INNUITS OF OUR ARCTIO COAST. 121 



in the rear. This is a very hicrative as well as lively hunt for the Eskimo, and a single man 

 sometimes receives nine or ten seals as his share of the spoils of a single day's hunting. 



The third method of seal catching is on the ice, when the firths and hays are frozen, 

 and they are then taken in several ways. The Eskimo posts himself near a Ijreathing hole 

 which the seal has made, sitting on a stool with his feet resting on another, and a wall of 

 snow behind him to guard against the effects of the cold. When the seal comes and i)uts 

 his nose to the hole, he is immediately striken with the harpoon ; then enlarging the hole 

 he hauls t)ut his prize and kills it outright. At other times he lies flat on his face on his 

 sledge, or a sulistitute for one, near one of the holes through which the seals come forth to 

 bask in the sun. A smaller hole is made not far from the large one, into which another 

 Eskimo is prepared to plunge a harpoon with a very long shaft. The man who lies on tlie 

 ice watches the lai'ge hole till he sees a seal coming toward the smaller hole, when he makes 

 a sign to his companion, who forcibly drives the harpoon into the seal. When the hunter, 

 clad himself in seal skin, sees a seal basking near his hole on the ice, he crawls towards it, 

 wagging his head and imitating its peculiar grunt; the incautious animal, mistaking him 

 for one of its companions, allows him to approach till he is near enough to cast the fatal 

 lance. Again, where the current has made a large opening in the ice, in the spring, the 

 Eskimo, placing themselves around it, wait till the seals approach in droves to the Inink 

 for air, and kill them with their harpoons. Many of them also meet their death while 

 basking and sleeping in the sun. 



The same fearlessness, ingenuity and skill is shown by the Eskimo in the pursuit of 

 other game. The whale is attacked without hesitation, but, of course, by several kayacks 

 acting in concert. So is the walrus, who at certain seasons and in defence of their young, 

 are even more formidable antagonists than the whale. The polar bear is also attacked with- 

 out question, but with this arctic monster they need the help of their dogs to divert bruin's 

 attention. It would take too long to give a description of their several methods, and I con- 

 tent myself with giving an idea of their manner of taking the reindeer, which next to the 

 seal is to them the most important of animals, and it is solely to supply himself with their 

 skins, flesh and sinews that the Eskimo is tempted away at all from his much beloved sea- 

 coast. The reindeer hunt is thus described : " In the month of September the band, con- 

 sisting of perhaps five or six families, moves to some well known pass, generally some narrow 

 neck of land between two lakes, and there await the southerly migration of the reindeer. 

 When these animals approach the vicinity, some of the young men go out and gradually 

 drive them toward the pass, where they are met by other hunters, who kill as many as they 

 can with the bow and arrow, and then the herd is forced into a lake, and there those who 

 lie in wait spear them at leisure. Hunting in this way day after day as long as the deer are 

 passing, a large stock of venison is generally procured, and as the country abounds in 

 natural ice-cellars, or at least everywhere aflfbrds great facilities for constructing them in the 

 frozen sub-soil, the venison may be kept sweet till the hard frost sets in, and so preserved 

 throughout the winter : but the Eskimos take little trouble about this matter. If more deer 

 are killed in the summer than can be consumed, part of the flesh is dried, but later in the 

 season it is merely laid up in some cool cleft of a rock where wild animals cannot reach it, 

 and should it become considerably tainted before the cold weather sets in, it is only the 

 more agreeable to the Eskimo palate and made very tender by keeping, it is consumed raw 

 or after very little cooking. In the autumn also, the migratory flocks of geese and other 



Stc. II, 1894. 16. 



