Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Volume Ii Part 8

The elderly women were still well furnished in this way, though their teeth were usually a good deal worn down, probably by the habit of chewing the sealskins for making boots.

In the young of both s.e.xes the complexion is clear and transparent, and the skin smooth. The colour of the latter, when divested of oil and dirt, is scarcely a shade darker than that of a deep brunette, so that the blood is plainly perceptible when it mounts into the cheeks. In the old folks, whose faces were much wrinkled, the skin appears of a much more dingy hue, the dirt being less easily, and, therefore, less frequently dislodged from them.

By whatever peculiarities, however, they may in general be distinguished, they are by no means an ill-looking people; and there were among them three or four grown-up persons of each s.e.x, who, when divested of their skin-dresses, their tattooing, and, above all, of their dirt, might have been considered pleasing-looking, if not handsome, people in any town in Europe. This remark applies more generally to the children also; several of whom had complexions nearly as fair as that of Europeans, and whose little bright black eyes gave a fine expression to their countenances.

The hair, both of males and females, is black, glossy, and straight. The men usually wear it rather long, and allow it to hang about their heads in a loose and slovenly manner. The women pride themselves extremely on the length and thickness of their hair; and it was not without reluctance on their part, and the same on that of their husbands, that they were induced to dispose of any of it. Some of the women's hair was tolerably fine, but would not, in this respect, bear a comparison with, that of an Englishwoman. In both s.e.xes it is full of vermin, which they are in the constant habit of picking out and eating; a man and his wife will sit for an hour together performing for each other that friendly office. The women have a comb, which, however, seems more intended for ornament than use, as we seldom or never observed them comb their hair.

When a woman's husband is ill, she wears her hair loose, and cuts it off as a sign of mourning if he dies; a custom agreeing with that of the Greenlanders. The men wear the hair on the upper lip and chin from an inch to an inch and a half in length, and some were distinguished by a little tuft between the chin and lower lip.

In winter every individual, when in the open air, wears two jackets, of which the outer one (_C=app~e t=egg~a_) has the hair outside, and the inner one (_At-t=e=ega_) next the body. Immediately on entering the hut the men take off their outer jacket, beat the snow from it, and lay it by. The upper garment of the females, besides being cut according to a regular and uniform pattern, and sewed with exceeding neatness, which is the case with all the dresses of these people, has also the flaps ornamented in a very becoming manner by a neat border of deerskin, so arranged as to display alternate breadths of white and dark fur. This is, moreover, usually beautified by a handsome fringe, consisting of innumerable long narrow threads of leather hanging down from it. This ornament is not uncommon also in the outer jackets of the men. When seal-hunting, they fasten up the tails of their jackets with a b.u.t.ton behind.

Their breeches, of which in winter they also wear two pairs, and similarly disposed as to the fur, reach below the knee, and fasten with a string drawn tight round the waist. Though these have little or no waistband, and do not come very high, the depth of the jackets, which considerably overlap them, serves very effectually to complete the covering of the body.

Their legs and feet are so well clothed, that no degree of cold can well affect them. When a man goes on a sealing excursion, he first puts on a pair of deerskin boots (_All~ekt=eeg~a_) with the hair inside, and reaching to the knee, where they tie. Over these come a pair of shoes of the same material; next a pair of dressed sealskin boots, perfectly water-tight; and over all a corresponding pair of shoes, tying round the instep. These last are made just like the moccasin of a North American Indian, being neatly crimped at the toes, and having several serpentine pieces of hide sewn across the sole to prevent wearing. The water-tight boots and shoes are made of the skin of the small seal (_neitiek_), except the soles, which consist of the skin of the large seal (_oguk~e_); this last is also used for their fis.h.i.+ng-lines. When the men are not prepared to encounter wet, they wear an outer boot of deerskin, with the hair outside.

The inner boot of the women, unlike that of the men, is loose round the leg, coming as high as the knee-joint behind, and in front carried up, by a long pointed flap, nearly to the waist, and there fastened to the breeches. The upper boot, with the hair as usual outside, corresponds with the other in shape, except that it is much more full, especially on the outer side, where it bulges out so preposterously as to give the women the most awkward, bow-legged appearance imaginable. This superfluity of boot has probably originated in the custom, still common among the native women of Labrador, of carrying their children in them.

We were told that these women sometimes put their children there to sleep; but the custom must be rare among them, as we never saw it practised. These boots, however, form their princ.i.p.al pockets, and pretty capacious ones they are. Here, also, as in jackets, considerable taste is displayed in the selection of different parts of the deerskin, alternate strips of dark and white being placed up and down the sides and front by way of ornament. The women also wear a moccasin (_Itteeg~eg~a_) over all in the winter time.

To judge by the eagerness with which the women received our beads, especially small white ones, as well as any other article of that kind, we might suppose them very fond of personal ornament. Yet of all that they obtained from us in this way at Winter Island, scarcely anything ever made its appearance again during our stay there, except a ring or two on the finger, and some bracelets of beads round the wrist; the latter of these was probably considered as a charm of some kind or other. We found among them, at the time of our first intercourse, a number of black and white beads, disposed alternately on a string of sinew, and worn in this manner. They would also sometimes hang a small bunch of these, or a b.u.t.ton or two, in front of their jackets and hair; and many of them, in the course of the second winter, covered the whole front of their jackets with the beads they received from us.

Among their personal ornaments must be reckoned that mode of marking the body called tattooing, which, of the customs not essential to the comfort or happiness of mankind, is perhaps the most extensively practised throughout the world. Among these people it seems to be an ornament of indispensable importance to the women, not one of them being without it. The operation is performed about the age of ten, or sometimes earlier, and has nothing to do with marriage, except that, being considered in the light of a personal charm, it may serve to recommend them as wives. The parts of the body thus marked are their faces, arms, hands, thighs, and in some few women the b.r.e.a.s.t.s, but never the feet, as in Greenland. The operation, which, by way of curiosity, most of our gentlemen had practised on their arms, is very expeditiously managed by pa.s.sing a needle and thread, the latter covered with lampblack and oil, under the epidermis, according to a pattern previously marked out upon the skin. Several st.i.tches being thus taken at once, the thumb is pressed upon the part while the thread is drawn through, by which means the colouring matter is retained, and a permanent dye of a blue tinge imparted to the skin. A woman expert at this business will perform it very quickly and with great regularity, but seldom without drawing blood in many places, and occasioning some inflammation. Where so large a portion of the surface of the body is to be covered, it must become a painful as well as tedious process, especially as, for want of needles, they often use a strip of whalebone as a subst.i.tute. For those parts where a needle cannot conveniently be pa.s.sed under the skin, they use the method by puncture, which is common in other countries, and by which our seamen frequently mark their hands and arms. Several of the men were marked on the back part of their hands; and with them we understood it to be considered as a _souvenir_ of some distant deceased person who had performed it.

In their winter habitations, I have before mentioned that the only materials employed are snow and ice; the latter being made use of for the windows alone. The work is commenced by cutting from a drift of hard and compact snow a number of oblong slabs, six or seven inches thick and about two feet in length, and laying them edgeways on a level spot, also covered with snow, in a circular form, and of a diameter from eight to fifteen feet, proportioned to the number of occupants the hut is to contain. Upon this as a foundation is laid a second tier of the same kind, but with the pieces inclining a little inward, and made to fit closely to the lower slabs and to each other by running a knife adroitly along the under part and sides. The top of this tier is now prepared for the reception of a third, by squaring it off smoothly with a knife, all which is dexterously performed by one man standing within the circle and receiving the blocks of snow from those employed in cutting them without. When the wall has attained a height of four or five feet, it leans so much inward as to appear as if about to tumble every moment; but the workmen still fearlessly lay their blocks of snow upon it, until it is too high any longer to furnish the materials to the builder in this manner. Of this he gives notice by cutting a hole close to the ground in that part where the door is intended to be, which is near the south side, and through this the snow is now pa.s.sed. Thus they continue till they have brought the sides nearly to meet in a perfect and well-constructed dome, sometimes nine or ten feet high in the centre; and this they take considerable care in finis.h.i.+ng, by fitting the last block or _keystone_ very nicely in the centre, dropping it into its place from the outside, though it is still done by the man within. The people outside are in the mean time occupied in throwing up snow with the _p~oo=all~er=ay_ or snow shovel, and in stuffing in little wedges of snow where holes have been accidentally left.

The builder next proceeds to let himself out by enlarging the proposed doorway into the form of a Gothic arch, three feet high and two feet and a half wide at the bottom, communicating with which they construct two pa.s.sages, each from ten to twelve feet long and from four to five feet in height, the lowest being that next the hut. The roofs of these pa.s.sages are sometimes arched, but more generally made flat by slabs laid on horizontally. In first digging the snow for building the hut, they take it princ.i.p.ally from the part where the pa.s.sages are to be made, which purposely brings the floor of the latter considerably lower than that of the hut, but in no part do they dig till the bare ground appears.

The work just described completes the walls of a hut, if a single apartment only be required; but if, on account of relations.h.i.+p, or from any other cause, several families are to reside under one roof, the pa.s.sages are made common to all, and the first apartment (in that case made smaller) forms a kind of antechamber, from which you go through an arched doorway five feet high into the inhabited apartments. When there are three of these, which is generally the case, the whole building, with its adjacent pa.s.sages, forms a tolerably regular cross.

For the admission of light into the huts, a round hole is cut on one side of the roof of each apartment, and a circular plate of ice, three or four inches thick and two feet in diameter, let into it. The light is soft and pleasant, like that transmitted through ground gla.s.s, and it is quite sufficient for every purpose. When, after some time, these edifices become surrounded by drift, it is only by the windows, as I have before remarked, that they could be recognised as human habitations. It may, perhaps, then be imagined how singular is their external appearance at night, when they discover themselves only by a circular disk of light transmitted through the windows from the lamps within.

The next thing to be done is to raise a bank of snow, two and a half feet high, all round the interior of each apartment, except on the side next the door. This bank, which is neatly squared off, forms their beds and fireplace, the former occupying the sides, and the latter the end opposite the door. The pa.s.sage left open up to the fireplace is between three and four feet wide. The beds are arranged by first covering the snow with a quant.i.ty of small stones, over which are laid their paddles, tentpoles, and some blades of whalebone: above these they place a number of little pieces of network, made of thin slips of whalebone, and lastly a quant.i.ty of twigs of birch[008] and of the _andromeda tetragona_.

Their deerskins, which are very numerous, can now be spread without risk of their touching the snow; and such a bed is capable of affording not merely comfort, but luxurious repose, in spite of the rigour of the climate. The skins thus used as blankets are made of a large size and bordered, like some of the jackets, with a fringe of long, narrow slips of leather, in which state a blanket is called _k=eipik_.

The fire belonging to each family consists of a single lamp, or shallow vessel of _lapis ollaris_, its form being the lesser segment of a circle. The wick, composed of dry moss rubbed between the hands till it is quite inflammable, is disposed along the edge of the lamp on the straight side, and a greater or smaller quant.i.ty lighted, according to the heat required or the fuel that can be afforded. When the whole length of this, which is sometimes above eighteen inches, is kindled, it affords a most brilliant and beautiful light, without any perceptible smoke or any offensive smell. The lamp is made to supply itself with oil, by suspending a long, thin slice of whale, seal, or seahorse blubber near the flame, the warmth of which causes the oil to drip into the vessel until the whole is extracted. Immediately over the lamp is fixed a rude and rickety framework of wood, from which their pots are suspended, and serving also to sustain a large hoop of bone, having a net stretched tight within it. This contrivance, called _Inn~et~at_, is intended for the reception of any wet things, and is usually loaded with boots, shoes, and mittens.

The fireplace just described as situated at the upper end of the apartment, has always two lamps facing different ways, one for each family occupying the corresponding bedplace. There is frequently, also, a smaller and less-pretending establishment on the same model--lamp, pot, net, and all--in one of the corners next the door; for one apartment sometimes contains three families, which are always closely related; and no married woman, or even a widow without children, is without her separate fireplace.

With all the lamps lighted and the hut full of people and dogs, a thermometer placed on the net over the fire indicated a temperature of 38; when removed two or three feet from this situation, it fell to 31; and, placed close to the wall, stood at 23, the temperature of the open air at the time being 25 below _zero_. A greater degree of warmth than this produces extreme inconvenience by the dropping from the roofs. This they endeavour to obviate by applying a little piece of snow to the place from which a drop proceeds, and this adhering, is for a short time an effectual remedy; but for several weeks in the spring, when the weather is too warm for these edifices, and still too cold for tents, they suffer much on this account.

The most important, perhaps, of the domestic utensils, next to the lamp already described, are the _=o=otk~o~os~e~eks_, or stone pots for cooking. These are hollowed out of solid _lapis ollaris_, of an oblong form, wider at the top than at the bottom all made in similar proportion; though of various sizes corresponding with the dimensions of the lamp which burns under it. The pot is suspended by a line of sinew at each end to the framework over the fire, and thus becomes so black on every side that the original colour of the stone is in no part discernible. Many of them were cracked quite across in several places, and mended by sewing with sinew or rivets of copper, iron, or lead, so as, with the a.s.sistance of a las.h.i.+ng and a due proportion of dirt, to render them quite watertight.

Besides the ootkooseeks, they have circular and oval vessels of whalebone, of various sizes, which, as well as their ivory knives made out of a walrus's tusk, are precisely similar to those described on the western coast of Baffin's Bay in 1820. They have also a number of smaller vessels of skin sewed neatly together; and a large basket of the same material, resembling a common sieve in shape, but with the bottom close and tight, is to be seen in every apartment. Under every lamp stands a sort of "save-all," consisting of a small skin basket for catching the oil that falls over. Almost every family was in possession of a wooden tray very much resembling those used to carry butcher's meat in England, and of nearly the same dimensions, which we understood them to have procured by way of Noowook. They had a number of the bowls or cups already once or twice alluded to as being made out of the thick root of the horn of the musk-ox. Of the smaller part of the same horn they also form a convenient drinking-cup, sometimes turning it up artificially about one third from the point, so as to be almost parallel to the other part, and cutting it full of small notches as a convenience in grasping it. These or any other vessels for drinking they call _Imm=o=ochiuk_.

Besides the ivory knives, the men were well supplied with a much more serviceable kind, made of iron, and called _panna_. The form of this knife is very peculiar, being seven inches long, two and a quarter broad, quite straight and flat, pointed at the end, and ground equally sharp at both edges; this is firmly secured into a handle of bone or wood about a foot long, by two or three iron rivets, and has all the appearance of a most destructive spearhead, but is nevertheless put to no other purpose than that of a very useful knife, which the men are scarcely ever without, especially on their sealing excursions. For these, and several knives of European form, they are probably indebted to an indirect communication with our factories in Hudson's Bay. The same may be observed of the best of their women's knives (_ooloo_), on one of which, of a larger size than usual, were the names of "Wild and Sorby." When of their own manufacture, the only iron part was a little narrow slip let into the bone and secured by rivets.

Of the horn of the musk-ox they make also very good spoons, much like ours in shape; and I must not omit to mention their marrow spoons (_patt=ekniuk_, from _p=att~ek_, marrow), made out of long, narrow, hollowed pieces of bone, of which every housewife has a bunch of half a dozen or more tied together, and generally attached to her needle-case.

For the purpose of obtaining fire, the Esquimaux use two lumps of common iron pyrites, from which sparks are struck into a little leathern case containing moss well dried and rubbed between the hands. If this tinder does not readily catch, a small quant.i.ty of the white floss of the seed of the ground-willow is laid above the moss. As soon as a spark has caught, it is gently blown till the fire has spread an inch around, when, the pointed end of a piece of oiled wick being applied, it soon bursts into a flame--the whole process having occupied perhaps two or three minutes.

In enumerating the articles of their food, we might, perhaps, give a list of every animal inhabiting these regions, as they certainly will, at times, eat any one of them. Their princ.i.p.al dependance, however, is on the reindeer (_t=o=okto~o_); musk-ox (_=o=om~ingm~uk_), in the parts where this animal is found; whale (_=agg~aw~ek_); walrus (_=ei-~u-~ek_); the large and small seal (_=og~uke_ and _n~eitiek_); and two sorts of salmon, the _=ew~ee-t=ar~oke_ (_salmo alpinus?_) and _ichl=u~ow~oke_. The latter is taken by hooks in fresh-water lakes, and the former by spearing in the shoal water of certain inlets of the sea. Of all these animals, they can only procure in the winter the walrus and small seal upon this part of the coast; and these at times, as we have seen, in scarcely sufficient quant.i.ty for their subsistence.

They certainly, in general, prefer eating their meat cooked, and, while they have fuel, they usually boil it; but this is a luxury, and not a necessary to them. Oily as the nature of their princ.i.p.al food is, yet they commonly take an equal proportion of lean to their fat, and, unless very hungry, do not eat it otherwise. Oil they seldom or never use in any way as a part of their general diet; and even our b.u.t.ter, of which they were fond, they would not eat without a due quant.i.ty of bread.[009] They do not like salt meat as well as fresh, and never use salt themselves; but s.h.i.+p's pork or even a red herring did not come amiss to them. Of pea-soup they would eat as much as the sailors could afford to give them; and that word was the only one, with the exception of our names, which many of them ever learned in English. Among their own luxuries must be mentioned a rich soup called k=ay~o, made of blood, gravy, and water, and eaten quite hot.

Their only drink is water; and of this, when they can procure it, they swallow an inconceivable quant.i.ty; so that one of the princ.i.p.al occupations of the women during the winter is the thawing of snow in the ootkooseeks for this purpose. They cut it into thin slices, and are careful to have it clean, on which account they will bring it from a distance of fifty yards from the huts. They have an extreme dislike to drinking water much above the temperature of 32. In eating their meals, the mistress of the family, having previously cooked the meat, takes a large lump out of the pot with her fingers, and hands it to her husband, who, placing a part of it between his teeth, cuts it off with a large knife in that position, and then pa.s.ses the knife and meat together to his next neighbour. In cutting off a mouthful of meat, the knife pa.s.ses so close to their lips, that nothing but constant habit could ensure them from the danger of the most terrible gashes; and it would make an English mother shudder to see the manner in which children five or six years old are at all times freely trusted with a knife to be used in this way.

The length of one of the best of seven canoes belonging to these Esquimaux was twenty-five feet, including a narrow-pointed projection, three feet long at each end, which turns a little upward from the horizontal. The extreme breadth, which is just before the circular hole, was twenty-one inches, and the depth ten inches and a half. The plane of the upper surface of the canoe, except in the two extreme projections, bends downward a little from the centre towards the head and stern, giving it the appearance of what in s.h.i.+ps is called "broken-backed." The gunwales are of fir, in some instances of one piece, three or four inches broad in the centre, and tapering gradually away towards the ends. The timbers, as well as the fore-and-aft connecting pieces, are of the same material, the former being an inch square, and sometimes so close together as to require between forty and fifty of them in one canoe: which, when thus "in frame," is one of the prettiest things of the kind that can be imagined. The skin with which the canoe is covered is exclusively that of the _neitiek_, prepared by sc.r.a.ping off the hair and fat with an _ooloo_, and stretching it tight on a frame over the fire; after which and a good deal of chewing, it is sown on by the women with admirable neatness and strength. Their paddles have a blade at each end, the whole length being nine feet and a half; the blades are covered with a narrow plate of bone round the ends to secure them from splitting; they are always made of fir, and generally of several pieces scarfed and woolded together.

In summer they rest their canoes upon two small stones raised four feet from the ground, and in winter on a similar structure of snow; in one case to allow them to dry freely, and in the other to prevent the snowdrift from covering, and the dogs from eating them. The difficulty of procuring a canoe may be concluded from the circ.u.mstance of there being at Winter Island twenty men able to manage one, and only seven canoes among them. Of these, indeed, only three or four were in good repair; the rest being wholly or in part stripped of the skin, of which a good deal was occasionally cut off during the winter, to make boots, shoes, and mittens for our people. We found no _oomiak_, or woman's boat, among them, and understood that they were not in the habit of using them, which may in part be accounted for by their pa.s.sing so much of the summer in the interior; they knew very well, however, what they were, and made some clumsy models of them for our people.

In the weapons used for killing their game there is considerable variety, according to the animal of which they are in pursuit. The most simple of these is the _=o=on~ak_, which they use only for killing the small seal. It consists of a light staff of wood, four feet in length, having at one end the point of a narwhal's horn, from ten to eighteen inches long, firmly secured by rivets and wooldings; at the other end is a smaller and less effective point of the same kind. To prevent losing the ivory part in case of the wood breaking, a stout thong runs along the whole length of the wood, each end pa.s.sing through a hole in the ivory, and the bight secured in several places to the staff. In this weapon, as far as it has yet been described, there is little art or ingenuity displayed; but a considerable degree of both in an appendage called _si=atk~o_, consisting of a piece of bone three inches long, and having a point of iron at one end, and at the other end a small hole or socket to receive the point of the oonak. Through the middle of this instrument is secured the _=allek_, or line of thong, of which every man has, when sealing, a couple of coils, each from four to six fathoms long, hanging at his back.

When a seal is seen, the siatko is taken from a little leathern case, in which, when out of use, it is carefully enclosed, and attached by its socket to the point of the spear; in this situation it is retained by bringing the allek tight down and fastening it round the middle of the staff by what seamen call a "slippery-hitch," which may instantly be disengaged by pulling on the other end of the line. As soon as the spear has been thrown and the animal struck, the siatko is thus purposely separated; and being slung by the middle, now performs very effectually the important office of a barb, by turning at right angles to the direction in which it has entered the orifice. This device is in its principle superior even to our barb; for the instant any strain is put upon the line, it acts like a toggle, opposing its length to a wound only as wide as its own breadth.

The _=akl~eak_ or _akl=e=eg~a_, used for the large seal, has a blown bladder attached to the staff, for the purpose of impeding the animal in the water.

The third and largest weapon is that called _katteelik_, with which the walrus and whale are attacked. The staff of this is not longer, but much stouter than that of the others, especially towards the middle, where there is a small shoulder of ivory securely lashed to it for the thumb to rest against, and thus to give additional force in throwing or thrusting the spear. The ivory point of this weapon is made to fit into a socket at the end of the staff, where it is secured by double thongs in such a manner as steadily to retain its position when a strain is put upon it in the direction of its length, but immediately disengaging itself with a sort of spring when any lateral strain endangers its breaking. The siatko is always used with this spear; and to the end of the allek, when the animal pursued is in open water, they attach a whole sealskin (_h~ow-w=ut-t~a_), inflated like a bladder, for the purpose of tiring it out in its progress through the water.

They have a spear called _~ippoo_ for killing deer in the water. They describe it as having a light staff and a small head of iron; but they had none of these so fitted in the winter. The _n=ug~uee_, or dart for birds, has, besides its two ivory p.r.o.ngs at the end of the staff, three divergent ones in the middle of it, with several small double barbs upon them turning inward. The spear for salmon or other fish, called _k=ak~eew~ei_, consists of a wooden staff, with a spike of bone or ivory, three inches long, secured at one end. On each side of the spike is a curved p.r.o.ng, much like that of a pitchfork, but made of flexible horn, which gives them a spring, and having a barb on the inner part of the point turning downward. Their fishhooks (_kakli=okio_) consist only of a nail crooked and pointed at one end, the other being let into a piece of ivory to which the line is attached. A piece of deer's horn or curved bone only a foot long is used as a rod, and completes this very rude part of their fis.h.i.+ng-gear.

Of their mode of killing seals in the winter I have already spoken in the course of the foregoing narrative, as far as we were enabled to make ourselves acquainted with it. In their summer exploits on the water, the killing of the whale is the most arduous undertaking which they have to perform; and one cannot sufficiently admire the courage and activity which, with gear apparently so inadequate, it must require to accomplish this business. Okotook, who was at the killing of two whales in the course of a single summer, and who described the whole of it quite _con amore_, mentioned the names of thirteen men who, each in his canoe, had a.s.sisted on one of these occasions. When a fish is seen lying on the water, they cautiously paddle up astern of him, till a single canoe, preceding the rest, comes close to him on one quarter, so as to enable the man to drive the _katteelik_ into the animal with all the force of both arms. This having the _siatko_, a long _allek_, and the inflated sealskin attached to it, the whale immediately dives, taking the whole apparatus with him except the katteelik, which, being disengaged in the manner before described, floats to the surface, and is picked up by its owner. The animal reappearing after some time, all the canoes again paddle towards him, some warning being given by the sealskin buoy floating on the surface. Each man being furnished like the first, they repeat the blows as often as they find opportunity, till perhaps, every line has been thus employed. After pursuing him in this manner sometimes for half a day, he is at length so wearied by the resistance of the buoys, and exhausted by the loss of blood, as to be obliged to rise more and more often to the surface, when, by frequent wounds with their spears, they succeed in killing him, and tow their prize in triumph to the sh.o.r.e.

In attacking the walrus in the water they use the same gear, but much more caution than with the whale, always throwing the _katteelik_ from some distance, lest the animal should attack the canoe and demolish it with his tusks. The walrus is, in fact, the only animal with which they use any caution of this kind. They like the flesh better than that of the seal; but venison is preferred by them to either of these, and, indeed, to any other kind of meat.

At Winter Island they carefully preserved the heads of all the animals killed during the winter, except two or three of the walrus, which we obtained with great difficulty. As the blood of the animals which they kill is all used as food of the most luxurious kind, they are careful to avoid losing any portion of it; for this purpose they carry with them on their excursions a little instrument of ivory called _t~oop=o=ot~a_, in form and size exactly resembling a "twenty-penny"

nail, with which they stop up the orifice made by the spear, by thrusting it through the skin by the sides of the wound, and securing it with a twist.

One of the best of their bows was made of a single piece of fir, four feet eight inches in length, flat on the inner side and rounded on the outer, being five inches in girth about the middle, where, however, it is strengthened on the concave side, when strung, by a piece of bone ten inches long, firmly secured by treenails of the same material. At each end of the bow is a k.n.o.b of bone, or sometimes of wood covered with leather, with a deep notch for the reception of the string. The only wood which they can procure, not possessing sufficient elasticity combined with strength, they ingeniously remedy the defect by securing to the back of the bow, and to the k.n.o.bs at each end, a quant.i.ty of small lines, each composed of a plat or "sinnet" of three sinews. The number of lines thus reaching from end to end is generally about thirty; but, besides these, several others are fastened with hitches round the bow, in pairs, commencing eight inches from one end, and again united at the same distance from the other, making the number of strings in the middle of the bow sometimes amount to sixty. These being put on with the bow bent somewhat the contrary way, produce a spring so strong as to require considerable force as well as knack in stringing it, and giving the requisite velocity to the arrow. The bow is completed by a woolding round the middle, and a wedge or two, here and there, driven in to tighten it. A bow in one piece is, however, very rare; they generally consist of from two to five pieces of bone of unequal lengths, secured together by rivets and treenails.

The arrows vary in length from twenty to thirty inches, according to the materials that can be commanded. About two thirds of the whole length is of fir rounded, and the rest of bone let by a socket into the wood, and having a head of thin iron, or more commonly of slate, secured into a slit by two treenails. Towards the opposite end of the arrow are two feathers, generally of the spotted oval, not very neatly lashed on. The bowstring consists of from twelve to eighteen small lines of three-sinew sinnet, having a loose twist, and with a separate becket of the same size for going over the k.n.o.bs at the end of the bow.

We tried their skill in archery by getting them to shoot at a mark for a prize, though with bows in extremely bad order on account of the frost, and their hands very cold. The mark was two of their spears stuck upright in the snow, their breadth being three inches and a half. At twenty yards they struck this every time; at thirty, sent the arrows always within an inch or two of it; and at forty or fifty yards, I should think, would generally hit a fawn if the animal stood still.

These weapons are perhaps sufficient to inflict a mortal wound at something more than that distance, for which, however, a strong arm would be required. The animals which they kill with the bow and arrow for their subsistence are princ.i.p.ally the musk-ox and deer, and less frequently the bear, wolf, fox, hare, and some of the smaller animals.

The reindeer are killed by the Esquimaux in great abundance in the summer season, partly by driving them from islands or narrow necks of land into the sea, and then spearing them from their canoes; and partly by shooting them from behind heaps of stones raised for the purpose of watching them, and imitating their peculiar bellow or grunt. Among the various artifices which they employ for this purpose, one of the most ingenious consists in two men walking directly _from_ the deer they wish to kill, which almost always follows them. As soon as they arrive at a large stone, one of the men hides behind it with his bow, while the other continuing to walk on, soon leads the deer within range of his companion's arrows. They are also very careful to keep to leeward of the deer, and will scarcely go out after them at all when the weather is calm. For several weeks in the course of the summer, some of these people almost entirely give up their fishery on the coast, retiring to the banks of lakes several miles in the interior, which they represent as large and deep, and abounding with salmon, while the pasture near them affords good feeding to numerous herds of deer.

The distance to which these people extend their inland migrations, and the extent of coast of which they possess a personal knowledge, are really very considerable. A great number of them, who were born at Amitioke and Igloolik, had been to _Noowook_, or nearly as far south as Chesterfield Inlet, which is about the _ne plus ultra_ of their united knowledge in a southerly direction. Okotook and a few others of the Winter Island tribe had extended their peregrinations a considerable distance to the northward, over the large insular piece of land to which we have applied the name of c.o.c.kburn Island; which they described as high land, and the resort of numerous reindeer. By the information afterward obtained when nearer the spot, we had reason to suppose this land must reach beyond the seventy-second degree of lat.i.tude in a northerly direction; so that these people possess a personal knowledge of the Continent of America and its adjacent islands, from that parallel to Chesterfield Inlet in 63-3/4, being a distance of more than five hundred miles reckoned in a direct line, besides the numerous turnings and windings of the coast along which they are accustomed to travel.

Ewerat and some others had been a considerable distance up the Wager River; but no record had been preserved among them of Captain Middleton's visit to that inlet about the middle of the last century.

Of the Indians they know enough by tradition to hold them in considerable dread, on account of their cruel and ferocious manners.

When, on one occasion, we related the circ.u.mstances of the inhuman ma.s.sacre described by Hearne, they crowded round us in the hut, listening with mute and almost breathless attention; and the mothers drew their children closer to them, as if to guard them from the dreadful catastrophe.

The Esquimaux take some animals in traps, and by a very ingenious contrivance of this kind they caught two wolves at Winter Island. It consists of a small house built of ice, at one end of which a door, made of the same plentiful material, is fitted to slide up and down in a groove; to the upper part of this a line is attached, and, pa.s.sing over the roof, is let down into the trap at the inner end, and there held by slipping an eye in the end of it over a peg of ice left for the purpose.

Over the peg, however, is previously placed a loose grummet, to which the bait is fastened, and a false roof placed over all to hide the line.

The moment the animal drags at the bait, the grummet slips off the peg, bringing with it the line that held up the door, and this, falling down, closes the trap and secures him,

A trap for birds is formed by building a house of snow just large enough to contain one person, who closes himself up in it. On the top is left a small aperture, through which the man thrusts one of his hands to secure the bird the moment he alights to take away a bait of meat laid beside it. It is princ.i.p.ally gulls that are taken thus; and the boys sometimes amuse themselves in this manner. A trap in which they catch foxes has been mentioned in another place.

The sledges belonging to these Esquimaux were in general large and heavily constructed, being more adapted to the carriage of considerable burdens than to very quick travelling. They varied in size, being from six feet and a half to nine feet in length, and from eighteen inches to two feet in breadth. Some of those at Igloolik were of larger dimensions, one being eleven feet in length, and weighing two hundred and sixty-eight pounds, and two or three others above two hundred pounds. The runners are sometimes made of the right and left jaw-bones of a whale; but more commonly of several pieces of wood or bone scarfed and lashed together, the interstices being filled, to make all smooth and firm, with moss stuffed in tight, and then cemented by throwing water to freeze upon it. The lower part of the runner is shod with a plate of harder bone, coated with fresh-water ice to make it run smoothly, and to avoid wear and tear, both which purposes are thus completely answered. This coating is performed with a mixture of snow and fresh water about half an inch thick, rubbed over it till it is quite smooth and hard upon the surface, and this is usually done a few minutes before setting out on a journey. When the ice is only in part worn off, it is renewed by taking some water into the mouth, and spirting it over the former coating. We noticed a sledge which was extremely curious, on account of one of the runners and a part of the other being constructed without the a.s.sistance of wood, iron, or bone of any kind. For this purpose, a number of sealskins being rolled up and disposed into the requisite shape, an outer coat of the same kind was sewed tightly round them; this formed the upper half of the runner, the lower part of which consisted entirely of moss moulded while wet into the proper form, and being left to freeze, adhering firmly together and to the skins. The usual shoeing of smooth ice beneath completed the runner, which, for more than six months out of twelve, in this climate, was nearly as hard as any wood; and for winter use, no way inferior to those constructed of more durable materials. The cross-pieces which form the bottom of the sledges are made of bone, wood, or anything they can muster. Over these is generally laid a sealskin as a flooring, and in the summer time a pair of deer's horns are attached to the sledge as a back, which in the winter are removed, to enable them, when stopping, to turn the sledge up, so as to prevent the dogs running away with it. The whole is secured by las.h.i.+ngs of thong, giving it a degree of strength combined with flexibility which perhaps no other mode of fastening could effect.

The colour of the dogs varies from a white, through brindled, to black and white, or almost entirely black. Their hair in the winter is from three to four inches long; but, besides this, nature furnishes them, during this rigorous season, with a thick under coating of close, soft wool, which they begin to cast in the spring. While thus provided, they are able to withstand the most inclement weather without suffering from the cold; and, at whatever temperature the atmosphere may be, they require nothing but a shelter from the wind to make them comfortable, and even this they do not always obtain. They are also wonderfully enabled to endure the cold even on those parts of the body which are not thus protected; for we have seen a young puppy sleeping, with its bare paw laid on an ice-anchor, with the thermometer at -30, which, with one of our dogs, would have produced immediate and intense pain, if not subsequent mortification. They never bark, but have a long, melancholy howl like that of the wolf, and this they will sometimes perform in concert for a minute or two together. They are, besides, always snarling and fighting among one another, by which several of them are generally lame. When much caressed and well fed, they become quite familiar and domestic: but this mode of treatment does not improve their qualities as animals of draught. Being desirous of ascertaining whether these dogs are wolves in a state of domestication, a question which we understood to have been the subject of some speculation, Mr. Skeoch, at my request, made a skeleton of each, when the number of all the vertebrae was found to be the same in both,[010] and to correspond with the well-known anatomy of the wolf.