river ice on Kazan River a little north of Hikoligjuaq during our stay there (P 28: 137; fig. 21 a). It is a piece of wood 25.7 cm long, originally having been used for something else, for one end is cut like a scarf-face, and there is also a nail hole. On one side of it there are three drilling sockets connected by grooves and on the other side two similarly connected sockets.
The pappus of cotton-grass is used as tinder and, like the wick Image missingFig. 18.Pâdlimiut women returning with a sledge-load of fuel to the camp at Eskimo Point, at a time when there was blubber in superabundance. moss, is kept in a bag [ikpe'ᴀrʒuk]. In the Thule collection from the Pâdlimiut at Hikoligjuaq there is a bag (P 28: 165) which is presumed to have been used for this purpose. It consists of a caribou calf's head with the hair side out; the nose is cut off and the neck sewn together. Length about 34 cm.
In the Caribou Eskimos' use of fire there is a fundamental difference from other Eskimos: the blubber lamp is hardly known at all, and even those who have one scarcely ever use it for cooking.[1] They cook over a fire instead. At Eskimo Point, at the very height of the sealing season when the whole camp was flowing in seal blubber, I have seen the women go far into the country to collect fuel on hill tops where there was no snow (fig. 18). Both Cassiope tetragona and Betula nana contain so much resin that they will burn while green;
- ↑ Cf. Gilder s. a.; 41. Boas 1907; 466.
