DCHP-1 Online
headlifting 
n. among certain Eskimo shamans, a method of divining the future by lifting the suppliant's head as if weighing it.
- 1922 [. . . she asked me to let her divine by lifting my head . . . Higilak slipped her belt round my head, and told me to close my eyes. Then they both questioned me, and Higilak lifted my head from time to time for the answers. The whole ceremony lasted perhaps a quarter of an hour.]
- 1956 Sometimes they [Eskimo] tried to foretell the future by a curious form of fortune telling, known as head-lifting.
- 1922 [. . . she asked me to let her divine by lifting my head . . . Higilak slipped her belt round my head, and told me to close my eyes. Then they both questioned me, and Higilak lifted my head from time to time for the answers. The whole ceremony lasted perhaps a quarter of an hour.]