The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo

by Ernest William Hawkes

The ceremonial dance of the Alaskan Eskimo is a rhythmic pantomime—the story in gesture and song of the lives of the various Arctic animals on which they subsist and from whom they believe their ancient clans are sprung. The dances vary in complexity from the ordinary social dance, in which all share promiscuously and in which individual action is subordinated to rhythm, to the pantomime totem dances performed by especially trained actors who hold their positions from year to year according to artistic merit.[1] Yet even in the totem dances the pantomime is subordinate to the rhythm, or rather superimposed upon it, so that never a gesture or step of the characteristic native time is lost.

This is a primitive 2-4 beat based on the double roll of the chorus of drums. Time is kept, in the men’s dances, by stamping the foot and jerking the arm in unison, twice on the right, then twice on the left side, and so on, alternately. Vigorous dancers vary the program by leaping and jumping at intervals, and the shamans are noted for the dizzy circles which they run round the púgyarok, the entrance hole of the dance hall. The women’s dance has the same measure and can be performed separately or in conjunction with the men’s dance, but has a different and distinctly feminine movement. The feet are kept on the ground, while the body sways back and forth in graceful undulations to the music and the hands with outspread palms part the air with the graceful stroke of a flying gull. Some of their dances are performed seated. Then they strip to the waist and form one long line of waving arms and swaying shoulders, all moving in perfect unison.

The Chorus

The chorus which furnishes the music, is composed of from six to ten men. They sit on the inǵlak, a raised shelf extending around the dance hall about five feet from the floor, and sing their dance songs keeping time on their drums. They usually sit in the rear of the room, which is the post of honor. Among the island tribes of Bering Strait this position is reversed and they occupy the front of the room. Some old man, the keeper of tribal tradition and song, acts as the leader, calling out the words of the dance songs a line ahead. He begins the proceedings by striking up a low chant, an invitation to the people assembled to dance. The chorus accompany him lightly on their drums. Then at the proper place, he strikes a crashing double beat; the drums boom out in answer; the song arises high and shrill; the dancers leap into their places, and the dance begins.

The first dances are usually simple exercises calculated to warm the blood and stretch stiffened muscles. They begin with leaping around the púǵyarok, jumping into the air with both feet in the Eskimo high kick, settling down into the conventional movements of the men’s dance.[2]

Quite often a woman steps into the center of the circle, and goes through her own dance, while the men leap and dance around her. This act has been specialized in the Reindeer and Wolf Pack Dance of the Aithúkaguk, the Inviting-In Festival, where the woman wearing a reindeer crest and belt is surrounded by the men dancers, girt in armlets and fillets of wolf skin. They imitate the pack pulling down a deer, and the din caused by their jumping and howling around her shrinking form is terrific.

Participation of the Sexes

There appears to be no restriction against the women taking part in the men’s dances. They also act as assistants to the chief actors in the Totem Dances, three particularly expert and richly dressed women dancers ranging themselves behind the mask dancer as a pleasing background of streaming furs and glistening feathers. The only time they are forbidden to enter the kásgi is when the shaman is performing certain secret rites. They also have secret meetings of their own when all men are banished.[3] I happened to stumble on to one of these one time when they were performing certain rites over a pregnant woman, but being a white man, and therefore unaccountable, I was greeted with a good-natured laugh and sent about my business.

On the other hand, men are never allowed to take part in the strictly women’s dances, although nothing pleases an Eskimo crowd more than an exaggerated imitation by one of their clowns of the movements of the women’s dance. The women’s dances are practiced during the early winter and given at the Aiyáguk, or Asking Festival, when the men are invited to attend as spectators. They result in offers of temporary marriage to the unmarried women, which is obviously the reason for this rite. Such dances, confined to the women, have not been observed in Alaska outside the islands of Bering Sea, and I have reason to believe are peculiar to this district, which, on account of its isolation, retains the old forms which have died out or been modified on the mainland. But throughout Alaska the women are allowed the utmost freedom in participating in the festivals, either as naskuks[4] or feast givers, as participants or as spectators.

In fact, the social position of the Eskimo woman has been misrepresented and misunderstood. At first sight she appears to be the slave of her husband, but a better acquaintance will reveal the fact that she is the manager of the household and the children, the business partner in all his trades, and often the “oomíalik,” or captain of the concern as well. Her husband is forbidden by tribal custom to maltreat her, and if she owns the house, she can order him out at any time. I have never known a woman being head of a tribe, but sometimes a woman is the most influential member of a tribe.