The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #124610   Message #2752833
Posted By: Jack Campin
26-Oct-09 - 07:24 AM
Thread Name: singaround protocol, Alaskan style
Subject: singaround protocol, Alaskan style
Something I noted years ago and forgot about:

[Dr. W.J. Hoffman, Bureau of Ethnology, Washington DC, quoting Victor Namoff on
a ceremonial dance of the Aiga-lukamut Eskimo of the southern coast of Alaska]

The participants, numbering about ten dozen, were entirely naked, and after being seated a short time several natives, detailed as musicians, began to sing. Then one of the natives arose, and performed the disgusting operation of urinating over the back and shoulders of the person seated next to him, after which he jumped down upon the ground, and began to dance, keeping time with the music. The one who had been subjected to the operation just mentioned, then subjected his nearest neighbour to a similar douche, and he in turn the next in order, and so on until the last person on the bench had been similarly dealt with, he in turn being obliged to accommodate the initiator of the movement, who ceases dancing for that purpose. In the meantime all those who have relieved themselves step down and join in the dance, which is furious and violent, inducing great perspiration and an intolerable stench. No additional information was given further than that the structure may have been used in this instance as a sudatory, the urine and violent movements being deemed sufficient to supply the participants with a sweat-bath.