A fire was kindled on the shore, and the men gathered round it and
chanted. An old man then stepped up to the fire and in a coaxing
voice invited the demon of the wind to come under the fire and warm
himself. When he was supposed to have arrived, a vessel of water, to
which each man present had contributed, was thrown on the flames by
an old man, and immediately a flight of arrows sped towards the spot
where the fire had been. They thought that the demon would not stay
where he had been so badly treated. To complete the effect, guns
were discharged in various directions, and the captain of a European
vessel was invited to fire on the wind with cannon. On the
twenty-first of February 1883 a similar ceremony was performed by
the Esquimaux of Point Barrow, Alaska, with the intention of killing
the spirit of the wind. Women drove the demon from their houses with
clubs and knives, with which they made passes in the air; and the
men, gathering round a fire, shot him with their rifles and crushed
him under a heavy stone the moment that steam rose in a cloud from
the smouldering embers, on which a tub of water had just been
thrown.
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