At the festival
witnessed by the Russian travellers, which lasted a good many days,
three bears were killed and eaten. More than once the animals were
led about in procession and compelled to enter every house in the
village, where they were fed as a mark of honour, and to show that
they were welcome guests. But before the beasts set out on this
round of visits, the Gilyaks played at skipping-rope in presence,
and perhaps, as L. von Schrenck inclined to believe, in honour of
the animals. The night before they were killed, the three bears were
led by moonlight a long way on the ice of the frozen river. That
night no one in the village might sleep. Next day, after the animals
had been again led down the steep bank to the river, and conducted
thrice round the hole in the ice from which the women of the village
drew their water, they were taken to an appointed place not far from
the village, and shot to death with arrows. The place of sacrifice
or execution was marked as holy by being surrounded with whittled
sticks, from the tops of which shavings hung in curls.
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