He stood twenty minutes
perfectly still, gazing upwards. An aboriginal who stood by told me
he was looking for the ghosts of dead men. At last he began to move
very slowly, and soon rushed to and fro at full speed, flourishing a
branch as if to drive away some foes invisible to us. When I thought
this pantomime must be almost over, ten more, similarly adorned,
suddenly appeared from behind the trees, and the whole party joined
in a brisk conflict with their mysterious assailants. . . . At last,
after some rapid evolutions in which they put forth all their
strength, they rested from the exciting toil which they had kept up
all night and for some hours after sunrise; they seemed satisfied
that the ghosts were driven away for twelve months. They were
performing the same ceremony at every station along the river, and I
am told it is an annual custom."
Certain seasons of the year mark themselves naturally out as
appropriate moments for a general expulsion of devils. Such a moment
occurs towards the close of an Arctic winter, when the sun reappears
on the horizon after an absence of weeks or months.
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