The Caribou Eskimos/Part 1/Chapter 3

by Kaj Birket-Smith

III. Economic Life.

General Remarks.

The position of the means of subsistence as a whole as well as from a social and a religious point of view. In very few places in the world will the observer receive such a vivid and immediate impression of the fundamental importance of the means of subsistence to culture as among the Eskimos and, as all know, means of subsistence in this instance means hunting and fishing. It is as if the endless struggle to wrest the daily bread from a barren and merciless country has concentrated every thought upon food and how it is to be procured to a degree only equalled by the hard struggle against the cold. If the conversation of the Eskimos does not turn upon new winter clothing, it is usually about the hunt and the contents of the meat caches. The sense for the purely expedient, without any tribute to considerations of æsthetics, which almost wholly stamps the material culture of the Central Eskimos, must presumably to some extent be regarded in the light of their unusually hard struggle for existence.

The worst enemy of the Caribou Eskimos in this struggle is the barrenness of the country itself. The vegetation is no positive obstacle to them, and really noxious animals are few. Originally, the wolverine. and wolf were hunted mostly in order to exterminate them, but now for the purpose of selling the skins to the whites as well. The poverty of the country has taught the Eskimos to treat food with respect; it must not be wasted (see p. 101) and there are many religious, and especially magical, precepts for ensuring good hunting. For instance, widows and women who have lost small children must not look at any game or mention it by name for a whole year, but only by circumlocution. When a caribou has been shot, the hunter must place a small piece of meat and fat under a stone close by as an offering to the soul of the animal. When later on the caribou is brought into the camp the hunter's wife (?) must touch it with her hand, a similar greeting to that used towards visitors (communicated by Mgr. Turquetil). I have seen the same thing done in the case of a bearded seal. If the seal brought home is a fjord seal, she must pour a little fresh water over its nose and belly as a drink for its soul; for as seals live in salt water they are supposed to suffer from thirst.

The caribou is the all-important hunting topic among these Eskimos, as Gilder has already expressed it: "The principal diet of the Kinnepatoos is deer meat, as that of the Iwilliehs is walrus and seal".^[1] Other mammals are only of subordinate importance beside the caribou. The musk-ox is the only game that is held almost equally high in the regard of the Eskimos, without, however, attaining the same rank in their economic life, and now the hunting of this animal is strictly forbidden by the Canadian Government. Fishing plays this great rôle, that it is always — but especially in winter — the occupation to which the Eskimos resort if the caribou fail them, and furthermore the spoils of the autumn fishing form a not insignificant part of the winter supplies. Bird hunting is only of importance in spring, before the caribou migration begins and lack of food often prevails. There is so little gathering of berries that it may almost be disregarded.

Religion plays no part in the selection of game. There is no game which it is forbidden to kill; but there may be animals which, owing to the season or their nature, require the observance of a number of rules. Thus the killing of an albino caribou demands that the hunter must not work again for five days; when hunting the musk-ox, no one may scrape caribou skin or work with iron, and as long as seal is being caught at the coast, no one may work wood from the interior, whereas shop wood is exempt from this taboo. There are likewise innumerable temporary and individual prohibitions against eating; but they do not affect the hunting of animals. Ethical considerations seem, more or less consciously, to have their effect upon man and dog. There may be cannibalism in case of a famine, but later on it demands that the perpetrator observes a number of special laws. No one will kill a dog, let alone eat it, as for instance the Greenlanders and many other polar tribes do. On the other hand religious considerations may make the Eskimos hunt animals which otherwise they would not think of killing, viz. when they are to be used for amulets. Small birds, and even flies and mosquitos, are used in this manner.

These remarks regarding game apply first and foremost to the inland groups; but the scene does not change much if we go to the coast population. Even among these the hunting of aquatic mammals is restricted to a degree that is not found among any other branch of the Eskimo stock. In the first place this coast population, as has already been stated, is only down by the coast for two months of the year, and secondly, whales are never hunted, not even the white whale. The walrus, bearded seal and fjord seal are hunted; but if there is caribou meat in the camp most of the Eskimos will use the seal meat for dog feed. The Coast Pâdlimiut do not even use the blubber, as I have said. The meat of aquatic mammals is never eaten in a state of putrefaction as among other Eskimos, and as the Caribou Eskimos themselves often eat caribou meat. Neither seaweed nor mussels are gathered, no more than anybody eats the mussels found in the stomach of the walrus, although they form a refreshing, sourish dish which, for instance, the Polar Eskimos relish greatly.

The evidence of history apparently disputes the small rôle that is here ascribed to the hunting of aquatic mammals; for we know that when Knight's shipwrecked expedition wintered on Marble Island in 1720, Eskimos who lived at the same place sold whale blubber to the crew,^[2] and later in the eighteenth century the H. B. C. traded from Churchill with the Eskimos on the southwest coast of Hudson Bay and bought up baleen as well as whale oil, walrus ivory and seal skins.^[3] This may mean that the Eskimos were intermediaries between the Company and the more northerly coast tribes, especially the Aivilingmiut. But on the other hand it is also recorded that many whales were caught in the region round Whale Cove,^[4] within what is now the territory of the Hauneqtôrmiut, and Hearne mentions harpoon floats of sealskin for whaling.^[5] It is incontestible that the Caribou Eskimos neither know nor have the faintest tradition of having hunted whales, and this latter means much among a people who so faithfully preserve their memories as the Eskimos do. The facts stated regarding a former extensive sea mammal hunting in these regions are rather fragments of evidence among many of a tribal displacement to which we shall revert later.

Every grown man has a right and a duty to the community to hunt, and, from a social point of view, there is no restriction in this blending of right and duty. At times, however, considerations of religion intervene. These may both affect the whole camp — the highest social unit — and the single individual. The former is the case for instance after a propitiating of the spirits, when no one, at any rate among the coast group, may go hunting.^[6] The latter applies for instance every time a death puts a check upon the activities of the relatives.

As the most primitive economic phase Karl Bücher has set up "die individuelle Nahrungssuche",^[7] i. e., every individual looks after himself without troubling about the welfare of his fellow creatures. Schurtz utters a doubt about this hypothesis, principally having regard to the fact that man at any rate never stands isolated in relation to his forefathers; they and he together form what the writer calls a Dauergruppe, and the descendants build upon the experience of the ancestors.^[8] It will not be discussed here as to whether this view — however correct it may be in itself — actually demolishes Bücher's opinion, which only seems to deal with the existing generation, and not with society through the ages. But even without regard to the criticism quoted, the hypothesis is doubtful enough.

Even among such a primitive people as the Caribou Eskimo the family, and not the individual, is the smallest economic unit. "Etres trop jeunes dont les ascendants doivent entretenir la vie, êtres trop vieux qui ne peuvent plus s'assurer par eux-mêmes les ressources vitales, dépendent pour leur vie même — nourriture, abri, vêtement — du travail des adultes".^[9] Despite infanticide and the killing of the aged, it is hardly probable that it has ever been otherwise, and infanticide at any rate, which is so strongly opposed to the parental instinct,^[10] is hardly any primitive feature. What is more, the settlement in certain respects appears as a still bigger economic unit than the family. Doubtless it cannot be denied that most hunting methods are individual; this even applies to a certain degree to the important caribou hunt at the crossing places over the rivers and lakes, in contrast to the effective organisation of this hunting by the Chipewyan. But on the other hand there are hunting methods which are in fact based upon the cooperation of several persons, for instance caribou hunting by means of deer fences. It might be objected that this cooperation is not very prominent, nor is it a duty. It is true that it does not play any particularly prominent part (although the introduction of firearms has contributed towards this), and, significantly enough, working songs — "shanties" — which lighten rhythmic, joint labour,^[11] seem to be unknown among these Eskimos; but cooperative work is there all the same. That it is not what we call a duty is correct, in so far as no duties are definitely formulated. Society as such cannot even compel any one to fend for himself or to observe the religious laws. But cooperation is nevertheless as good a duty as any of those that are based upon the ingrown fear of the Eskimos of offending public opinion.

Now of course we are not going to enter upon an investigation of the earliest means of subsistence of man. If we are to entertain any hope of arriving at a rational conclusion in this question, we must not rest content to start with an assembly of presumably primitive features of all kinds of races as Bücher did, or upon pure and simple speculation like Vodskov, when in the remarkable introduction to his Sjæledyrkelse og Naturdyrkelse, in which the acumen of genius and dazzling rhetoric are coupled with an almost blind onesidedness of view, he characterised our earliest ancestors as "collectors in the strictest sense of the word".^[12] We must first of all examine the conditions governing the means of subsistence among the most primitive tribes we know in present and past.^[13] But what must be particularly emphasised is that in a matter like this, which goes right back to the genesis of man, it is not enough to go to work historically. Even at the most primitive stage of culture imaginable, it will scarcely be above the horizon of a human pack to hunt in company, for instance by driving the animals over a cliff. The only requirement is that there is such a pack, and therefore it is about this that the problem turns. But then we are brought beyond the boundaries of ethnography and archæology and within those of anatomy and psychology. If it may be shown that primeval man used to live in packs — a supposition no doubt supported by the importance of the deeply rooted gregarious instinct^[14] — then the supposition of hunting in company even at this early stage cannot be dismissed.

This digression has taken us far from the Eskimos, but it was necessary in order to put the methods of gaining a livelihood in their proper light. It was stated that the unwritten law upon which economic cooperation was based was the mightiest of them all, viz. the fear of public opinion. Behind this fear lies a sound social instinct, which I would be the last to fail to appreciate; but, in addition, there is much primitive, mental inertia,^[15] which is doubly striking having regard to the undoubted intelligence of the Eskimos and their ability to uncomplainingly stand physical strain. From an economic point of view it results in a shyness of asserting self and a lack of ability to make a decision, which can only have a repressing effect upon economic life.

The Caribou Eskimos are very bad economists who, despite their storing of winter supplies, have an innate inclination to let tomorrow look after itself. The Pâdlimiut are considered by the H. B. C. people as being the best fox trappers, and they are therefore much more well-to-do than the Aivilingmiut; it is no rare occurrence that a man buys a whole chest of tea (60 lbs) or a whole sack of flour (98 lbs). But they go into debt willingly — which it is true they conscientiously pay off, in contrast to the Indians — and what they own they squander with incredible recklessness. They are incorrigible gamblers and their stakes are both fox skins and guns. I know a Qaernermio, a prominent man in every way, who sometimes, in the genuine grand seigneur manner, puts up a fox skin for the winner without taking part in the game himself. A poverty-striken Harvaqtôrmio gambled his only rifle away; it is true that for this his fatherin-law took his wife from him, but it made no great impression on the sinner. Without blinking they lose and forget the things that are valuable to them,^[16] and they buy many things for which they have not the slightest use when they catch their eye. There is a man who is the proud possessor of a harmonium which of course he can neither play nor carry about with him and which has therefore never come outside the custody of the H. B. C. In such cases the white traders have a responsibility towards the Eskimos of which they are by no means always conscious.

It may be objected that these cases concern foreign values which the Eskimos do not understand. But conditions are not much better in matters which, in the strictest sense, concern their life and welfare. In a Pâdlimiut camp at Hikoligjuaq it was announced one morning that there were caribou behind a hill close by; but no one 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,^[17] 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.^[18]

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 production of meat and skins for clothing, would be a curse to the Eskimos, and the sooner the H. B. C. realise that by encouraging such an artificial state of affairs they are in reality destroying their own prospects, the better it will be for all parties. Mathiassen has described the fatal consequences of the competition of unscrupulous companies among the primitive natives at Ponds Inlet.^[19] During my sojourn in the country the H. B. C. practically had a monopoly, and justice demands the admission that conditions such as those mentioned in Baffin Land are unknown here; but it is no use closing one's eyes to the circumstance that a de facto monopoly in the hands of such an unsentimental trust as the H. B. C. always contains a danger to a helpless handful of people such as the Caribou Eskimos.

Summary of hunting implements. If we compare the number and character of the hunting implements among the Eskimos in Alaska and Greenland with those of the Caribou Eskimos, we cannot refrain from noticing how few and primitive are the latter's means of procuring food. They may be set up in the following table in connection with Mason's system:^[20]

1. Implements for striking (sling, bola).
2. Implements for cutting (hunting knives).
3. Implements for piercing (bow and arrow, dagger, lance, bird dart).
4. Implements for seizure (toggle harpoon, barbed harpoon, leister, fish hook).
5. Entangling apparatus (net, snare).
6. Traps of various kinds, pit-falls, caribou fences and weirs.

To these must be added some few implements used indirectly in hunting such as trout needle, drag, breathing hole searcher, seal indicator and wound plug.

Hunting of Land Animals.

Bow and arrow. The bow and arrow were the weapons which were formerly in most extensive use in the different forms of the hunting of land animals. The rifle is always used against bigger game nowadays. Even high-power rifles are now on sale at the trading posts: fortunately, however, they are too expensive to have come into general use. Shot guns are hardly ever used, because there is so little bird hunting, but sometimes .22 rifles are used for grouse-shooting.

Although there was said to be an old Qaernermio living who had used bow and arrow for caribou hunting, and although these weapons are still used by the Netsilik tribes, it was impossible to obtain concordant information about the bow [pitikxe], and the specimens which Boas describes from the west coast of Hudson Bay^[21] do not seem to have come from the Caribou Eskimos at any rate. The stave was of one, two or three pieces of wood, possibly also of antler or musk-ox horn, with no special ears as on one of the bows which Boas described. Baleen bows have scarcely been used. The bow always seems to have had a simple curve. This was expressly emphasised both by a Qaernermio and a Pâdlimio. Another man of the latter tribe asserted, it is true, that there were also bows with a double curve and with reflex wings; but much of his information seems not particularly reliable. The slender bows that are still made for grouse shooting always have the simple curve.

The stave was reinforced with a backing of plaited sinew thong, forming a single layer, held to the stave by means of half-hitches, the so-called "secondary eastern" type. Only this feature of the several half-hitches separates it from the primary eastern type which Murdoch justly regards as the most primitive of all Eskimo forms of reinforcement.^[22] The form which I have called the primary arctic.^[23] on which the reinforcement consists of two layers, does not seem to have ever been used here, whereas on the contrary it is in general use at the Northwest Passage and formerly was found in Greenland. It is uncertain whether the thongs of the backing were ever twisted into stronger cables; at any rate marline spikes and sinew twisters are quite unknown. Under the sinew backing a thin strip of antler or, at the coast, baleen (?) was sometimes inserted.

The modern bows that are used for ptarmigan shooting are slender in both stave and backing, but may be quite long. A bow stave of one piece of wood, from the Pâdlimiut at Eskimo Point, measures 132.5 cm, although the wood has warped badly. From the Harvaqtôrmiut at lower Kazan River there is a bow (P 28: 80; fig. 36 c) of which the simply bent stave consists of two pieces of wood scarfed together, joined on the belly side with a block, 19 cm long, fastened on with nails. At the nocks a notch has been cut in each edge, making a sharp shoulder, on which the backing and the string rest, a short, narrow neck and a sharply outlined head. The back of the bow is slightly more rounded than the belly. The sinew backing is of the secondary eastern type, fastened on with ten half-hitches. The string is of sinew thong. Length 110 cm.

From the Pâdlimiut at Eqalulingnaoq, south of Hikoligjuaq, there is another grouse bow (P 28: 82; fig. 28 b), consisting of two pieces of antler joined at the middle with a scarf-block of the same material. This is chamfered at both ends and placed on the flat belly of the bow, where it is held by six nails. On the rounded back is a small mount of tin. The bow has no backing and, in contrast to what is usual on Eskimo bows, the string, which is of babiche, is led through holes at the nocks instead of being turned round notches. Length 83.5 cm.

The arrow, singular [qᴀqʒɔq], had a shaft of one or more pieces of wood and a head [natqɔq] of antler or leg-bone, which is harder Image missingFig. 22.Archers at Chesterfield Inlet. and sharper than antler. Originally, stone heads were also used. Bone heads without barbs seem to have been the most common by far, and doubtless the only kind used inland; at the coast, however, heads with barbs along one or both sides have been in use. At the rear end the arrow head was worked into a conical tang, but without the projections which on some Eskimo arrows serve to hold the head on. In reality the hunter wanted the arrow head to break off in the wound, and the Eskimos assert that, even if it was not furnished with barbs, it would work itself further and further in with the movements of the animal. But really "automatic arrow heads", which are mentioned from many Eskimos, are not known.

At the rear end the arrow shaft was slightly flattened and had a simply shaped slit for the bow-string. It was also as a rule furnished with feathering [huluk], actually meaning wings. The number of feathers apparently varied. The Qaernermiut and the Inland Pâdlimiut mentioned two or four feathers, the Coast Pádlimiut three or four. If two feathers were used, they were whole and fixed tangentially, whereas the three or four feathers were split down their length and fixed radially. There is some disagreement as to whether the tips of the feathers were pinched into a slit in the arrow shaft, as among certain Eskimo tribes; but at any rate no feather-setter for the purpose is known, and simple tying on is therefore probable. The tying on was performed in this manner: the distal end of the feather shaft was scraped clean of vanes and lashed firmly near the nock of the arrow shaft, so that the tip pointed to the front. The feather was then bent up along the arrow shaft and its proximal end lashed on. Sinew thread was used for lashing.

In the collection there is an old arrow head (P 20: 67) which probably originates from the Pâdlimiut. It was found in an old house at Churchill, where it had apparently been forgotten by the Eskimos. It has a triangular, rather blunt, copper point which is rivetted into the slit of a bone stem. This has two unilateral, close barbs, formed by slitting up the bone stem, and at the base is broken, but seems to have had a conical tang. Point 2.4 by 1.9 cm; total length 18.5 cm. Three arrows (P 28: 81a–c) belong to the above grouse bow from the Harvaqtôrmiut. One has a head made of a nail flattened out at the fore end, fitted into a wooden shaft of two pieces scarfed together; the shaft is shaved off at the rear end and provided with an approximately rectangular nock parallel to the head. At the fore end and at the scarf the shaft is whipped with sinew thong. There is no feathering. The free part of the head measures 10.3 cm, the shaft 57.4 cm. The other arrows are very similar but have shafts made of one piece of wood. Total length 65 cm and 60.2 cm respectively.

Wood for arrow shafts was laid in warm water and straightened with an arrow straightener [nalrɔrqɔq]. Boas describes one of these from the Barren Grounds, but without indicating the tribe.^[24] Another specimen (P 28: 214; fig. 23) was made by a Qaernermio. It is a piece of antler 17 cm long, in which, close to the fore end, is a hole 1 cm wide and, slightly behind this, a notch 0.5 cm wide.

Bow and arrows were kept in a quiver [qᴀqʒut-po·ɳa], really arrow-container, sewn out of short-haired or unhaired caribou skin with one case for the arrows and another for the bow, the sinew backing on which had to be protected against damp. It had a handle of one or two pieces of bone, and loose arrow heads and feathers were kept in a bag attached to it.

As among other Eskimos, the so-called "mediterranean" arrow release is used, the rear end of the arrow being held between fore and middle fingers, which at the same time stretch the bow-string. No bracer is used, as the left hand is sufficiently protected by the mitten. Sometimes a short finger glove is worn on the right hand.

Caribou hunting. The caribou is to such a degree the principal animal hunted that its presence determines the situation of the camps at the various times of the year. When the caribou do not appear in enormous herds, numbering thousands, they are very shy. Their sense of hearing and smell is extremely keen and they almost always move up against the wind so that it is difficult to come to close quarters with them. On the other hand their sight is none too good and, if nothing scares them, an unusual object will at times Image missingFig. 23.Arrow straightener. so excite their curiosity that they come quite close to it. "Very often", Hanbury says, "deer in the Northland behave like mad animals",^[25] thereby stating a fact of which most travellers in these regions know more than one example. As a rule the animals are quite harmless; but it may happen during rutting time that a bull will become aggressive.^[26]

To a certain extent the migration of the caribou is always incalculable; but there are some places at the rivers where they prefer to swim over. These crossing places are of vital importance to the Eskimos. The following are named from the district around Baker Lake: Morjunitjuaq at the outlet of the lake to Chesterfield Inlet;^[27] Kangerjuaq, a few kilometres west of the lake at Dubawnt River; and Nahiktartorvik, Qiqertaligjuaq and Perqeq at the west-east stretch of Kazan River below Hikoligjuaq. At the outlet of the same river from this lake is the crossing-place Aulatsivik and, a little further down, Tuglerutik. Between lower Kazan River and the coast there are crossing-places at Hauneqtôq above Mistake Bay, and at Pâdlitjuaq. East of Hikoligjuaq the following crossing-places are mentioned: Ikertôq on Maguse River, Morjunitjuaq, Tuglerutik, Kûmngerudluk and Nunarjuaq. South of the big lake mentioned there are crossing places at Morjunitjuaq, Hangunganeq, Aulajugaq, Ulâjuktalik and the more westerly Hakutjuaq, Arqamatnâq and Ikpiarjuk. J. B. Tyrrell also mentions a crossing-place north of Ennadai Lake, and Hanbury another between Aberdeen and Schultz Lake.^[28]

It is not to be denied that the introduction of the rifle and binocular have lightened the work of the caribou hunter; whether this is a permanent advantage is, on the other hand, another question. These foreign inventions have also served to make individual hunting more prominent than was previously the case; a number of primitive hunting methods are, however, still known and for the most part used.^[29]

Individual hunting has never been neglected. When moving about the country anybody may catch sight of caribou and, when this happens — for instance in the case of a family on a journey — it always means that a halt is called and the man tries his luck, if conditions otherwise are favourable. With his wide knowledge of the habits of the animal, combined with an ability, based upon years of experience, to judge the weather, the topography of the land and the grazing possibilities, the Eskimo can often with astonishing certainty decide how he will approach the herd. This was in fact a necessity at the time when they hunted with the bow and arrow. This is abundantly proved by the shooting tests carried out by Knud Rasmussen among the Netsilingmiut. Although the arrow lost none of its killing power at longer ranges, it was always more or less a matter of chance when it hit the target at a range of more than 20 m.^[30] Lyon also says about the Aivilingmiut and Iglulingmiut that they were only twelve paces from the caribou when they shot.^[31] In winter, when the snow is driving thickly and the animals stand quietly, is the best time for stealing close up to them.

Some other methods are less based upon stalking the animals than upon attracting them towards the hunter. In mating time, when the bulls fight, the hunter sometimes carries above his head a pair of antlers and at the same time imitates the grunting of the animals [ɔ̃ʀ·ɔʀ] or [öʀ·öʀ·].^[32] The bull then believes he has a rival before him and comes nearer, just as when the Chipewyan entice the caribou bull towards them by carrying at their belts some cut pieces of antler, the rattling of which resembles the sound of fighting animals. Another method of attracting the caribou requires two men to carry it out. They walk one behind the other and apparently without noticing the animals, who then often follow at some distance. When an opportunity offers, one of the hunters conceals himself, while the other continues on his way. The animals then often come close up to the ambush without taking alarm.

Before the whole country is covered with snow a third method can also be used to entice the animals on, a cairn of snow [inugʒugᴀq] being built, for the caribou is very curious about white things and therefore comes close to the cairn. In connection with this pitfalls are used. Of these there are two kinds. One [ᴇqxitᴀq] is used when the snow is not yet deep. Hanbury describes one of these in the following Image missingFig. 24.Bone dagger and bell. words: "In a deep snow drift they dig an oblong pit about six feet deep and then with blocks of snow build up walls about four feet high, so that for the deer there is a fall about ten feet. An easy slope leads up to the very thin roof of snow, and the structure has a natural appearance. Deer, however, must be numerous for a fair chance of success, and the pitfalls must be closely watched".^[33] The other kind of pitfall [qakxitᴀq] is dug in the snow and covered with faggots and a thin layer of moss. Snow or reindeer moss moistened with urine is used as bait for the caribou, who are eager to lick it up on account of the salt in it. Up to three animals can be taken in the pitfall in this manner.

For the purpose of giving the trapped animals the coup de grace a bone dagger [ipo], actually: shaft, is used. A specimen made by a Pâdlimio at Eskimo Point is of antler, at the fore end flat and lanceolate, at the rear round with a knob in which is a thong-hole; length 22.8 cm, of which the blade measures 7.5 cm. This dagger is worn suspended at the back of the belt (P 28: 249), as will be seen from fig. 24. Jenness writes that the inland dwellers between Bathurst Inlet and Hudson Bay dig pitfalls for caribou and place a knife erect in the bottom of them.^[34] Among the Caribou Eskimos the knife is only thus placed when the quarry is the wolf.

Finally, there are methods aiming at scaring the animals towards a certain place, where they become an easy prey to the hunters. As a rule the endeavour is to chase them into the water, where they are Image missingFig. 25.
Caribou lances. pursued with the kayak and struck down with lances. All these methods require a cooperation between hunters and "beaters", but no real organisation of the hunt itself is known. The caribou swims well and rapidly and it may happen that it defends itself and causes the upsetting of the kayak. Caribou hunting from the kayak naturally belongs to the autumn, when rivers and lakes have open water. At this time of the year it is especially the cows and calves which move southwards and fall victims to this hunting.^[35] Although strictly speaking the kayak is thus a hunting implement, it will be described in a later chapter.

The caribou lance [kapu·raujᴀq] always has a fixed foreshaft with a point that nowadays is of iron. The foreshaft is as a rule of antler, but may also be of iron, made in one piece with the point. In order to prevent its being lost if the weapon should break, it may be tied to the shaft by means of a sinew thong. The shaft is of wood, rectangular in section with rounded edges. All in all the caribou lance is a light and elegant weapon which is never thrown but is thrust into the swimming animal with a quick movement and withdrawn just as quickly. From Baffin Land Boas describes a loose lance point for use when hunting swimming caribou, and the same thing is mentioned from the Qaernermiut.^[36] This employment is not known, however, west of Hudson Bay, nor in West Greenland where the same loose lance points occur.^[37] Wherever I enquired I received the reply that these points are never used for caribou hunting, and indeed among the Inland Eskimos I have only seen one single specimen, apparently an accidental occurrence (among the Harvaqtôrmiut). On the other hand it belongs to the coast for walrus hunting.

A typical caribou lance (P 28: 79; fig. 25 a) from the Pâdlimiut at Hikoligjuaq has a rhomboid-elliptical iron point nailed to a foreshaft of two pieces of antler. At the rear between these the wedge-shaped end of the wooden shaft is inserted, and around the joint a thong of babiche is lashed, the one end of which is passed through a hole in the rearmost part of the foreshaft. The shaft consists of three pieces scarfed together and held by wooden nails. At the butt of the shaft there is a narrow lashing of babiche. Total length 206 cm, of which the point measures 12 cm and the foreshaft 33.3 cm. Another lance (P 28: 123 c; fig. 25 b) from the Harvaqtôrmiut at the lower Kazan River has a similar point, which is joined to the foreshaft by two iron mountings. There is no lashing. The shaft is scarfed together of two pieces. Total length 180 cm. From the same tribe comes a third lance (P 28: 123 d; fig. 25 c), the foreshaft of which is fixed to the shaft by means of two bone mountings. To prevent the foreshaft and point from becoming lost, a sinew thong is first passed through a hole in the fore part of the shaft, then through two holes in the mounting and two in the foreshaft, ending with a lashing. The shaft is of one piece of wood. Total length 177.5 cm.

In former times, but scarcely nowadays, it was the custom before the ice had become firm in the autumn to chase the caribou out on to a naze and from there on to the thin ice. As this broke under their weight, they became an easy prey to the hunters. This method is called [uɳɔriᴀq]. In order to get the animals out into the water in summer, when they are particularly shy on account of the mosquitos, one or two men each take a wolf-skin, behind which they hide and which they move up and down. The caribou then believe that they are being pursued by wolves and flee out into the water, where the hunters lie concealed with their kayaks.

Image missing

Fig. 26.Stone cairns on the northern shore of Hikoligjuaq, intended to lead migrating caribou to the crossing place at Kazan River, a short distance to the right of the picture. (Sketch by the author).

In the autumn the Eskimos take advantage of the migration of the caribou, and these autumn hunts are the most important of the whole year, both on account of the vast numbers of the animals and the quality of the skins. For this purpose converging lines of small stone cairns, several kilometres long, are built up, three or four stones being piled one on top of the other. On the top of the cairns are placed grass sods with the black soil upwards. Women and children make their way behind the herd and frighten it with waving coats and wolf-howls in between the rows, which are so placed that the animals, on coming over a ridge, suddenly find themselves between them. They then think that the cairns are men and the sods their heads — hence their name: [niaquc·ät] — and dare not break their way through them but helplessly move along them to the place where the hunters are awaiting them with bow and arrow or, if the rows end at a lake, with kayaks and lances. This method is well described by Stefánsson, presumably on the basis of observations among the Copper Eskimos.^[38]

A single row is also used — and apparently more frequently — instead of the two converging rows. Between the stones wooden sticks are set up with gull skins [aulᴀrqajikxät], tied to them; their flapping makes the caribou believe that they are wolves (sic!). When the women drive the herd towards the row of stones, the animals move along by it and to the water where the hunters are lying in ambush. A big herd of caribou that has been driven into the water is called [imᴀ·rtut] and the hunters [upäktut]. At Morelrorjuaq, north of Hikoligjuaq, a short row of stone cairns has been erected on the rocky ridge just above the lake, and from a distance it is surprisingly like human beings (fig. 26). The intention is to prevent herds of caribou coming from the north from going into the lake itself, where they can spread out and are difficult to hunt, whereas the row leads them down to the crossing-place in Kazan River just by its outlet from the lake. From the waving skins that are used this place is called Aulatsivik.^[39]

From the east end of Aberdeen Lake J. W. Tyrrell mentions stone rows for caribou hunting.^[40] As a matter of fact they are spread over the whole country, wherefore a record of them all is impossible.

Caribou snares such as those among the Eskimos in Alaska, who have apparently learned the use of them from the Indians, are not known.

Musk-ox hunting. The ordinary form of musk-ox hunting among the Caribou Eskimos as among their kinsmen is to set the dogs upon the herd and, when the animals then form a square, they are at the mercy of the hunters who kill them with the lance or arrow. Knives, probably fastened to wooden sticks, are also used in this hunting.^[41] According to the North-West Game Act, the musk-ox is now a strictly preserved animal except in case of famine, and the Eskimos, who are aware of this through the H. B. C. people and the R. C. M. P., seem to respect the order. As the skins cannot be sold, the musk-ox is not of much importance anyhow, for they are not suitable for clothing, and imported guns and enamel ware have made the use of the horn for bows and soup ladles superfluous.

Formerly, when there were no restrictions, and when the muskox was common all over the country, hunting them was a regular phase in the life of the people. There does not seem to have been any definite season for hunting them, for the musk-ox never wanders far. On the other hand it is to be supposed that the end of winter, when caribou meat was scarce, was especially the time for this hunting.

Furred animals. Polar bear, wolves, wolverines, foxes and ermines are of most importance on account of their skins, which are sold at the trading posts. The Eskimos do not use them much and not for anything on which they cannot be substituted by other skins, except in such cases where they act as amulets. Neither does their meat play any part whatever, although bear meat at any rate is a palatable food. At Chesterfield Inlet Knud Rasmussen was present, when the meat of two bears was left to the foxes and gulls because there was sufficient food in the camp.^[42] This would be inconceivable in Greenland, where bear meat is a festive dish.

Besides, polar bears are only very rarely met with in the Caribou Eskimo area. They never go up country, nor do they come ashore on the southwest coast of Hudson Bay. It is always by chance if a man gets a bear, and presumably no more than two or three are shot on an average in the course of a year. Although I know of no case with certainty, it is probable that now and then the Eskimos are fortunate enough to shoot a wayfaring brown bear. Bear traps are not known.

Nowadays wolves are almost always shot; pitfalls of snow are known, however, and at the bottom a knife is fixed with the point upwards. From the Pâdlimiut there is an instance of a rifle having been set as a spring-gun.^[43] Whereas some of the Qaernermiut thought that in former days they had wolf traps of stone of a similar box type to the fox traps, most of the Caribou Eskimos maintained that wolf traps were not used. Another method which seems to have been more generally used was that of setting a knife, entirely covered with blood, in the snow so that only the edge protruded. As the wolf licked up the blood he cut his tongue, but continued, egged on by the smell and taste, until he bled to death. They did not, however, use wolf-killers of baleen, rolled up and enveloped in blubber and then laid where the wolf could find it, to spring open and tear the animal's stomach when it was swallowed and the blubber had melted.

Wolverines are shot or caught in steel traps. Formerly the Caribou Eskimos are said to have used traps of the same principal as fox traps. Ermines are as a rule merely killed with stones.

The fox is beyond comparison the furred animal that means most to the Eskimo. It is common everywhere and in great demand at the trading posts, in fact forms the basis of their existence in these regions. It is the fox which enables the Eskimo to procure the luxuries of civilisation, and there is undoubtedly a tendency — supported, unfortunately, by shortsighted traders — to attach more importance to fox-trapping than is good for a population which, as far as can be seen now, cannot in future ignore caribou hunting as the real foundation of its existence.

Fox trapping is now so organised that the Eskimos can obtain modern steel traps at the posts and, if necessary, a whole outfit of food, etc. on credit, so that they are enabled to do some effective trapping. The Pâdlimiut are regarded as being the best trappers west of Hudson Bay. In accordance with the North-West Game Act, trapping goes on from November 15th till April 1st. The traps are set over wide areas and, for instance round the meat caches, they are so close together that travellers are wise to keep their dogs at a respectable distance. The trap is fastened down with a small chain and placed in a hollow in the snow. Over it is laid a very thin slab of snow, which is made firm with snow under the sides. It is quite an art to set a trap so that the fox does not get suspicious.

The original fox trap [pudlät] was on the usual principle among Eskimos: a small chamber built of stones, the door of which, consisting of a flat stone, was tied to the bait. When this was touched, the door fell and shut the fox in. Another kind was a dead-fall, the ceiling of which was made of a heavy stone in an oblique position, one end resting upon another stone set vertically. When the fox touched the bait, this latter stone overturned and the roof-stone crushed the animal. Small pitfalls for foxes are hewn in the ice. Some Qaernermiut also told me that formerly they had had tower traps: round, fairly high stone erections, from the interior of which the fox could not escape after having fallen through the hole in the top. I have seen several old tower traps at Roe's Welcome and further north, but never within the actual area of the Caribou Eskimos. On J. B. Tyrrell's map, however, there is on the north side of Baker Lake a "stone tower" which can hardly be anything else than a tower trap. Now they are never used either by the Caribou Eskimos or by other tribes at Hudson Bay.

Hunting small rodents. Hares are not particularly common on the Barren Grounds, even though they are by no means rare, and, as the Eskimos set no great value upon their meat, they are not hunted much. They may be hunted with the bow and arrow or with the .22 rifle. In former times the Eskimos seem to have used snares. stretched between stones.

Marmots are now and then caught in the same manner. The snare is an ordinary noose of plaited sinew thong, like a bird snare. It sometimes happens, too, that a marmot is taken in a fox trap. Neither hare nor marmot skins are now put to any use, but have probably been used for clothing in former days.

Bird hunting. The Caribou Eskimos do not take nearly so many birds as the Greenlanders and many other Eskimos. Very often it is the half-grown boys who hunt the birds, because this does not require special ability or strength. Only the great flocks of ptarmigan which make their appearance in spring, at a time when other food is scarce, have any real importance to Eskimo life. They are still shot with the bow and arrow as in olden times, but occasionally they are simply knocked over with a stone.

Geese, eider-ducks, gulls and other sea-fowl are also hunted, it is true, but not on any particularly large scale. It would seem, however, that this hunting has fallen off since the kayak ceased to be used for the hunting of aquatic mammals at the coast, while simultaneously its employment inland in caribou hunting has been limited by the introduction of the gun. The most simple form of sea-fowl hunting, which I have seen for instance at Kazan River when the Hutchin's goose was the quarry, takes place in moulting time. The object of the hunter in his kayak or canoe is to scare the bird to keep on diving until at last it is so exhausted that it can be taken with the hands. If it gets away on shore, an active man can run it down and catch it. On the other hand, converging rows of stones for hunting moulting birds are not used here.

The bird-dart [nu iᴀqpäk], the common Eskimo hunting implement for sea-fowl, was used at the coast as long as the sea kayak was in use. A very old Harvaqtôrmio from Nahiktatorvik, on the lower Kazan, told me that in his youth they played (?) in the interior with a sort of very slender spear which had the same name as the bird-dart at the coast. This seems to indicate that this weapon, too, was originally used inland, where in reality there is ample opportunity Image missingFig. 27.Bird snare. of using it on the rivers and lakes; and from West Greenland there are examples showing that the bird-dart may fall into disuse despite an aboundant bird life. The bird-dart of the Inland Eskimos had two points, but no side prongs further down the shaft, and it was thrown by means of a throwing board. "Small harpoons" are also mentioned for bird hunting,^[44] but it has not been possible to obtain any further information about these now vanished weapons. Small toggle harpoons, which are presumed to have been used in bird hunting, are known from the Thule culture;^[45] but whether the Caribou Eskimos have meant these is very doubtful. They have rather been small barbed harpoons like those for fishing, the boundary between implements for bird hunting and for fishing being on the whole very blurred.^[46]

The gull hook seems to have been used by the Qaernermiut, possibly by other coast groups too, although there is no unanimous opinion on this point. It consisted of a short piece of bone sharpened at both ends and embedded in blubber. The hook was fastened to a stone by a long line.

Snares are still used at the coast. They are not as in Greenland suspended on a line stretched between two sticks, but are laid horizontally upon two stones near the nest, with one end tied to a third Image missingFig. 28.Bola (a) and ptarmigan bow (b). stone. The intention is that the bird should step into the noose and draw it tight. A snare for eider ducks (P 28: 84; fig. 27), from the Pâdlimiut at Eskimo Point, consists of a four-ply line of plaited sinew-thread, with a loop at one end; with this a running noose is made. Total length of line about 622 cm.

A bola is also used at the coast, although it now seems so rare that when the inland tribes spoke of Eskimos who used the bola, they never mentioned the coast dwellers at Hudson Bay but the people at Back River. In the Thule collection there is a bola from the Hauneqtôrmiut (P. 28: 83; fig. 28 a). It consists of four heavy pieces of antler, pierced near their edges and there fastened each to a thick, plaited sinew-thong. The thongs are about 65 cm long and joined together at the other end. In this joint is inserted a small stick of wood, cross-wise, apparently to prevent the hand from slipping when throwing the weapon.

The sling [i’ƀju·k] is also used by the boys against the birds in those cases where it is not simply a plaything. On still summer evenings one hears time after time the humming sound when a crowd of boys use their slings to throw stones at a target a stone or — a lump of ice — merely for amusement. Sometimes a caribou astragalus is used instead of a stone. One of the sling-thongs ends in a loop, which is placed over the forefinger, whilst the other thong is released at the moment of throwing. From the Pâdlimiut at Eskimo Point there is a sling (P 28: 233; fig. 29 a), the middle portion of which is made of black, unhaired seal-skin. It is oblong-rhombic, 33.5 by 7 cm, pierced by two small holes in the middle, while on the back there is a scratched or scraped pattern consisting of a longitudinal line with transverse lines crossing it and two crossed zigzag lines. The lines are of seal thong; the longest is furnished with a loop and is 70 cm, the other 68 cm. From the same place there is a smaller sling (P. 28: 232; fig. 29 b), the middle portion being of seal-skin with the hair, 17.5 by 4.6 cm. Both the lines are 61 cm.

Small boys amuse themselves by catching snow buntings and other small birds in traps. These consist of a small hollow in the soil, in which a few berries are placed as bait. By the side of the hollow a flat stone is leaned against a stick, to which a long string is tied. When a bird picks at the berries, the boy pulls the string, thus allowing the stone to fall.

Fishing.

Introductory remarks. Next after caribou hunting, fishing is the principal means of subsistence of the Caribou Eskimos. Image missingFig. 29.Slings. This is the case in summer, when the sea-trout come close in to the coast in large numbers and later ascend the rivers to spawn, and when freshwater trout and other fish swarm in the shore-waters of the lakes. When the great trout runs take place in the rivers, the Eskimos catch large quantities and store them for the winter. Fishing is just as important in winter, when it forms the unfailing stand-by to the chance results of caribou hunting.

Above all it is fresh-water fishing that is carried on. The following is a list of the fresh-water fish caught by the Caribou Eskimos; unfortunately, I did not have an opportunity of identifying the species in some cases:

• Fresh-water trout [iʟo·rᴀq]
• A salmonide species? [kak·iviᴀrtɔq]
• White-fish [a·na‍·klik],
• Arctic grayling [hulukpaugᴀq]
• Ling [tipta·lik]
• Sucker [a’niᴀq]
• Pike [hiu’glik]
• ? [ohu’ɳnäk]
• ? [iwitᴀ·rɔq]

One of the unidentified species is without doubt the tullibee.

Of salt-water fish only the sea-trout is caught for food, although children often amuse themselves catching sea scorpions at the coast. Franklin mentions that a caplin (Mallotus villosus), found at Coronation Gulf, was recognised by his Pâdlimio interpreter as "delicate eating".^[47] I have seen caplins at the east coast of Melville Peninsula, and Hearne says: "In some years they reſort to the ſhores near Churchill River in ſuch multitudes to spawn, and fuch numbers of them are left dry among the rocks, as at times to be quite offenſive. In other ſeaſons they are ſo ſcarce that hardly a meal can be procured".^[48] As far as I know, the Eskimos have no other means of procuring these fish than collecting them at ebb tide; but I have never seen caplin on this coast.

Many methods are used in fishing, and in this respect intercourse with the white man has for once signified a real asset to the Eskimos, who have learnt from them how to lay nets. As late a writer as Hearne says that "ſpearing in Summer and angling in Winter are the only methods they have yet deviſed to catch fish".^[49] The nets can only be used in summer, however; net fishing from the ice is impossible, because the nets cannot be dried in the unheated snow houses. If the fish die in the net before they are taken up there is a strict taboo against eating them. Until this superstition can be abolished it will also be impossible to try to teach the Coast Eskimos to catch seals with the net.

Taking it all round the methods of fishing are so divided that weir, leister and similar implements are used in open water, whilst fishing from the ice is practised with the hook. The leister is also used on thin, clear ice, however, and, on a summer journey with some Pâdlimiut, during which we were well starved, they always tried their luck in the streams with their fish hooks; they were always unsuccessful, however.

When the fish is caught it is not killed with a club as among the Eskimos in Greenland and Alaska, but, as among the Netsilik tribes, with a sharpened bone. One of these is placed upon the reel of one of the fish hooks which will be described below. Otherwise they use for the same purpose the "needle" [nuƀvit] with which the fish are strung.^[50] From the Qaernermiut there is an implement of this kind. (P 28: 103), a flat, coarse needle of antler, the fore end sharpened and the rear end blunt. In a hole in the middle a sewn loop holds a seal thong, in the other end of which a loop is cut to form a sling round a toggle of antler. The needle is 13.5 cm long, 1.8 cm wide at Page:The Caribou Eskimos.djvu/128 Page:The Caribou Eskimos.djvu/129 Page:The Caribou Eskimos.djvu/130 Page:The Caribou Eskimos.djvu/131 Page:The Caribou Eskimos.djvu/132 In Hearne we find the interesting statement that the Inland Eskimos pitched tents on the ice of the lakes and fished from them.^[51] How this was done he does not say, but the statement in itself indicates that this is a very peculiar method which is still employed at Back River, from which locality it is described by Knud Rasmussen.^[52] The fact is that the tent is certainly not pitched in order to protect the fisher against the cold; at the time when it is really cold there is snow enough for cutting the few shelter-blocks which are all that is needed. Furthermore, a fishing hole is practically exhausted in the course of an hour two, so that putting up a tent would give far too much trouble if there were no special reasons for doing it. The method, which the Back River Eskimos call [kapisiliɳniᴀrnᴇq], consists of the fisherman, with his harpoon, lying on his stomach in a snow hut on the ice and peering through a hole down into the water. Round about the hut the snow has in several places been cleared from the ice so that the light may penetrate it and attract the fish. I cannot think otherwise than that Hearne's statement refers to this method, though it is no longer used by the Caribou Eskimos.^[53]

The ordinary gear consists of the hook [qᴀrʒɔrqᴀq], which never has a barb and which is fixed in a bone sinker [kiƀjᴀq], and of the line [ipiutᴀq] and the reel [aulädʒut]. As the type I may describe a specimen (P 28: 100) from the Qaernermiut at Chesterfield Inlet. An iron hook, 3.8 cm long, is fixed in a piece of walrus ivory, cut square at the front and rounded at the back, size 4 by 3.4 cm, and in this there are two holes which on the underside are connected by a groove. The four-ply, plaited line of sinew is 434 cm long and has a strap at the lower end, held in the holes of the ivory sinker by means of a sling, whilst the other end of the line is tied to the upper point of the reel. The reel is a bent piece of antler, 23.5 cm long, with notches top and bottom for winding up the line.

On a similar specimen (P 28: 99) from the Pâdlimiut at Hikoligjuaq the hook — a bent nail — is inserted in a piece of antler, flat on the front and rounded on the back. The bait is a piece of fish skin placed on the hook and tied to the sinker. The line is of four-ply sinew thong, at the top wound twice about the handle, fastened with a half-hitch and tied round the lower end of the reel. The reel is of bent wood. Hook 5.2 cm; bone sinker 4.2 by 3.9 cm; line about 927 cm; reel 34.5 cm. Another line from the same place (P 28: 98; fig. 35 b) has a wooden reel, 27.5 cm long, which has apparently been bent by steam or hot water. A fishing line with a reel of antler (P. 28: 101; fig. 35 a) comes from the Hauneqtôrmiut.

Boas described an old-fashioned fish hook (?) of bone.^[54] Neither the Caribou Eskimos nor their neighbour tribes know the jig with several hooks or the compound hooks with barb and bent shank which are so common in Greenland and Alaska.

In windy weather they build snow shelters at the fishing holes.^[55]

Hunting Aquatic Mammals.

General remarks. In order to comprehend the importance of the hunting of aquatic mammals in the life of the Caribou Eskimos there are three facts which cannot be reiterated too often: (1) that not even half, probably only about one-fourth, of them are engaged in this hunting at all, viz. the Harvaqtôrmiut, the coast group of the Pâdlimiut, and two or three families of the Qaernermiut; (2) that even among these, disregarding the Qaernermiut, the hunting only takes place during about two months of the year, June and July; and (3), that it is limited to the walrus and the seal (and of these practically only the bearded seal and the fjord seal), but never comprises either large or small whales.

It is not the fact that the group which comes down to the coast in the greatest numbers, viz. the Coast Pâdlimiut, represents the closest connection with the sea. On the contrary, they resemble the inland dwellers very closely. We must seek the highest development of aquatic mammal hunting among the very few Qaernermiut who, in winter, live at Chesterfield Inlet. They have ice-hunting methods that otherwise are not known to the Caribou Eskimos, and there is no doubt that the relatively highly developed sea mammal hunting among them is quite modern. It seems certain that they have borrowed it from the Aivilingmiut, with whom the Qaernermiut formerly wintered near to the whaling vessels. The elements which characterise the ice hunting of the Coast Qaernermiut are identical with those of the Aivilingmiut.

Catching seals by means of nets is not known at all, neither below the ice nor in open water. In Dobbs, however, there is the following passage: "At present all their Nets, Lines and Snares are made of Whale-bone . . .".^[56] A generation later Hearne found that the fishnet was unknown,^[57] and we have seen that they were first introduced by the whites. Does Dobbs then mean seal-nets? It is impossible to say. It must also be admitted that Dobbs' statement cannot definitely be said to refer to the area of the Caribou Eskimos, as his remarks cover the coast right up to lat. 65° N., i. e. almost to Wager Inlet. This, however, does not make it less remarkable, as their northern Image missingFig. 36.Ice harpoon (a), ice pick (b) and ptarmigan bow (c). neighbours have also learnt netting from the whites. The passage about nets on the west coast of Hudson Bay must be regarded in conjunction with other evidence of an earlier, more intensive, hunting of sea mammals to which we shall revert later.

Religion, in the form of a vast number of taboo rules, affects this branch of hunting to an extent that is not known at all in the hunting of land animals. The coast groups among the Caribou Eskimos have therefore many more laws to observe than the inland dwellers, and Knud Rasmussen. has justly expressed the opinion, which any observer of the life of these Eskimos will involuntarily form, that in the sea and its products they are faced by something unusual and strange, whose dangerous influence must be neutralised by a number of strict taboo regulations.^[58] Without going further into the matter here, it may as an example be mentioned that when the hunting of seals begins, no caribou skin must be sewn unless the seal is laid in a meat cache, and, if walrus is hunted while the ice is still firm, all sewing of caribou skin must cease. As soon as the caribou hunting season again arrives, no more sealskin must be sewn. When the men are out after seal, no woman may lift or move the platform skins and, as long as caught seal has not been flensed, they must not sew. Seal thongs must not be cut in the interior and, when on our arrival at Baker Lake we had walrus meat on the sledge, the Eskimos forbade us to cut it up.

Ice hunting. The Qaernermiut being the only group of which a few members live by the coast in winter, they are the only Caribou Eskimos who use the proper methods for breathing-hole hunting. Breathing-holes are rarely found in old ice and never in packice. Their place is the level winter ice. The southern, flat coast on the west side of Hudson Bay is not at all suitable for breathing-hole hunting, because the coast water freezes to the bottom, even a good way out from the shore, and becomes packed up, and on the whole the seal seems to prefer fairly deep water at this time of the year.

In the Thule collection there is an ice-hunting harpoon (P 28: 85; fig. 36 a) from the Qaernermiut. The toggle head [hatko] is, as is always the case nowadays, entirely of iron, thin and furnished with two barbs and two cleft dorsal spurs, singular [pamiᴀq].^[59] The line hole [puto] pierces the stem directly from side to side; at the rear end there is a basal socket [itag·a‍·] w. suff., into which the foreshaft fits. Length of the head 4.9 cm. The line [iparᴀq], which at the fore end forms a sewn loop, is of seal thong and is 391 cm long. At the other end it terminates in a loop formed by a cut splice, which is held in the hand. At the fore end of the shaft is a foreshaft [igimᴀq], consisting of a thin iron rod inserted in a long brass tube; this is again driven down into a short wooden shaft [unᴀ·q], shaped at the rear like a handle, but broken. At the fore end of the shaft there is a short binding of wire. Round the rear end of the foreshaft a piece of seal thong is tied and nailed fast to the shaft with two nails to prevent the loss of the foreshaft if the weapon breaks. A bight of the harpoon line is inserted in under this thong before the harpoon is used, so that during the thrust the line lies flat along the shaft, but on the other hand is released immediately there is a pull at the harpoon head. Length of the foreshaft 74 cm, wooden shaft 67 cm.

When hunting the bearded seal the harpoon is a little different, because this animal is so much bigger than the fjord seal. The harpoon head is rather heavier. At the fore end of the wooden shaft is a loose ring of sinew thong, and the harpoon line not only passes in a bight in under the thong which connects foreshaft and shaft, but also through this ring. In this way the shaft is not lost when the hunter releases it in order to hold the line with both hands. On the side of the shaft there is also a finger rest of bone, which is held between the middle and ring fingers and imparts more force to the thrust. For walrus hunting there is an ice pick at the rear end of the shaft so that the shaft may be thrust into the ice and the line thrown round it while holding the animal.

In the Thule collection there is a toggle head (P 28: 86; fig. 39b) which, in its size — 7.2 cm — but only in this, differs from the head of the ordinary seal harpoon and is presumably for bearded seals. Remarkably enough, it has belonged to a Pâdlimio from Hikoligjuaq, but a man who had made long journeys, among others one to the coast, where he had undoubtedly obtained it.

In former times both head and foreshaft were of course of antler or walrus ivory.

Breathing-holes are searched for with the aid of a dog, which the hunter takes with him on a lead, and then the hole is examined with a breathing-hole searcher [ʃäƀgutaujᴀq]. For it is not always that the opening in the top of the snow is exactly above the channel in Image missingFig. 37.
Breathing hole searcher. the ice through which the seal appears and, if the hunter has not made certain of this beforehand, he runs the risk of making a faulty thrust at the critical moment. The searcher was originally of antler. A modern specimen (P 28: 88; fig. 37) from the Qaernermiut consists of a thin, bent iron wire with a small cross handle of ivory at the top. Length 59 cm, handle 2.5 by 1.1 cm. If the breathing hole is covered with thick ice, the seal has left it and all waiting is useless. Otherwise the hunter places in the hole a seal indicator [ka·pqatᴀq], a thin, fine rod of ivory, the top end of which is connected by a cord to a small peg, which is stuck into the snow. The tribes at the Northwest Passage also use another kind of indicator of swans' down, but I am not sure that the few Qaernermiut families at the coast know how to use it.

A sheltering wall of snow is then built as protection against the icy wind, a block of snow serves the hunter as a seat, and under his feet he lays a thick piece of caribou skin. After these preparations he resigns himself to a patient vigil. With the harpoon resting across his knees — the Qaernermiut are not in the habit of laying it upon two sticks of wood stuck into the snow like the Aivilingmiut and the Northwest Passage tribes — the hunter often sits for hours, waiting for the moment when the movement of the indicator betrays the return of the seal. When it is caught and hauled up on to the ice, the wound is closed with a wound peg of bone, triangular in section and with a distinct head. These wound pegs are carried in the belt inserted in a piece of skin. A hole is then made between the branches of the lower jaw, a thong is passed through it from below, and the end is whipped round the seal's nose. In the other end of the thong a loop is made which the hunter puts over his shoulder so that the seal can be dragged home over the ice.

Peep-hunting, the method of catching seal which corresponds to the ice-fishing with harpoon described above (see p. 124) and which is known from the Netsilik area and from Greenland, has presumably never been employed by the Caribou Eskimos. On the other hand, smooth-ice hunting seems to be practised sometimes, especially for the bearded seal. In a sudden, hard frost, when the ice forms like a sheet of glass without snow, the hunter does not wait by the breathing-hole; but when he hears the seal snorting at the hole, where it always remains for several minutes, he hurries towards the sound, standing still every time the snorting ceases, and at last thrusts the harpoon into the seal.

Walruses have no regular breathing-holes. They keep to where the ice is comparatively thin and rise to the surface, breaking the ice with their thick skulls. For this reason walruses are never to be found under old ice. As a consequence of these biological peculiarities the walrus hunter cannot wait at any certain place but must roam warily about on the new ice, ready to run forward and spear the walrus when it appears in sight. Dogs are employed in the hunt, being used to frighten the animal below until it becomes exhausted and can easily be harpooned. As among other Eskimos, an "ice-tackle" is used for hauling, two holes being cut in the ice, converging towards each other, whilst two cuts are made in the thick skin on the back of the walrus' neck. A thick seal thong is made fast to the "bridge" between the two holes in the ice, through the cuts in the animal's skin, back to the bridge and again back to the animal, leaving a free end.

Whereas these methods all belong to the winter and therefore are only practised by a few Qaernermiut, stalking on the ice is practised by all Caribou Eskimos who visit the sea coast at all. This is a spring occupation, when the seals creep up on the ice to bask and sleep in the sunshine. They sleep only in very short spells, wake up and look round, then fall asleep again. Stefánsson, through his observations, has come to the conclusion that on an average a seal is awake five seconds at a time and sleeps 30 to 36 seconds, but sometimes up to 100 seconds.^[60] Very occasionally it may fall into such a deep sleep that a man can walk almost right up to it. The hunting may, however, be spoiled by certain meteorological circumstances which make the air (particularly when there is a slight fog) a good conductor of sound; in West Greenland this phenomenon is called [imin·ᴀrtɔq]. Dry, creaking snow is of course equally disadvantageous. In both cases the seal immediately hears anyone approaching and disappears at once.

When a Caribou Eskimo goes out on a stalking expedition he roams over the ice, dragging behind him a small sledge on which to convey the killed seal home; or he may drive out with his dogs, stop when he catches sight of a seal and turn the sledge over to prevent the dogs from following him. The method of stalking is this: the hunter, imitating the movements of a seal, creeps towards his prey, [o·t·ɔq], as it is called when lying on the ice. Nowadays it is sufficient to get within shooting range, because rifles are used; originally, however, it was necessary to get so close to the seal that it could be hit with the harpoon. It was therefore often provided with a very long shaft. It is apparently the shaft of such an implement that Rae found at Nevill Bay and describes as "some slender pieces of wood fastened together to the length of 40 feet. There were two of these poles, which are used by the natives for spearing small seals".^[61] Shooting screens are never used; but if the seal goes down without having been hit, a snow-block is raised on the lee-side of the breathing-hole so that the hunter may await its return without being seen or scented.

Image missing

Fig. 38.
Harpoon head.

A method regularly employed both in spring and winter by those who then live by the coast is hunting from the ice-edge. It is now always pursued with the rifle. It is very improbable that an implement has ever been used for scratching on the ice in order to decoy the seals, such as is known from Alaska.

Hunting in open water. As soon as the ice breaks at the coast, i. e. about July 1st, there comes a period of open water which the Coast Eskimos make use of for hunting sea mammals, until in August the great caribou hunt claims them and the coast is left. Nowadays, hunting in open water is practised with the rifle and from the canoe, which is purchased from the H. B. C. With these means a number of walruses in particular are shot, as these animals generally do not crawl up on to firm ice like the seals, but keep to the drift ice. The canoe is not a practical appurtenance to seal hunting; it requires a crew of more than one man, is neither as fast nor as manageable as the kayak and cannot stand a rough sea. Nevertheless, the sea kayak has gone entirely out of use during the past generation on the west coast of Hudson Bay, right from Churchill River to Fury and Hecla Strait, with the exception of one or two among the Iglulingmiut. This very greatly affects the hunting of sea mammals, both owing to the inferiority of the canoe and because the old kayak implements have disappeared. Many animals which the Eskimos would get with the harpoon and lance are lost in rifle hunting.

The only form of kayak harpoon which seems to have been used in these regions against seals was the bladder dart [akʟigᴀq], which, in contrast to that of the Greenlanders but similar to that of the Baffinlanders, had a toggle head and loose foreshaft. The size of the toggle head was, as in Greenland, determined in this manner: if it was intended for seals, it should be capable of just being concealed in the closed hand so that only the blade projected. The only types of toggle heads which are known nowadays with certainty are narrow, pierced by the line hole directly from side to side, without barbs, but with one or two dorsal spurs. The blade may be fitted either parallel or at right angles to the plane of the line hole.^[62] The Eskimo terminology for these heads is the same as for heads for the ice-hunting harpoon (see p. 127).

In these days it is impossible to secure a bladder dart from the Caribou Eskimos. A Pâdlimio from Eskimo Point did make a model in full size (P 28: 90), but it is very rough workmanship and, in addition, was partly destroyed in transit. It is almost identical with the specimen described and illustrated by Boas.^[63] The toggle head has an iron blade inserted in a body of walrus ivory, at right angles to the line hole. There are no barbs, but one bifurcated dorsal spur. Length 11.5 cm. The loose foreshaft [igimᴀq] is of wood, 21.3 cm long, with a loop at the middle through which the line runs. The shaft is in two parts, as is sometimes the case with the West Greenland bladder dart, consisting of two pieces, 108 and 107 cm long respectively, the bevelled ends of which fit each other and, during the throw, are held together by the line being wound tightly about the joint. The bladder-holder [iko·rᴀq], is a piece of trapeziform wood pierced by four holes so that it may be lashed to the shaft. The bladder [awatᴀq], is tied to the bladder-holder and is made of the bladder of the barbed seal and provided with a tube [pugiut] through which it is blown up. The harpoon is thrown by means of a throwing board [nɔqxᴀq] in the upper side of which there is a small groove, while on the back there is a peg to support the harpoon shaft. In the left edge of the throwing board there is a notch for the thumb and, on the opposite side, a hole for the forefinger. Length 36.7 cm.

At a modern grave on the naze north of Eskimo Point a harpoon head was found of the same type as that described above, but with a simple dorsal spur (P 20: 66; fig. 38). Presumably it has also been used on a bladder dart. Length 9.7 cm. A similar specimen (P 28: 91; fig. 39 d) comes from the Hauneqtôrmiut. From the Qaernermiut at Chesterfield Inlet there is a toggle head (P 28: 81; fig. 39 c) in which the blade is parallel to the line hole. The thickness and breadth of the stem are equal. At the rear the ivory body ends in two dorsal spurs. Length 8.9 cm. The distance between the points of the spurs is 1.9 cm.

For walrus hunting from the kayak a toggle head is used, the body of which should be rather longer than the breadth of the flat hand over the knuckles. The line was not fastened to the shaft but tied by means of a sort of drag consisting of a pierced skin bag. The kayak stool is not known.

When the seal was harpooned it was killed with a lance [iputujɔq]. It is very doubtful whether the seal lance had any joint between head and shaft like the lances of the Eskimos more to the east. Most probably a fixed head was used as in Alaska. For walrus, loose lance heads were used, placed upon the foreshaft of the harpoon as Boas Image missingFig. 39.Needle for stringing fish (a), harpoon heads (b–d) and wound plugs (e–h). illustrates it.^[64] My informants, both among the Qaernermiut and the Pâdlimiut, were agreed that this was the sole employment of the loose lance head, it never being used for caribou hunting as Boas states (see p. 109).

When the seal is killed and the hunter wishes to save the blood, the wounds are stopped with wound plugs, sing. [tuputaq], of antler or walrus ivory. They are roughly made and furnished with a hole at the butt end, as they are always carried in a bundle. From the Pâdlimiut at Eskimo Point there are eight simple plugs of antler, varying between 12.1 and 15.7 cm in length (P 28: 92; fig. 39 f–h). At the butt end they are flattened a little. A similar plug of ivory, belonging to the same set, is only 7.6 cm (fig. 39 e). "Wound trimmers" as well as special towing lines are unknown.

Collecting.

Food. Eskimos do very little collecting of food and this applies especially to the Caribou Eskimos. They never use seaweed nor mussels. Eggs are a favourite dish during the fourteen days of the summer in which they can be collected, and the small islands on which many birds nest are generally visited at this time. As there are no bird cliffs, where the birds nest in clefts in the rock, there are no egg gathering implements as in West Greenland. Only children and grown men may eat eggs, and children only if they have not been ill. Another delicacy is the raw gadfly larvæ which are picked out of the caribou skins. They are very aqueous, and thirsty. caribou hunters often quench their thirst with them; but they are also eaten on other occasions.

The Eskimos gather only few products from the plant world. Apart from [a·tqät], the root of a plant which I did not get an opportunity of identifying (Pedicularis lapponica?), only the following berries are collected:

• [ᴀrpik] cloud-berry
• [ki’ᵗgiɳät] red whortleberry
• [pauɳrät] crowberry
• [kigutaɳᴇ’rnät] marsh whortleberry
• [kabläit] bear-berry

The two first-named berries are taboo for women; but as a matter of fact it is mostly only children who eat berries. They are never gathered from under the snow as in Greenland; both berry-scrapers and berry-sieves are therefore unknown.

WATER-CARRYING. It is the women who fetch water; during the first month after childbirth, however, a woman must not do this work. In winter, water is taken from the lakes as far as possible, and there the settlement keeps a common hole open in the ice. At the hole, one of the inhabitants of the place leaves an ice pick and an ice scoop behind for the use of the next comer, as new ice always forms over the hole. The long handles on these implements are easily recognisable signs at the water hole. On the low, sandy west coast of Hudson Bay it is often difficult to obtain good drinking water, as for instance at Eskimo Point; the people have to be content with the badly flavoured contents of shallow water holes. At Hikoligjuaq in the early summer the land water had an unpleasant. earthy taste, and therefore one saw the strange scene of the men putting over to the other side of the open channel in their kayaks and making their way a good distance over the ice to a hole where the water was better.

Sometimes, however, it is necessary to melt ice or snow. Women with small children may only drink water of melted snow. If the snow is old and granulated, the water is just as good as that from ice, whereas fine, soft and porous snow gives a flat taste and must be melted in incredible quantities in order to give sufficient liquid. The Caribou Eskimos have not much opportunity of using old sea ice, the saltiness of which is washed out in the course of a year, as they practically speaking do not stay at the coast in winter. Furthermore there is very little old pack-ice on their coast, and consequently they do not seem to know this property of the ice.

The water pail [qat·ᴀq] is of unhaired skin, either of caribou or seal. A deerskin pail (P 28: 134; fig. 43 a) from the Pâdlimiut at Eskimo Point consists of an elliptical bottom and two side-pieces, one of which is much shorter than the other. The pieces are sewn together by overcast stitches. The top edge is bent over and there is a skin handle. The bottom measures about 40 by 30 cm; height 22 cm. Another pail (P 28: 135) from the Pâdlimiut at the same place is of sealskin and has the sides all in one piece. Bottom 24 by 18 cm; height 15 cm.

Annual Rotation of Hunting.

The interior. In turning to a brief recapitulation of the annual rotation of hunting it is important to remember that one of the principal forms of hunting, caribou hunting by single individuals, takes place at all times of the year and now, especially after the introduction of the rifle, makes a very essential contribution to the procuring of food. Otherwise it is in the autumn that the foundation is laid for the whole of the following year's economy. This is done by means of the important hunts, when the caribou swim over the rivers. Various methods used in these hunts have been referred to in the foregoing. During the autumn run of the trout, fishing is also carried on on a big scale at the weirs. In this manner a supply of food is accumulated which is sufficient for far into the winter, while at the same time skins are procured for new winter clothing.

Caribou hunting is continued in winter, with pitfalls etc. Musk-ox hunting has now ceased, whereas fox trapping has arrived at an important phase, for the winter pelts of the foxes are necessary to the existence of all the trading posts in these regions and consequently to the Eskimos' supply of foreign goods. The least variable occupation at this time of the year is, however, fishing, which is first carried on with the leister from the new ice, but later on with the hook. Presumably the remarkable method of fishing with the harpoon from snow huts was also used in former days. Fishing must bring the Eskimos safely through the dangers which the uncertainty of caribou hunting signifies at this season. And yet even this is rarely sufficient. When the autumn stores have been consumed towards the end of winter, there usually arrives a period of want until the caribou begin to come from the south. Almost every winter it happens that one or two families within the Caribou Eskimo country succumb to hunger, and this is not exclusively due to lack of economy with the supplies. These bad periods, however, have doubtless become worse during the lifetime of the last generation, which is perhaps due to no small extent to the introduction of the rifle among both the Eskimos and the Indians, because it is liable to mislead them into heedless slaughter. Probably a great deal of the responsibility must also be laid upon the intensive fox trapping, which makes the Eskimos entirely dependent upon the shop. The man who dies of hunger among fox skins to a value of $ 500 is hardly an unknown phenomenon.

At the end of April 1922 while at Baker Lake we heard of a great deal of hunger at Kazan River and at the same time a party of Eskimos arrived from Schultz Lake who had had nothing whatever to eat for four days. Later we heard from my host at Hikoligjuaq that he and his family had only saved their lives through his oldest wife and an adoptive son having taken a drag-sledge to a distant lake to fish.

Before the caribou trek begins in spring it is often ptarmigan hunting which keeps the worst distress from the house; but only the arrival of the caribou signifies the decisive turning point. At the crossing place Nahiktartorvik, on lower Kazan River, there is a small hill, which gives the place its name, i. e. look-out. It is usually from here that the first caribou herds are seen on their way northwards and, as the time approaches, sledges are often sent out from the surrounding settlements to this place in order that they too may participate in the joyous event. We just happened to be staying in a camp, Tugliuvartalik, when the sledges came in sight, and the cries "the caribou are coming" could already be heard reverberating far away among the snow shelters.

During the summer caribou hunting is continued, as its habit of wandering in company constantly brings new herds. A lively fishery also goes on in the lakes, particularly since the introduction of nets. The gathering of eggs, and later of berries, must also be mentioned. And yet the Eskimos are by no means safe from periods of starvation even in summer. At the end of June and the beginning of July, Helge Bangsted and I travelled down the Kazan in a canoe together with some Eskimos, who were going from the south side of Hikoligjuaq to Baker Lake to trade. Unfortunately it was just at a time when there was a pause between the herds of caribou. In the Harvaqtôrmiut settlements which we passed there was great distress; at one of them only a man and a young girl came out of the tents when we stopped alongside the river bank, the remainder of the population lying quite powerless from hunger. For our part we made both ends meet as Image missingFig. 40.Coast Pâdlimio returning from seal hunting on the ice; Eskimo Point. Note the snow goggles. well as we could and for some days lived from hand to mouth, never knowing where the next meal would come from, until our hunting luck failed entirely, and from July 1st in the morning till July 4th in the evening we had to be content with water and fresh air.^[65]

The coast. There is no reason to go more closely into the autumn and winter life of the coast group; it is exactly the same as that of the inland dwellers except for the few Qaernermiut who stay at the coast in winter and live in the same manner as the Aivilingmiut.

Towards the spring, however, the coast group come down from the interior to Hudson Bay. When I travelled from Chesterfield Inlet to Eskimo Point in May 1923 none of the Hauneqtôrmiut had yet come down to the sea, whereas Eskimo Point (or, to be more correct, the naze just south of it) and Sentry Island were already populated by many Pâdlimiut families. Hardly any moving takes place later than the end of May, however, for it is necessary to travel when there is still sufficient snow over the country for the sledges. At the coast, seals basking on the ice are caught, and seals and walruses at the ice-edge from the canoe. Seal hunting from the kayak has now ceased entirely and the canoe is only a poor substitute. On the other hand trout are now fished with the net as soon as the ice breaks and, when the trout ascend the rivers to spawn, they are fished at the weirs. But as early as the beginning of August the Eskimos must go inland again in order to take advantage of the caribou migration. Thus the annual visit to the coast does not last much more than two months.

The coast dwellers on the whole gave the impression of being much more energetic than their kinsmen in the interior. They were almost always hunting during the time I stayed at Eskimo Point and Sentry Island and often spent the night at the ice-edge. And the result was commensurate with this activity. Once they returned home after two days' hunting with no less than eleven large bearded seals and there was never any shortage of food. Sea mammal meat was not too much liked, however, and, when there was caribou meat in the camp, the sea mammal meat was as a rule used as dog feed.

Food, Drink and Tobacco.

Food. It will be seen from the foregoing that the Caribou Eskimos obtain their principal food from the animal kingdom as all other Eskimos do, even to a still greater extent than is the case in Greenland and Alaska. Caribou meat is the staple food, whilst fish and, at the coast, walrus and seal, (and in former days the musk-ox) take second place. The special delicacies are caribou tongue, heart, breastbone and head, besides of course the rich marrow and the thick layer of back fat. Of less importance than these animals are hares, ptarmigan and birds on the whole. Wolves, wolverines, foxes and marmots are seldom eaten. In addition, the animals are made use of to a much greater extent than we are accustomed to. Besides the liver and brains of the various animals, they also eat the eyes, as well as the intestines of bears, walruses and seals, the contents of the stomach of caribou and ptarmigan (but not of walrus as among the Polar Eskimos) and, according to Boas,^[66] the ear cartilage of the musk-ox. Caribou foetus, which among the Chipewyan is a great favourite, is on the contrary only eaten in emergencies. Milk of newly shot animals, which is regarded as a delicacy among certain other Eskimos, is never drunk. Plant products occupy such a subordinate place on the original menu that even their dietic rôle is doubtful.

The almost exclusively animal food does not seem to have any deleterious effect upon the people. It may be assumed that, particularly through the blood soup and the intestines, they receive complete protein nourishment, and fat is eaten in abundance. The shortness of carbon hydrates does not seem to cause much trouble; but the fact that the liver of various animals is so much in demand is probably the result of a physiological need of their glycogene content.^[67] On another occasion I have said that the relatively small bodily height of the Caribou Eskimos compared with the tribes at the Northwest Passage may have some connection with the food;^[68] but whether, if this is true, it is solely due to the more numerous periods of hunger in the interior, or whether it is also connected with the access of the coast dwellers to the vitaminous blubber, I am unable to determine.. There is such abundance of salt in the meat that it is never demanded in any other form. White men who live wholly or for the most part in the Eskimo manner soon learn to do without salt too.

When there is plenty of food at hand, the Eskimos can gorge themselves to an astonishing degree; their greediness has, however, often been exaggerated. They can put enormous quantities out of sight if they are offered to them, but this is done just as much out of politeness, to demonstrate their pleasure over the food, as out of any real desire to eat. One who lives with the Eskimos every day in their tents and snow houses will quickly discover that they do not eat more, but rather less than most white men and never make a daily practice of stuffing themselves full like many of our own countrymen. On the other hand they may seem to be really immoderate with regard to drinking water, and nowadays lea. Water is drunk icy cold and in enormous quantities; but it is a question whether this, too, has not something to do with the meat diet. At any rate it undoubtedly helps to cleanse the kidneys and reduce the toxin.

The food is one of the domains in which religious fantasy has a free rein and has created a huge number of taboo rules. In this work only few examples need to be given, as Knud Rasmussen will later on deal comprehensively with them in his book on the religion of these Eskimos. Some rules apply absolutely, to all and at all times, for instance the prohibition against eating fish which have died in the net, or frozen fish whose intestines have not been removed. Other laws are connected with certain seasons, such as the prohibition against eating trout in winter in the open air. In winter and in summer the Qaernermiut will not eat caribou meat and seal meat on the same day, whereas this is permitted in spring and autumn. The Pâdlimiut, however, maintain that as far as they are concerned this only applies to the women. Some prohibitions may be entirely individual. My Pâdlimio hostess at Hikoligjuaq had not to eat rock ptarmigan, and there are many old people who do not eat these birds.^[69]

However, most of the taboo rules only affect the women, especially those who have small children. Little girls and, at any rate in some cases, old women — i. e. females whose menstruation has either not commenced or has ceased — are looked upon as a sort of sexless persons who are exempt. Women must not eat the meat of the wolverine, nor eggs, cloudberries or whortleberries. They must not eat the meat of a cached caribou, if the foxes have eaten of it, nor the muzzle, tongue, liver and kidneys of caribou, or the liver of bearded seal or walrus. In the winter they must not eat the meat of walrus or bear at all. In addition, a number of other rules come into force periodically, for instance during menstruation, against eating raw or rotten meat, after childbirth against eating other than the limbs of the caribou and, after the death of a near relative, against the head and stomach of the caribou.

Since the coming of the white traders the Caribou Eskimos have learned to relish certain foreign foods. So far, however, it is only flour, tea, sugar and molasses which really are of any importance to their food, and as a rule only during the period immediately after a trade journey. Mirabile dictu the Hudson's Bay Company has introduced preserves into its shops. One must look long for a more misguided policy than sending salt pork and tinned mutton to the Eskimos — but of course for the present it yields more foxes and more trade when the Eskimos neglect their caribou hunting and buy insufficiently nourishing, but preposterously expensive, imported products.

Flaying and cutting up. Both men and women take part in the flaying of the game. There is no taboo which prevents the one sex from doing the work of the other. Practical considerations, however, have the effect that walrus is flensed by men, seal by women, whilst caribou is cut up by both sexes. All depends upon where the flaying and cutting up take place. If it is out on the ice, as with a walrus, or at the place where the caribou has been shot, the men do the work. But if the animal is brought right into the camp, as is the case with seals, the women set to work. The certainty with which they can, with a few cuts or a couple of well-directed strokes, quarter an animal, whether it is fresh or frozen, bears witness of an astonishing anatomical knowledge and generations of practice.

Frozen meat is cut up with an ordinary axe, but for flaying and cutting up fresh animals the man uses a special flaying knife [pilaut], whilst the women use their universal implement, the women's knife [ulo]. From the Pâdlimiut at Hikoligjuaq there is a flaying knife (P 28: 152; fig. 44b) with a single-edged steel blade, presumably the broken and resharpened point of an ordinary butcher's knife. The blade is fastened in a haft of antler by two nails. Length 20.7 cm, of which the free part of the blade is 11.5 cm. A similar knife (P 28: 153) from the same place is only 10.1 cm, the blade being 4.5 cm. Its haft is partly divided at the back end and has since cracked further. Perhaps the flaying knife was originally made of bone. Some Eskimos told me of whittling knives made of this kind of material; but while this sounds altogether improbable, it may be true of the flaying knives. Some knives of the Plains Indians were made of bone.

Some women's knives, which are especially intended for cutting up caribou meat, are very large, others only small. Whilst the West Greenlanders now get their ulo blades ready made and only need to haft them, the Caribou Eskimos make their own knives, as a rule of saw blades, for which reason they are of much thinner steel than the Greenland knives. The Greenland ulo blades which we had with us for barter were not a success and found no sale. The blade is fitted to the handle by means of a tang, which consists of one or two pieces of iron. Two-armed women's knives are never used. Before iron became common, the Caribou Eskimos are said to have used pieces of iron inserted in the handle, or even flakes of caribou leg bone. Perhaps the earliest blades were of stone. The Thule collection contains several women's knives from the Caribou Eskimos. From Hikoligjuaq there is a large knife (P 28: 154; fig. 41 a) with a segment-shaped blade, 26.1 cm wide and 13.4 cm deep. The tang, the free part of which is 2 cm, consists of two pieces of iron fastened together by two iron rivets. A thick, slightly curved handle of wood, 8.5 cm long. From Eskimo Point there are two similar, but smaller, knives (P 28: 155 and 156; fig. 41 c), the blades of which are 17 by 7.2 cm and 10.6 by 5.8 cm respectively. A knife from the Hauneqtôrmiut (P 28: 158; fig. 41 b) is fitted with a handle of musk-ox horn. Two other woman's knives also come from the Hauneqtôrmiut (P 28: 157 and 159).

Caribou are cut up the belly and along the inner side of the legs. close up to the hooves, where the cut turns to the outer side. The skin of the head is cut from the other part of the skin. Then the breast and abdominal cavities are opened, the head is parted from the body and the tongue is removed. If the skin is to be used for bags it is taken off whole. Flaying must not take place in a snow house except when it is a boy's first spoil, but must be done in the entrance passageway or under the open sky. According to what Knud Rasmussen writes, there are certain parts of the caribou which female hands must not touch during flaying.

In cutting up a frozen caribou carcass, the shoulder with the shoulder blade is first cut from the body, then the hind quarters are Image missingFig. 41.Women's knives. cut off in one piece, then the breast bone and finally the flanks with the ribs.

Seals are cut up the belly. A cut is made round the snout and hind limbs, but the fore limbs are cut over at the joints. If it is a bearded seal, the skin of which is to be used for thongs, the skin is flayed in continuous belts (see p. 251).

Cooking and preserving. Raw meat [mikiᴀq],^[70] is eaten to a rather great extent, and the Algonkian name for the Eskimos, "raw-meat-eaters", is characteristic inasmuch as none of the Indians, and least of all they themselves, eat it to anything like the same extent. Caribou, seal and fish are some times eaten raw and fresh immediately after they have been killed. It is seldom, however, that anyone makes a whole meal of raw meat unless it is frozen. Marrow [patᴇq] and the thick layer of back-fat [tunuk] from the autumn caribou are often eaten raw, and kidneys and liver are much relished in this state, and the same applies to the eyes or rather the fat round the eyes. Caribou eyes are extremely palatable in this manner, and raw salmon eyes are not bad either, even if they are rather fishy. The contents of the stomach of caribou and ptarmigan are also eaten without any preparation; with the former they usually eat caribou liver.^[71] The gadfly larvæ must of course also be raw.

The rule is, however, that the principal meal of the day, at any rate in summer, consists of boiled meat [u·jɔq]. Some dishes are only eaten boiled, as for instance all birds, brains and intestines of various animals as well as mussels. Neither brains nor intestines have much taste but still are favourite dishes. The cooking pots are four-sided soapstone vessels, slightly wider at the top than at the bottom. In contrast to the common Eskimo cooking pots, which are intended to hang over the lamp, the Caribou Eskimos' cooking pots are fashioned to stand over a fire, i. e. on each of the short sides they have a lug so that they may be lifted off the fire, but no holes for hanging them up. Enamel vessels are always used now, but from a grave at Baker Lake there is a cooking pot [utkuhik] of grey soapstone (P 28: 126; fig. 42). The long sides are slightly convex and diverging towards the top, the Image missingFig. 42.Soapstone cooking pot. short sides straight and each furnished with a square, projecting lug. One long side is broken and pierced in two places. This has been done after use, as there is no sign of repair; but whether it has been done accidentally or purposely before the pot was placed at the grave, cannot be determined. Measurements at the top 32.5 by 21 cm; height at the middle of the long sides 10.3 cm, at the short sides 8 cm. Thickness 1.3 cm. Menstruating women must always cook for themselves in their own cooking pot.

Caribou meat is boiled in fresh water; but for meat of sea mammals, sea water is used diluted with fresh water. This it not owing to any taboo, however, but is simply a matter of taste. Nor is there any prohibition against cooking the meat of sea mammals over heather or caribou meat over drift wood. The meat is cut into suitable pieces, and as many are put into the pot together that about half of each piece is above the water. When they are partly cooked they are turned; but they are only cooked so much that they retain the juice and, as a rule, are quite red inside. When frozen meat is cooked, the outside is quite cooked when the inside has only just been thawed. Caribou hooves are cooked with the skin on — and an abundance of dirt and excrement — so that the soup is uneatable to a European palate; the hooves themselves, however, taste almost like pig's trotters. It is the custom to boil the fat from them and the clean-gnawed bones. This takes a whole night and, in summer, when the children romp about in the light nights, it is their task to watch the cooking fire. The boileddown fat is preserved in skin bags and eaten. Sea mammal meat is cooked with more blubber than is eaten in order that the soup may be richer. Soup of this meat is never mixed with blood as among other Eskimos, whereas caribou blood is often mixed in caribou soup. The stomach contents of the caribou are not eaten in the soup.

On a hunting trip, where there is no opportunity of obtaining boiled meat, it is often fried on a flat stone which is covered with damp moss. Among the Pâdlimiut in the interior I have often seen them place pieces of meat, especially the shoulder blade, by the side of the camp fire. When the outside, burnt crust is removed the meat underneath is juicy and tasty. They have learnt this method of the Indians.

Most of the meat that is not consumed at once is kept in meat caches. These are often cleared among the boulders of the old, raised beaches, or they consist of stones piled over the meat, which rests upon bones in order that the air may have a free passage underneath. A caribou head is often set up on the cache as a sign.^[72] On hunting trips the meat is cached by the men, of course, and a skilful hunter has a number of caches spread about the country where he roves. On the other hand it is the women who place the meat in the large meat caches which are to be found near the camp and so to say form the larder. In winter the stones of the cache freeze together and, to open it, it is first necessary to kick a small stone loose, throw it against a bigger one until it is loosened, and then use that one in the same manner, and so on. Hooks are never used for lifting the meat out; for frozen meat this is unnecessary.

In winter, when it is difficult to find fuel, much, perhaps most meat is eaten frozen [quᴀq]. This is true of both caribou and sea mammal meat and also of fish. Sometimes the meat is rotten as well [igunᴀq].^[73] But only caribou meat and fish are eaten in this condition, whereas rotten sea mammal meat is never consumed as among other Eskimos. Nor is all rotten meat considered as fit for human food, but only meat which has undergone a definite process, in a cache where the sun is shut out, but where there is an ample current of fresh air. After this process the meat has a sharp but by no means unpleasant taste, more like old cheese, and in fact is eaten like this for a change. It must be remembered that the Eskimo is quite ignorant of seasonings, so that in occasionally eating rotten meat he undoubtedly satisfies a physiological craving for a stimulating of the organs of taste.

Another important method of preserving food is drying. The meat of caribou, sea mammals, and fish is dried, but never that of birds. The meat is cut into thin slices or strips and is dried in the sun, thus forming a hard, dark crust over the fresh meat inside. This is then called [nipko]. Fish is cut up the back, the back bone is removed before drying, after which the fish is called [piphe] or [pipxe].

Image missing

Fig. 43.Water pail (a); blubber tray (b); meat trays (c-d); wooden bowl (e); water dipper (f).

No form of preserving with blubber or fat seems to be in use now; Hearne, however, mentions from the eighteenth century that the Coast Eskimos preserved caribou meat, seal meat, walrus meat, and salmon in blubber; the blubber bags were of sealskin.^[74] Pemmican, as made by the Chipewyan of pulverised meat and melted fat, is quite unknown. On the other hand some Pâdlimiut in the interior have learnt from the Indians how to smoke caribou meat by the fire. Smoked meat is called [adgᴇq].

The most common form of "white man's food" among the Caribou Eskimos is a sort of flap-jack of flour, mixed with baking powder in water and cooked in a frying-pan with lard. Primus stoves give off so much heat that an iron plate must be placed under the pan. Flapjacks are also cooked as among the sub-arctic Indians, the pan being set in a sloping position by the fire so that the upper side is cooked first. Molasses are sometimes eaten with them.

Serving the food. The meat is lifted out of the cooking pot with a meat fork and pressed between the thumb and forefinger to Image missingFig. 44.Meat fork (a); flaying knife (b); marrow extractors (c-f); drinking tubes (g-h); fish ladle (i). let the soup run off, before it is laid on the meat tray. A typical meat fork [u·gᴇrqut] from the Pâdlimiut, Eskimo Point (P 28: 128; fig. 44 a) consists of a double hook of antler let into a flat handle of the same material, narrowed at the middle. At the rear end of the handle there is a hole to hang it up. Length of the hook 5.7 cm, and of the handle 27.4 cm. For fish a fish ladle [qalutᴀq], is said to be used at the coast. It consists of a pierced caribou scapula, the distal end being removed; I have never seen one in use, however. A very rough specimen (P 28: 144; fig. 44i), 26 cm long, with a single hole in the middle, was made by a Pâdlimio at Eskimo Point. In fact, I have some doubt as to the correctness of the shape.

The food is served on large, trough-like trays cut out of one piece of wood [pu·gutᴀq]. On a specimen from the Pâdlimiut, Hikoligjuaq (P 28: 129; fig. 43 d), there is along the top of the short sides a mounting of antler, fastened with copper rivets: size 94.5 by 42 cm. From the same tribe at Eskimo Point there is a similar tray (P 28: Image missingFig. 45.Soup ladle. 131), but with sharper corners and with no mounting, measuring only 63 by 25 cm. From the Harvaqtôrmiut at lower Kazan River there is a meat tray (P 28: 130; fig. 43 c) with handles in the form of hollows cut in the short sides. Size 68 by 30.5 cm.

They also use smaller wooden bowls, likewise cut out of one piece of wood; but now they have gone so much out of use in favour of meat cans and enamel bowls that only one specimen (P 28: 133; fig. 43 e) could be secured from the Hauneqtôrmiut. This is a rather flat bowl with a diameter of 18–19 cm and a depth of about 8 cm. In two places cracks in the wood have been repaired with small metal patches. The Coast Eskimos who use blubber preserve Image missingFig. 46.Soup ladles. this in elliptical wooden trays with a flat bottom and sides of thin wood set on edge and the ends joined. A specimen (P 28: 132; fig. 43 b) was acquired from the Qaernermiut at Chesterfield Inlet. The bottom consists of two wooden slabs, the sides of two thin pieces of wood joined by metal strips. Diameters 52.5 and 32 cm.

Nobody seems to be fond of especially hot meat and, in contrast to the soup, it is usually allowed to cool before it is eaten. This custom, which the Eskimos share with the Lapps,^[75] is apparently connected with the manner in which they eat. Every Eskimo takes a piece in the left hand, stuffs the mouth full, and cuts off what it cannot admit. For this they use an ordinary pocket knife or the meat knife [pilaut]. The women use the ulo. Sometimes the same piece goes the rounds until it is used up and it is the turn of another piece. Marrow bones may only be crushed with a stone^[76] and the marrow is scraped out with a marrow extractor [hauᵈlut], almost as we use a lobster fork. A marrow extractor (P 28: 147; fig. 44f), consisting of a long, narrow chip of a caribou metatarsal bone, comes from the Pâdlimiut at Hikoligjuaq. Size 25.2 by 1.6 cm. A similar one from the same place (P 28: 149) has a hand-grip cut in the rear end; 15.5 by 2.1 cm. A Qaernermiut extractor (P 28: 148; fig. 44 e) from Baker Lake is of musk-ox bone, but otherwise of the same form; 17.3 by 2.6 cm. From the Hauneqtôrmiut there are two extractors (P 28: 150 and 151) of which the handgrip on the latter (fig. 44 d) has three half-round scallops in each edge and, at the rear end, terminates in a point. They are both rather small, viz. 7.9 and 9.2 cm long.

Soup is never taken until after the meat. It is ladled out in a big ladle of musk-ox horn [qaju·tᴀq] and passes round to those present, who in turn sip a little from one corner. A typical Pâdlimiut ladle from Eskimo Point is shown in fig. 45 (P 28: 139). It is 19 cm long, about 5.3 cm deep and, at the front, 22 cm wide. At the back is a small, turned-up handle, 5.4 by 3.4 cm. From the Harvaqtôrmiut at lower Kazan River there are two smaller ladles of the same type. One (P 28: 140; fig. 46 d) measures 14.7 cm in length, about 4.5 cm in depth, and 17 cm in width at the front. The other (P 28: 141; fig. 46 c), which is made out of the horn nearer the point, is fairly narrow in proportion to the length, i. e. only 7.5 cm at the front, whereas the length is 13.3 cm; depth about 4.1 cm. A poorly made ladle from the Hauneqtôrmiut (P 28: 142; fig. 46 a) is 10.6 by 7.5 cm.

Smaller spoons are also used, nowadays cheap nickel spoons from the store. Formerly they were of musk-ox horn, antler or wood. Many of these small spoons have probably been used by women during menstruation. A spoon, [alu·n] in the Qaernermiut dialect, [ɔrviujaq] among the Pâdlimiut, is of musk-ox horn and shaped nearly like a small, flat soup ladle (P 28: 143; fig. 46 b). Length 7.8 cm, of which the bowl is 6.4 cm; breadth at the front 6 cm. It has belonged to a little, not yet full-grown Qaernermiut girl at Baker Lake. On Tíkerarjutnâq, a naze south of Eskimo Point, there was found a spoon (P 20: 68) of the same material with an oval bowl and a small, upturned handle with a notch in one side, as if it were intended for a left-handed person. Length 15.6 cm, breadth 6.5 cm. A similar but symmetrical spoon (P 20: 5), now very decayed, was found at a grave at the outlet of Kazan River from Hikoligjuaq.

After the meal the fingers are wiped on bird skins.

Drinks. Tea has now become the favourite drink of the Caribou Eskimos, and the quantity they consume in a day is almost incredible. They drink tea at all times of the day, and the tea kettle has become just as permanent a female attribute as the ulo. Helge Image missingFig. 47.Tobacco pipes. Bangsted relates that during our stay at Hikoligjuaq he was wakened in the middle of the night to drink tea.^[77] Instead of sugar, some of the Pâdlimiut put a little cocoa in the tea, which however does not exactly gain in flavour by this addition. After drinking tea, the housewife scrapes the leaves together with her fingers, sucks the last drop from them and puts them away till next time. In this manner the tea is made out of a few fresh leaves and a large quantity of old ones. Coffee is much less appreciated, but anyhow its quality is much poorer than that of the tea.

The original drink, apart from soup, is water. It is ladled up from the water pail and drunk from a skin dipper [imrohᴇq]. Fig. 43 f shows a dipper of unhaired, black sealskin with the flesh-side out, brought from the Pâdlimiut at Eskimo Point (P 28: 136). The bowl is cup-shaped and consists of bottom and sides, which on one side are bent round a wood handle and stitched fast. Diameter 13 by 10 cm; depth 7.5 cm; the free part of the handle is 12 cm. In spring, when the lips split in the dry air, water is sucked through a tube [tɔqʟuᴀq], which as a rule is made of a bird bone. There are two sucking tubes (P 28: 145 and 146; fig. 44 g–h) in the collection from the Pâdlimiut, Eskimo Point. One, made of the ulna of a crane, is 20 cm long; the other is a piece of a shin bone, probably of the same species of bird, 13.8 cm long.

Tobacco. The Caribou Eskimos smoke tobacco almost from the time when they can hold a pipe, and without regard to sex. It is no uncommon thing to see a mother put a pipe in the mouth of a four or five year old urchin exactly as she would do with the maternal breast. This much too early tobacco smoking will certainly gradually make its mark upon their skill as caribou hunters, for this occupation requires good lungs. Tobacco is always mixed with finely-cut whortleberry leaves,^[78] which give it an infernal smell. It is the wife's duty every morning to cut up these leaves on her cutting board with the ulo.

The Caribou Eskimos always smoke a pipe [pulojäc·it] which, as Boas has shown, is of the Indian monitor type and without doubt borrowed from their neighbours to the south.^[79] From the Pâdlimiut at Hikoligjuaq there are several pipes. One (P 28: 160) has a monitor shaped head of soapstone, at the bottom formed of an opened cartridge case; the stem is of two pieces of wood, wound with sinew thread, the mouthpiece slightly flattened. Length 12.2 cm, height of head 4 cm. Another pipe (P 28: 161) has at the back and front of the head two inlaid brass rings, whilst a third (P 28: 164) has a head entirely of iron. From the Qaernermiut at Baker Lake there is a pipe of the same type as the above (P 28: 163; fig. 47 b). The head is of soapstone, edged at the top with brass, at the bottom inserted into a cartridge case. The wooden stem is slightly flattened at the mouthpiece. Length 17.7 cm, height of the head 5.8 cm. A similar specimen (P 28: 162; fig. 47 a) comes from the Hauneqtôrmiut.

1. Gilder s. a.; 46.
2. Hearne 1795; xxx.
3. Dobbs 1744; 8. Ellis 1750; 244, 254 seq. Umfreville 1791; 73.
4. Dobbs 1744; 82.
5. Hearne 1795; 391.
6. Among the inland dwellers proper it has been my experience that some have gone fishing the day after such a ceremony. On the whole the Inland Eskimos are more free in the observation of their taboos than the coast population.
7. Bücher 1911; 27. Cf. ibid. p. 10: "Jedes Individuum verzehrt sofort, was es findet (!); eine gemeinsame Haushaltung giebt es ebensowenig als ein Haus (!). Nur wenn ein grösseres Tier erlegt oder verendet aufgefunden wird . . . sammelt sich die ganze Gruppe, und jeder verschlingt, soviel er kann."
8. ". . . auch wirtschaftlich ist der einzelne Mensch niemals und nirgends ein selbständiges Wesen, sondern immer das Glied einer Dauergruppe". (Schurtz 1900; 212). Cf. also Vierkandt 1896; 88.
9. Brunhes 1925; I 55.
10. Cf. Mc Dougall 1924; 69 seq.
11. Cf. Bücher 1909; 38 seqq.
12. Vodskov 1897; xxxviii.
13. Cf. Schmidt & Koppers s. a. 398.
14. Mc Dougall 1924; 85. Bartlett 1923; 34 seqq. One also recollects that Vierkandt once (1896; 81) found in the human mind "a certain synthesis" of beast-of-prey and ungulate qualities, i. e. hunting tendencies and gregarious instinct. Nor can we pass over Carveth Read's remarkable hypothesis of the progenitor of our species as a flock-hunting being, a "wolf ape", Lycopithecus. How much or how little this hypothesis is worth I lack to some degree the means of judging; but it is characteristic that it has been actually propounded by a psychologist. Even if it might be shown that communal hunting goes back to the earliest times, Vodskov's hypothesis of the collecting stage is not shaken. From the "collectors" of the Danish writer to the impressive primordial man der individuellen Nahrungssuche of the German professor there is only a step, it is true, but still a step of great importance; for in the word "collectors" there is neither social nor asocial meaning.
15. I share this opinion with Jenness (1922; 232 seq.), who is no mild, but a just judge of Eskimo character. Cf. also Bücher's correct remark (1909; 19) that the unwillingness of primitive man to work is of psychic origin. "Nicht die Ermüdung der Muskeln veranlasse es, sondern die Abneigung gegen jede Geistes- und Willenanstrengung."
16. At a camping ground some Pâdlimiut had forgotten a small packet of tea which was absolutely our only "provisions" at that time, so that during the following days we were compelled to live on water and air. An Iglulik Eskimo with whom I was travelling on another occasion lost from the sledge in the course of a week his axe, his drying frame and at last his gun and had to drive back a day and a half in order to find the latter. And he was not one of the worst of his tribe.
17. Knud Rasmussen 1925–26; I 231.
18. 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."
19. Mathiassen 1926; 112 seq.
20. Mason 1895: 264. Cf. Ejusdem 1900; 663.
21. Boas 1907; 81 seqq.
22. Murdoch 1885; 308. Cf. Birket-Smith 1918 a 13.
23. Birket-Smith 1918 a; 16.
24. Boas 1907; 84.
25. Hanbury 1904; 85.
26. Jacob Olsen was once attacked by a bull at Vansittart Island; but as he is a strong man he succeeded in holding it by the antlers and killing it with his knife.
27. This is also mentioned by Low (1906; 21). Now it has been spoiled by the R. C. M. P. having erected buildings at the spot as mentioned on p. 72.
28. J. B. Tyrrell 1898: 142. Hanbury 1904; 120.
29. Cf. also Knud Rasmussen 1925–6 I 171 seq.
30. Knud Rasmussen 1925–26; II 180.
31. Lyon 1824; 336.
32. ö like the short, open German ö or Danish ø in "Ørken".
33. Hanbury 1904; 114 seq.
34. Jenness 1922; 151.
35. Hanbury 1904; 43.
36. Boas 1888; 494. Ejusdem 1907; 14 seq., 81, cf. 69 from Southampton Island.
37. Porsild 1915; 165 seqq. Birket-Smith 1924; 311.
38. Stefánsson 1921; 401 seq.
39. This provides the explanation of the Greenland place-name Aulatsivik, the meaning of which has previously been obscure. Cf. Birket-Smith 1924: 132.
40. J. W. Tyrrell s. a.; 113.
41. Jenness (1922; 150) mentions drives of musk-ox among the Copper Eskimos. Presumably these have also been organised here, although I have no definite evidence of this.
42. Knud Rasmussen 1925–26; I 246.
43. Rae 1850; 135.
44. Knud Rasmussen 1925–26; I 172.
45. Mathiassen 1925; 208, 212.
46. The Copper Eskimos for fishing use a three-pronged spear that is called nuyakpak and is different to the leister (Jenness 1922; 153). As to the use of birddarts for other game than birds cf. also table A 27.
47. Franklin 1823: 376.
48. Hearne 1795; 395 seq.
49. Hearne 1795; 159.
50. Cf. Boas 1907; 84.
51. Hearne 1795; 160 footnote. Italics by K. B.-S.
52. Knud Rasmussen 1925–26 II 74.
53. In the French translation by Curtis it is said that the Caribou Eskimos fish from the hut "à la ligne". The translator must take the responsibility for this addition; Hearne says nothing to this effect.
54. Boas 1907; 84.
55. Hanbury 1904; 111.
56. Dobbs 1744; 49.
57. Hearne 1795; 159.
58. Knud Rasmussen 1925–26; I 184.
59. Regarding terminology and particulars see Birket-Smith 1924: 286 fig. 201.
60. Stefánsson 1913; 109.
61. Rae 1850; 191 seq.
62. Cf. Boas 1907; 78.
63. Ibid., 78, figg. 109–10, p. 80.
64. Boas 1907; 82, fig. 113.
65. Cf. Diary notes in Knud Rasmussen 1925–26; I 235 seqq.
66. Boas 1907; 469.
67. For myself I noticed, in the period during which I lived almost exclusively on meat, a very keen desire for sugar, whereas I did not really miss bread.
68. Birket-Smith 1925; 196 seq.
69. Bear liver is never eaten, as it is considered to be poisonous and, as far as I have been able to find out, both from Greenland and Hudson Bay, this is quite justified. Stefánsson's attempt to reduce this to absurdity and characterise it as an Eskimo superstition seems to me to rather confirm this view. One of the clerks of the H. B. C. told me that he had once eaten bear liver without being aware of its properties and had had to pay for it with a severe poisoning.
70. In West Greenland this word is only used of rotten meat, whereas among the Polar Eskimos it has the same meaning as among the Caribou Eskimos.
71. Hearne 1795; 161 foot note.
72. Hanbury 1904; 44.
73. See foot-note 1 p. 141.
74. Hearne 1795; 160 footnote, 391.
75. Demant Halt 1913; 85.
76. Hanbury 1904; 68. This prohibition is not very strictly observed: I have seen marrow bones broken with a knife. Some men will not, however. break marrow bones at all, as they believe they will have bad legs if they do.
77. Bangsted 1926; 92.
78. Cf. Hanbury 1904; 67.
79. Boas 1907: 108 seqq.