Ethnology of the Ungava District, Hudson Bay Territory Part 10

When a sack of oil is sold the bag is usually returned to the seller, who again fills it with oil or converts the skin into bootlegs or soles.

The leather having become thoroughly impregnated with the oil makes the best for wear, often resisting moisture for three or four days of continuous wet.

Before leaving the subject of weapons and their accessories, I may mention No. 3069, a small pouch made of thick sealskin. The shape is somewhat like that of a leg of mutton. This is used for carrying gun caps. The neck is only large enough to permit one cap to fall out at a time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 67.--Hand spear for killing seals from kaiak; Koksoak.]

HUNTING.

I have already referred briefly to the various methods of taking seals, white whales, and other game, while describing the boats, spears, and other apparatus used in their pursuit.

The most important hunt of the year, however, comes in the autumn, when the reindeer are migrating in large herds and crossing the rivers.

The deer are wanted now for their flesh for food and their skins for clothing. Everything necessary for the chase is taken in the umiak, or, perhaps, a whaleboat, to a locality convenient to where the animals cross over. Here the tent is pitched, and a camp is made. The hunters scour the neighboring land for herds of reindeer, which are seen running about under the impulse to seek the opposite s.e.x. As they arrive from different directions, those of one s.e.x must cross the river. Since the females furnish the lighter skins for clothing, and the males the greater amount of meat and a heavier skin for various purposes, deer of both s.e.xes are equally useful.

A band of three or four, or as many as a hundred, may be sighted slowly winding their way through the openings of the timbered areas on the opposite side of the river. The native with telescope, or binocular in focus, observes their movements until they pause a moment on the bank and then plunge quickly into the water, where they keep well together until the opposite sh.o.r.e is reached. Here, if undisturbed, they will stand to allow the water to drip from their bodies, and then will walk slowly along to a convenient place to climb the bank and penetrate the strip of woods or bushes and emerge into the open country beyond. As soon as the native sees the deer everything is put in readiness on the kaiak, and with quick strokes of the double-bladed paddle he is behind and below the now terrified animals. They rear and plunge in frantic confusion, endeavoring to escape their most dreaded foe. The hunter calmly drives the herd through the water as the shepherd does his flock on land. Those disposed to break away are rounded up and driven back.

The greatest care must be exercised not to let the animals get below the kaiak, or they will swim faster with the stream than the hunter can paddle. As there are, generally, two or more kaiaks, it is an easy matter for the men to drive the animals wherever they desire. When the camp is above, the deer are driven diagonally across so as to make them come out near the camp. If the site is below, the animals are allowed to drop down to a convenient place. These maneuvers depend on the wind, as the sense of smell of the deer is very acute at this season, and the scent of the camp, if detected, would throw the animals into such terror that the greater number would escape.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 68.--Togglehead for hand spear.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 69.--Sealskin float.]

When near the place the hunter takes his deer spear, which is exactly like the one used by the Indians, and quietly stabs the animal in a vital spot, endeavoring so to wound the beast that it will have only enough strength to enable it to attain the shallow water or sh.o.r.e, and not to wander off. Among the hundreds of times I have had the opportunity to witness this, I never knew a deer wounded with the spear to turn back to swim in the direction from which it came. They appear to dread the water, and strive most frantically to regain the land where, if mortally wounded, they stand; the limbs gradually diverging to sustain their trembling body; the eyes gazing piteously at the foe, who often mocks their dying struggles, or pitches a stone at their quivering legs to make them fall. A convulsive struggle as the blood fills the internal cavity, a sudden pitch, and the life is gone without sigh or groan. As many of the herd as can be speared are quickly dispatched and the entire number secured if possible. It is supposed that the ones which return to the sh.o.r.e whence they came give the alarm and frighten other arrivals away from the starting point. The hunters strive to prevent their return, and will often allow two, near the camp, to escape in order to pursue the retreating animal.

Those which have been killed and are lying in the water are dragged on land and skinned. The pelt is taken off as that of a beef is when skinned by a butcher. The ears and the skin of the head are left on.

The body is opened and the viscera are removed. The intestines are freed from the fat; the stomach is cleansed of the greater portion of its contents, and the blood which collected within the cavity is scooped up with the hands and ladled into that receptacle; and both are reserved for food. The heart and liver are taken to the camp, where they help to form a variety in the animal food of these people. Other portions of the flesh are also consumed. The sinew, which lies along the lumbar region just below the superficial muscles, is exposed by a cut, and with the point of a knife or tip of the finger loosened from its adherent flesh.

One end, usually the forward end, is detached and a stout thong tied to it, and it is jerked from its attachment by a vigorous pull. It requires a strong person to remove this tendon from the body of a lean animal.

A stroke of the knife frees the wide layer of sinew from blood and particles of flesh. This is now laid aside for awhile, then washed to free it from the blood, which would stain it dark in color and also tend to diminish the strength of the fibers by rotting them. It is now spread out and allowed to dry. The body is cut across the small of the back and laid aside. The head is severed from the neck and discarded if there be no portion of the horns which is needed to serve some purpose, such as a handle for a knife or other tool. If the head be that of a young deer it is often taken to the camp and put into a pot and boiled in the condition in which it comes from the field. When cooked for a long time it becomes very soft; the muscles of the jaw being reduced to a semigelatinous condition, which makes an excellent article of food.

The tongue is invariably taken out entire, and is considered the greatest delicacy, either frozen, raw or cooked, or dried and smoked.

In fact a tongue from the reindeer is good at any time or condition.

The hindquarters are seldom separated, but are placed within the thoracic cavity, and either cached near the scene of slaughter or placed on the kaiak and taken to a spot where others are deposited from which supplies may be taken when the food for the winter is required.

Here and there along the bank will be placed the body of a single deer, sometimes two or three, which have been killed too far from the present camp for the hunter to bring them home. These spots are marked or remembered by some visible surrounding, lest the deep snows of winter obscure the locality, and often the place can not be found when wanted.

The cache in which the flesh is deposited is simply a few stones or bowlders laid on the ground and the meat put upon them. A rude sort of wall is made by piling stones upon the meat until it is hidden from the ravages of ravens, gulls, foxes, wolves and the detested wolverine.

As soon as the hunter considers that the deer of that particular locality have ceased to cross, he will repair to another station and go through the same process. The deer which are first slain, when the hunting season arrives, and the weather is still so warm that the flies and decomposition ruin the meat, are reserved for supplies of dog food.

MISCELLANEOUS IMPLEMENTS.

I have already, in the earlier pages of this paper, referred to various tools and implements.

In addition to these, the Koksoagmyut have comparatively few tools.

In former ages stone and ivory were fas.h.i.+oned into crude implements for the purposes which are now better and more quickly served by instruments of iron or steel.

These people have now been so long in more or less direct contact with traders who have supplied them with these necessaries that it is rare to find one of the knives used in former times. Certain operations, however, are even to this day better performed with a knife made of ivory. The ice from the kaiak bottom or the sides of the boat may best be removed by means of an ivory knife, resembling a snow knife but shorter. The steel knife is always kept sharp and if so used would, on the unyielding, frozen skin-covering of those vessels, quickly cut a hole. The Eskimo living remote from the trading stations use a snow knife made from the tusk of a walrus or the main stem of the reindeer antler.

That steel or iron is deemed an improvement on the former materials from which cutting instruments were made is shown by the crude means now employed. If the person has not a knife an unused spearhead, having an iron point, is often employed instead for skinning animals and dressing the skins.

Stone heads for weapons of all kinds have been discarded. Ivory spears are at times used but these only when the hunter is close to the prey.

Some of the men have acquired considerable skill in fas.h.i.+oning iron into the required shape. They eagerly stand around anyone who may be at work, and evince the greatest curiosity in anything new.

The collection contains two of the snow knives referred to above. No.

3067 is a large snow knife, made from the lower portion of the main stem of the horn of the male reindeer. It is simply half of the split horn with the middle scooped out. The length is 12 inches. This form of instrument is used more especially to smooth down the inequalities of the blocks of snow after being placed in position. No. 3140 (Fig. 70) is a large snow knife made of walrus ivory. It is 13 inches long and nearly 2 inches wide for the greater part of the blade, which terminates in a rounded point. The instrument has two edges, and in general appearances resembles a double-edged Roman sword. The handle is cut to fit to the hand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 70.--Ivory snow knife, Koksoagmyut.]

Among other peculiar implements collected is one represented in Fig. 71 (No. 3555), which is a "back-scratcher." This instrument consists of a shaft made from a limb of a larch tree. It is 17 inches long and about three-fourths of an inch through, flattened to less than half an inch and tapering toward the end to be held in the hand. On the lower end is a dish-shaped piece of reindeer horn, two and one-eighth inches long and seven-eighths of an inch wide. Through the center of the piece of horn an oblong hole has been cut for the insertion of the shaft or handle.

The edges of the horn piece are sharp as can be made. This piece is one-third of an inch thick, and having the sharp edge up is convenient for thrusting down the back to scratch one's self in places where the hand could not reach on account of thick deerskin clothing. The Eskimo name of the instrument is ku-me-u-tik, or that which removes lice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 71.--Back-scratcher, Koksoagmyut.]

The steel needles obtained from the traders are kept in a little ivory receptacle of various shapes, two of which are shown in Figs. 72 and 73.

This is hollow and filled with any sphagnum moss. One end is permanently closed by a wooden or ivory plug, held in by little pegs. The plug in the other end is easily taken out. The needle case is usually pierced to receive a loop by which it may be hung to the belt or the workbag.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 72.--Ivory needle case. Koksoagmyut.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 73.--Ivory needle case. Koksoagmyut.]

Needles are also kept in a kind of small cus.h.i.+on (Fig. 74) made of sealskin, elaborately ornamented with beads and stuffed with sphagnum moss. The cus.h.i.+on is perforated around the edge to receive the needles, which would not easily go through the tough skin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 74.--Sealskin needle cus.h.i.+on, with thimble.

Koksoagmyut.]

Accompanying one of these needle cus.h.i.+ons in the collection is one of the old-fas.h.i.+oned thimbles such as are still used, although metal thimbles are preferred. It is simply a strip of sealskin sewed into a ring large enough to fit the forefinger, and is usually attached to the needle cus.h.i.+on by a thong with an ivory toggle on the end, to prevent the thimble from slipping off.

Small articles used in sewing, such as sc.r.a.ps of skin, needle cases, sinew thread, thimbles, etc., are carried in small bags of deerskin, which are often elaborately ornamented with beads of various colors, like the specimen in the collection, No. 3047.

AMUs.e.m.e.nTS.

Notwithstanding the fact that these people have had their lot cast upon the frozen sh.o.r.es of the sea, they appear happy and contented and loath to leave the land of their birth. Although it is a constant struggle amidst the terrible storms of a region where for eight months in the year the soil is frozen and the few warm days of summer bring forth a scanty vegetation, yet so strong is their love for these inhospitable sh.o.r.es that the absent pine for a return and soon lose their hold on life if they are not able to do so.

During the intervals between the hunts and when food is still plentiful, the Eskimo, divert themselves with games of various kinds of their own.

They are also quick to adopt other games which require outdoor exercise.

Football calls out everybody, from the aged and bent mother of a numerous family to the toddling youngster scarcely able to do more than waddle under the burden of his heavy deerskin clothes. Wrestling among the men is indulged in for hours at a time. The opponents remove all their superfluous garments, seize each other around the waist and lock hands behind each other's backs. The feet are spread widely apart and each endeavors to draw, by the strength of the arms alone, the back of his opponent into a curve and thus bring him off his feet. Then with a lift he is quickly thrown flat on his back. The fall must be such that the head touches the ground. Where the contestants are nearly matched the struggle may continue so long that one of them gives up from exhaustion. The feet are never used for tripping. Such a procedure would soon cause the witnesses to stop the struggle.

The Eskimo and Indians often engage in comparative tests of their strength in wrestling. The Eskimo prove the better men in these engagements. Throwing stones at a mark is a sport for the younger men, some of whom acquire surprising dexterity.

If a pack of playing-cards can be obtained they engage in games which they have learned from the white people and teach each other. Small stakes are laid on the result of the game. The women appear to exhibit a greater pa.s.sion for gambling than the men do. They will wager the last article of clothing on their persons till the loser appears in a nude condition before spectators. Then the winner will usually return at least a part of the clothing, with an injunction to play more and lose less.

The young girls often play the game of taking an object and secreting it within the closed hand. Another is called upon to guess the contents.

She makes inquiries as to the size, color, etc., of the object. From the answers she gradually guesses what the thing is.