Note 16 — Chapter XLVI · THE GILYAKS.

The day falls in January of each year, and an Englishman at Nikolaefsk, who had been an eye-witness of the spectacle, described it to me thus: “The bear is led from his cage, dragged along and beaten with sticks, and presented at every house in the village; thus he gets exasperated to a high degree. He is then led to the river to a hole in the ice, where they try to make him drink water, and from a platter to eat food, though only a spoonful, both of which in his excited state he refuses, and which is precisely what they desire. He is then dragged back with shouts to the place of sacrifice, where, having been fastened to a post and allowed to repose awhile, he is shot through the heart with an arrow.”