1 9 14] Northwestern Denes and Northeastern Asiatics 163 



F. G. Jackson records a similar way of eating with regard to the 

 Samoyeds'- and Prjevalski has the same of the Mongols.^ 



Useless to remark that the native Americans are just as big eaters 

 as the Asiatics and seem endowed with as elastic stomachs.^ The dis- 

 gusting habit of absorbing one's vermin is also prevalent among both 

 branches of the human family.'* 



Another of the Denes' delicacies I described at length, pages 92-93 

 of my "Notes". This consists of the salmon heads, which are left in 

 the water — I could have added: or buried in the ground, for I have seen 

 many of the pits where they would be left until they had reached an 

 advanced stage of putrefaction. In this state they were boiled in bark 

 vessels by means of hot stones introduced in the receptacle. "The 

 stench they then exhale is simply asphyxiating", I wrote in this con- 

 nection. 



Now hear what an old author has to say of the culinary accomplish- 

 ments of the Koriacks of Siberia: "In Spring and Summer they catch a 

 large Quantity of Fish, and digging Holes in the Ground, which they line 

 with the Bark of Birch [as do also the Carriers], they fill them with it and 

 cover the Holes over with Earth. As soon as they think the Fish is 

 rotten and tender, they take out some of it, pour Water upon it, and 

 boil it with red-hot Pebbles, . . . and feed upon it as the greatest 

 Delicacy in the World. This Mess stinks so abominably that the Rus- 



^ "The Great Frozen Land", p. 75. 



2 "Les Mongols mangent avec leurs doigts et enfoncent dans leur bouche d'enor- 

 mes morceaux de viande, qu'ils coupent avec leur couteau au ras des levres" {Mongolie 

 et Pays des Tayigoutes, p. 40). 



' "The improvidence of these natives is equally astonishing as their ravenousness. 

 They will consume nearly a week's provisions in one night and go hungry the remaining 

 six days" (Bush, op. cit., p. 230). See also Simpson, "An Overland Journey", vol. II, 

 p. 309 of London edition. An Apache (Dene) woman is on record as having consumed 

 in one meal all the rations she had received from the Government for one week (See 

 Fourteenth Ann. Report Bureau of Ethnology, p. 287). Of the Kirghis of Siberia Mrs. 

 Atkinson writes the following: "They are a peculiar race of people, being able to 

 remain two, and sometimes three, days without eating, and then the quantity they 

 can eat is enormous. I was told that a man can eat a sheep at once; on making the 

 enquiry among the Kirghis, one of them offered to treat me with the sight if I would 

 pay for it, but I declined witnessing the disgusting feat" ("Recollections of Tartar 

 Steppes", p. 179). As to the Mongols, here is what Prjevalski writes of them: "La 

 gloutonnerie de cette race est extraordinaire: un individu consomme dix livres de 

 viande dans une journee, et certains gastronomes font disparaitre un mouton de taille 

 moyenne dans le meme espace de temps. En voyage, la ration de chaque chamelier 

 est d'une cuisse; il est juste d'ajouter qu'il jeune vingt-quatre heures si cela est 

 n^cessaire, mais quand il mange, il mange comme sept" {Mongolie et Pays des 

 Tangouies, p. 39). 



* Prjevalski, op. cit., p. 38. 

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