After the bones had been picked clean they were put back in
the kettle in which the flesh had been boiled. And when the festal
meal was over, an old man took his stand at the door of the house
with a branch of fir in his hand, with which, as the people passed
out, he gave a light blow to every one who had eaten of the bear's
flesh or fat, perhaps as a punishment for their treatment of the
worshipful animal. In the afternoon the women performed a strange
dance. Only one woman danced at a time, throwing the upper part of
her body into the oddest postures, while she held in her hands a
branch of fir or a kind of wooden castanets. The other women
meanwhile played an accompaniment by drumming on the beams of the
house with clubs. Von Schrenk believed that after the flesh of the
bear has been eaten the bones and the skull are solemnly carried out
by the oldest people to a place in the forest not far from the
village. There all the bones except the skull are buried. After that
a young tree is felled a few inches above the ground, its stump
cleft, and the skull wedged into the cleft.
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