October, 1918] 



The Ottawa Naturalist 



61 



steaks or for roasting in an oven. For themselves, 

 the hams are either fed to the dogs, which must have 

 their share, or cut up for drying. The white man's 

 "choice cuts " are not the Eskimo's or the Indian's 

 favorites, and as a rule are not the first choice of 

 the out-door man who is cooking in the Held with 

 primitive appliances. 



The caribou (or sheep) heads are cooked very 

 early in the game split, quartered and boiled with 

 the brains in place, or roasted suspended on a 

 rotating string before the fire. The long leg bones 

 are cracked for their long sticks of sweet marrow 

 (which tastes much like unsalted butter) ; the ribs, 

 while net carrying very much flesh, are boiled cr 

 roasted, and when fat are a luxury; the neck and 

 backbone are boiled, the latter after the long, thick 

 slabs of "back-sinew" meat are removed to make 

 sewing thread, and the tender, stringless meat which 

 remains is fried, frozen solid for eating raw, or 

 dried to make "pounded meat" or pemmican. The 

 solid meat of hams or shoulders is cut up into strips 

 for drying, or in cool weather is cached entire. 



In skinning the caribou the back-fat is removed 

 in a great slab (sometimes weighing 40 to 50 pounds) 

 and the kidney and mesenteric fat removed in masses, 

 it being considered the most precious part of the 

 animal. The back-fat of the bull caribou, which 

 may be as much as three inches thick in the fall, 

 may be kept through the winter and sliced up and 

 used for practically all purposes where bacon is 

 useful. Personally I prefer it to bacon. 



Under normal conditions, when not spoiled by 

 civilization or market-hunting for white men, the 

 Eskimo methods of hunting and handling food 

 animals would delight the hearts of a Food Conser- 

 vation board, for practically nothing is wasted. The 

 skin of the caribou is highly prized, and is saved 

 for clothing and bedding. In the field the paunch 

 or stomach is made into a little bag, and the blood 

 saved to thicken the bouillon when the meat is 

 boiled, the sledge-dogs and pack-dogs are fed the 

 offal, and of the remainder of the carcass, little is 

 unused for focd except the hoofs. Even the young 

 antlers, when in the "velvet" are eaten after re- 

 moving the soft skin. In my opinion the conserva- 

 tion methods are carried a trifle too far when they 

 pick out the large grubs of the warble-fly from the 

 skin of the caribou in the spring, and eat them like 

 cherries. The grubs are very watery and abso- 

 lutely tasteless, but for some reason the Eskimo seems 

 to relish them. 



Whenever possible the bones, cast aside after the 

 boiled meat has been scraped or cut off, are saved 

 until a large pile is accumulated. When a suf- 

 ficiently large pile is collected, or two or three days 



before camp is to be moved, a heavy stone hammer 

 is made by lashing a handle to a rock of suitable 

 shape and size, and the women of the camp break 

 up all the bones into small fragments the vertebrae, 

 ends and joints of the long bones, ribs, and tarsals, 

 metatarsals, carpals, and metacarpals. These ben? 

 fragments are placed in a large pot over an cpen 

 fire, and slowly boiled, stirred, and the grease 

 skimmed off the top, poured into kettles, alicv.' d 

 to harden, and kept in blocks. This bon' fr^-s: 

 (puinyirk) forms a pure white, hard tallcw. The 

 North Alaskan and Mackenzie Eskimo c'ri. i that 

 the bones of seven caribou will yield encuph tallcw 

 to fill one caribou-peunch bag, possibly 25 to 30 

 pound?. The war-time conservation cf grease from 

 stripped and d scarded bones is not an entirely new 

 :dea of "Teutonic efficiency. " 



The Eskimo domestic economy is directed rather 

 to utilizing everything, rather than stinting or econ- 

 omizing in am.cunt used. Nothing can be worse 

 than being called stingy, and the best form is to eat 

 everything cooked or set forth for a meal, and when 

 food is plenty meals are net very far apart. The 

 first winter I spent with the Eskimo, I still held an 

 old prejudice, the idea that throe meals a day at 

 stated times, were enough for a normal adult under 

 any conditions. On Sundays and stormy days in 

 camp, the Eskimo delighted in eating half a dozen 

 times or more. My refusal to join in all of these 

 fixed and movable feasts caused genuine concern to 

 my good-hearted guide and interpreter. His dietetic 

 theory, which he followed religiously, was this: 

 " 'Spose we got plenty grub, more better you plenty 

 eat. You plenty eat, bimeby ycu plenty fat. Maybe 

 winter time, not tec much grub, ycu no fat, plen'.y 

 hungry, quick mukla (die)." Not being trained to 

 this method of sub-cutanecus hoarding of fats, I 

 was not always able to put away my full share, 

 although as the winter wore on, my aptitude at 

 meals seemed to improve. 



The Eskimo is popularly supposed to gorge trem- 

 endously, but except in a few individual cases, his 

 enormous eating capacity is more apparent than real. 

 Any man, red, white, or brown, living on meat or 

 fish "straight" will consume a much greater weight 

 and bulk than one living on a mixed civilized diet, 

 a more properly balanced ration. An average 

 soldier's ration is not much over 3'/2 pounds daily 

 (approximately one pound of meat, one of breed, 

 and the other pound and a half vegetables, beans, 

 sugar, etc.) The Hudson Bay Company's ration 

 for a labourer on straight meat was eight or ten 

 peunds per day. Sir John Franklin speaks of his 

 nrcn suffering hardship on account of short rations 

 ft Fort Enterprise with only five pounds of fresh 

 Kneat (caribou or moose) per day per man. 



