body of the dead Bear is then laid on a mat before the sacred wands. A
sword and quiver, taken from the wands, are hung about the Bear. If it
is a She-Bear it is also bedecked with a necklace and rings. Food and
drink, millet broth and millet cakes are offered to it. It is decked as
an Aino, it is fed as an Aino. It is clear that the Bear is in some
sense a human Bear, an Aino. The men sit down on mats in front of the
Bear and offer libations, and themselves drink deep.

Now that the death is fairly over the mourning ends, and all is feasting
and merriment. Even the old women lament no more. Cakes of millet are
scrambled for. The bear is skinned and disembowelled, the trunk is
severed from the head, to which the skin is left hanging. The blood,
which might not be shed before, is now carefully collected in cups and
eagerly drunk by the men, for the blood is the life. The liver is cut up
and eaten raw. The flesh and the rest of the vitals are kept for the day
next but one, when it is divided among all persons present at the feast.
It is what the Greeks call a _dais_, a meal divided or distributed.
While the Bear is being dismembered the girls dance, in front of the
sacred wands, and the old women again lament. The Bear's brain is
extracted from his head and eaten, and the skull, severed from the skin,
is hung on a pole near the sacred wands. Thus it would seem the life and
strength of the bear is brought near to the living growth of the leaves.
The stick with which the Bear was gagged is also hung on the pole, and
with it the sword and quiver he had worn after his death. The whole
congregation, men and women, dance about this strange maypole, and a
great drinking bout, in which all men and women alike join, ends the
feast.

The rite varies as to detail in different places. Among the Gilyaks the
Bear is dressed after death in full Gilyak costume and seated on a