this region leading a pleasant but somewhat monotonous life, free from hardships and from the sleet and cold of their earthly existence. They returned to the upper world during the feasts to the dead, when they received the spiritual essence of the food and clothing offered to their namesakes[20] by relatives. According to the generosity or stinginess of the feast givers there was a feast or a famine in spirit land, and those who were so unfortunate as to have no namesake, either through their own carelessness[21] or the neglect of the community,[22] went hungry and naked. This was the worst calamity that could befall an Eskimo, hence the necessity of providing a namesake and of regularly feeding and clothing the same, in the interest of the beloved dead.