ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 103 



purposes for which we use cord. In former times and occasionally 

 at present, the skin served to cover the summer tent, or tu p'ek. 

 No part of the animal is wasted. Even the entrails are saved, and 

 dressed, and made into water-proof frocks to wear over the fur cloth- 

 ing in rainy and snowy weather. If their were no seals at Point 

 Barrow there could be no Eskimos, barren as the country is of fish 

 and reindeer. 



The following species are pursued : First, and most important, the 

 Ringed Seal or Netyi (Phocafoctidn). This is i/ie seal par excellence, 

 and the only one taken in any considerable numbers, by all the 

 methods which will be described hereafter. Next in importance is 

 the great Bearded Seal, ug'ru {Erignathus barbatus). This is com- 

 paratively rare, though a good many are taken much in the same 

 manner as the walrus with the heavy harpoon and rifle from the 

 umiak. The skins are especially valued for covering the large skin 

 boats, and for making heavy harpoon lines. The other two species 

 are of extremely rare occurrence. The Harbor Seal, kasigia, 

 {Phoca vitulina) is occasionally caught in summer in the nets at 

 Elson Bay, and the rare and beautiful Ribbon Seal {Histriophoca 

 fasciata), the kaixolin, is now and then taken in the early winter. 



When the ice-pack comes in in the autumn, and the sea is begin- 

 ning to close, it may be about the middle of October, the natives 

 who are now all back from their summer wanderings and settled 

 for the winter, begin the pursuit of the ne'etye. At this season 

 there are many open Holes in the pack to which the seals resort. 

 Here they are taken by shooting them with the rifle as they show 

 their heads above water, and securing them with the retrieving har- 

 poon or nauligu. The line and harpoon-head belonging to this 

 are generally carried attached to the gun-case which is slung across 

 the shoulders, and the shaft serves as a staff for walking and climb- 

 ing about the rough ice. A hunter is lucky if he secures more 

 than one or two seals in this way in a day's tramp. He generally 

 drags his game home by a line looped through a hole in the under 

 jaw. Wherever ti.'^ sea is sheltered by grounded ice, i( will freeze 

 on calm nights to the depth of tliree or four inches, and in these 

 newly-formed fields of ice are soon to be found small round holes, 

 which the seals have kept open for fresh air. The natives resort 

 to these holes, provided with a rifle, a different form of harpoon, 

 the una, with a long, slender, loose-shaft, fitted for thrusting through 

 the small hole, and a little three-legged stool, nigawau'otin, just 



