attempted to hunt them, because at that time there was still a little meat in the tents, and consequently a few days later we had nothing but the fat that is boiled out of old caribou hooves. One evening at this time two animals appeared on the sea ice, and a man who was reckoned to be a leader among his countrymen fired away his last cartridges at an absurd range with no chance at all of hitting the mark. The journey alone to the nearest trading post, where fresh cartridges could be bought, would take at least a week. A few days later when I left the camp, where food was still short, it turned out that there were crowds of caribou not a day's journey away. Even though their disinclination — this applies especially to the inland dwellers — to go out on long hunting trips is to some degree due to their bad footwear, as Knud Rasmussen points out,[1] this explanation is not sufficient.
So much the more remarkable is it that among these Eskimos there is a faint attempt at organising the hunt in order to prevent an all too heedless slaughtering of caribou, when the animals arrive in great numbers. In that case "the woman up there" [piɳ·a], will be angered, and she does not like to see food wasted by its being left to ravens and foxes. Therefore every part of the animal that is not used must be covered with stones so that "the woman" will not catch sight of it.
Having regard to the defective sense of economy among the Eskimos, even this cannot prevent famine setting in now and then; it would, however, be extremely unfair to place the whole of the blame upon them. The migration of the caribou is always incalculable, and, especially late in winter when the autumn caches have been emptied, a hunger period arrives almost every year, during which a larger or smaller number of people perish. The worst within living memory was that in 1919, when at least a hundred people died of starvation. It is in such cases that cannibalism may break out.[2]
The trading companies, in this area practically the Hudson's Bay Company alone, have now brought about a change in the economy of the Caribou Eskimos which, without being revolutionary as yet, has been of far-reaching significance. There has been a decided movement towards giving fox trapping a more prominent position, but fortunately without the result as yet having been as among the Aivilingmiut, who for a part of the year actually live more on tea and "flapjacks" than meat. Intensive fox trapping, without simultaneous
- ↑ Knud Rasmussen 1925–26; I 231.
- ↑ In a letter written Dec. 30, 1927, by a Hudson Bay friend. Mr. W. Douglas, who for the last three years has been a manager of the H. B. C. post at Baker Lake. he tells me: "The Padlimiut had a hard time again last year and but for the timely assistance of the post many would have perished. One girl in here at the moment lived for three months on the bodies of four people."
