October. 1918] 



The Otiawa Naturalist 



63 



People as a rule are prone to consider the food, 

 clothing, and social customs of foreigners or out- 

 landers as "outlandish." Many Eskimos like to 

 eat their fish rather "high," and in many cases are 

 practically compelled to, as in cases where the main 

 fishery is made shortly before the freeze-up, too 

 late in the season for drymg, and too early to freeze 

 them at once. Such fish are usually eaten after 

 freezing hard, and the tamted odour or flavour is 

 barely perceptible if eaten frozen. From the Eskimo 

 standpoint the fish is really improved, as the flesh is 

 more flaky and tender than when absolutely fresh. 

 Some white people allow game to hang for some 

 time for the same reason. An Eskimo who had 

 served on whaling ships and was familiar with the 

 odouriferous Limberger and other varieties of cheese, 

 once said me: White man plenty eat tipi (rotten, 

 stinking) cheese; what's the matter him no eat 

 tipi fish?" 



ice in the fall freezes as the cold increases and the 

 sweeping blizzards of winter drift this salty snow 

 over the land, so that snow from some distance in- 

 land will often have a perceptibly salty taste. Prob- 

 ably seal-meat may contain a certain amount of 

 salt, and undoubtedly absorbs a little in the cookery, 

 as all flesh meat absorbs salt when there is salt in 

 the water. Salt water fish, on the other hand, may 

 be boiled in briny sea-water, without absorbing any 

 noticeable taste of salt. 



In the fall, after the caribou have been grazing 

 along the sea-coast, or licking the ground at salt- 

 licks or alkaline spots inland, the meat has a 

 noticeable salty flavour. Different parts of the 

 animal seem to differ strikingly in saltiness. The 

 lower joints of the legs when boiled in water, im- 

 part a strong beef-tea or bouillon flavour, and as 

 practically demonstrated to me by a Great Bear 

 Indian, when fresh deer-legs were boiled for supper, 



,s: 



V 



V \ 



.dlfi^ 



^<3r^ 



Eskimo's fisli-drying place, Fishing Lake, Dolpliin and Union Strait. 



The primitive Eskimo, so far as I know, never 

 used salt as an article of food, and indeed with a 

 carnivorous diet, salt does not seem to be necessary. 

 I have gone for several months without having any 

 salt, and never suffered any inconvenience, although 

 I never got beyond a certain desire for it when 1 

 happened to think about it. When living on cereals, 

 flour, rice, oatmeal, cornmeal, etc., much more salt 

 seems to be necessary, and the civilized Eskimo 

 wants it as much as the white man does. The car- 

 nivorous animals do not care for salt, while the 

 herbivores go long distances to the coast or to salt- 

 licks. 



In the winter time the Eskimo living on the sea- 

 coast certainly gets a goodly amount of salt into his 

 system from the melted snow and ice-water he 

 drinks. The salt slush which forms en top of sea 



and more of the same kind of fresh meat boiled in 

 the same liquid for breakfast, the resulting bouillon 

 was almost too salty to drink. So the straight 

 caribou-eater does not suffer from lack of salt. 

 Indeed, when very much salt is used with the meat 

 diet, a feeling of discomfort is felt after eating 

 heartily of salted fresh meat, probably due to the salt 

 sterilizing and retarding the digestive ferments. 



The Eskimo eats about the same birds that the 

 white man does, as the water-fowl all migrate to 

 more temperate climes in winter. The geese and 

 ducks are the most important, and are familiar to 

 the white man's palate. The sea-ducks, eiders, 

 auks, murres, and puffins of the western Arctic, are 

 apt to have a more or less fishy taste, but on the 

 whole, most birds are edible. None but the larger 

 biid: are hunted to any extent, though the small 



