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The Esquimaux about Bering Strait believe that the souls of dead
sea-beasts, such as seals, walrus, and whales, remain attached to
their bladders, and that by returning the bladders to the sea they
can cause the souls to be reincarnated in fresh bodies and so
multiply the game which the hunters pursue and kill. Acting on this
belief every hunter carefully removes and preserves the bladders of
all the sea-beasts that he kills; and at a solemn festival held once
a year in winter these bladders, containing the souls of all the
sea-beasts that have been killed throughout the year, are honoured
with dances and offerings of food in the public assembly-room, after
which they are taken out on the ice and thrust through holes into
the water; for the simple Esquimaux imagine that the souls of the
animals, in high good humour at the kind treatment they have
experienced, will thereafter be born again as seals, walrus, and
whales, and in that form will flock willingly to be again speared,
harpooned, or otherwise done to death by the hunters.


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