[498]. Descriptions of Eskimo festivals are to be found in Egede’s Greenland, p. 152, and Crantz, History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 175, where he mentions the sun feast held at the winter solstice. This very likely corresponds to the December festival at Point Barrow. If the latter be really a rite instituted by the ancestors of the present Eskimo when they lived in lower latitudes to celebrate the winter solstice, it is easy to understand why it should be held at about the same time by the people of Kotzebue Sound, as stated by Dr. Simpson, op. cit., p. 262, where, as he says, the reindeer might be successfully pursued throughout the winter. It is much more likely, considering the custom in Greenland, that this is the reason for having the festival at this season than that the time should be selected by the people at Point Barrow as a season when “hunting or fishing can not well be attended to,” as Simpson thinks. We should remember that this is the very time of the year that the seal netting is at its height at Point Barrow. See also Parry, Second Voyage, p. 538; Kumlien, Contributions, p. 43; Gilder, Schwatka’s Search, p. 43; Beechey, Voyage, p. 288 (Kotzebue Sound); Dall, Alaska, p. 149 (very full and detailed); Petroff, Report, etc., pp. 125, 126, 129, 131 (quoted from Zagoskin), 135, 137 (quoted from Shelikhof), and 144 (quoted from Davidof); Hooper, Tents, etc., pp. 85, 136; and Nordenskiöld, Vega, vol. 2, pp. 22, 131.
[499]. Greenland, p. 162.
[500]. Vol. 1, p. 177.
[501]. Science, vol. 4, No. 98, p. 545.
[502]. Hall (Arctic Researches, p. 129) says the “cat’s cradle” is a favorite amusement in Baffin Land, where they make many figures, including representations of the deer, whale, seal, and walrus.
[503]. See Egede, p. 161, and Crantz, vol. 1, p. 177.
[504]. Compare Parry’s Second Voyage, p. 541.
[505]. Nordenskiöld calls this “the drum, or more correctly, tambourine, so common among most of the Polar peoples, European, Asiatic, and American; among the Lapps, the Samoyeds, the Tunguses, and the Eskimo.” (Vega, vol. 2, p. 128).
[506]. See, for example, Bessell’s Naturalist, vol. 18, pt. 9, p. 881. (The people of Smith Sound use the femur of a walrus or seal. Cf. Capt. Lyon’s picture, Parry’s 2d Voyage, pl. opposite p. 530, and Gilder, Schwatka’s Search, p. 43, where the people of the west shore of Hudson Bay are described as using a “wooden drumstick shaped like a potato-masher.”)
[507]. See Hooper, Tents, etc., p. 51, and Nordenskiöld, Vega, vol. 2, pp. 23 and 128; figure on p. 24.