294 



Herbert Island and the mainlandl before snow comes to cover 

 it and bring the harvest to an end. Every man and boy that 

 can raise a "pussymut" (seal-spear) is living on the ice night 

 and day, clad in his heaviest furs, his feet muffled with noise- 

 le,ss bearskin pads, and with his little three-legged stool, on 

 which at a pinch he sits for hours, waiting for the unsuspec- 

 ting seal to come to its breathing-hole, and receive the murder- 

 ous spear-thrust. In the afternoon Panikpak returns and tells 

 me he has killed sixteen seals off the Castle Cliffs, and 

 Koolootingwah an equal number. Over a hundred seals had 

 already been killed by the natives of Karnah and Koinisuni, 

 and if the snow holds off a few days longer, it is likely that, 

 in addition to their store of walrus and narwhal meat, there 

 will be two seals apiece for each man , woman and child at 

 these settlements." 



In general the stool mentioned is not used during the 

 smooth-ice hunting; but it is most probable that in Peary's case 

 every single breathing-hole has been watched over by a hunter; 

 otherwise the stool is used when the ice is covered by snow, 

 in the true "Maupok" or ''waiting" method. This is carried 

 on over snow-covered ice, when the hunter dare not move 

 from fear of disturbing the seal; he must stand or sit still at 

 the breathing-hole and wait till the seal comes up to breathe. 

 A further difficulty with this method lies in finding the situa- 

 tion of the breathing-holes under the snow-cover. From the 

 Central Eskimo tribes we have the report that they employ a 

 specially trained dog, led on a line, to scent out the holes, 

 and it is probable that the Polar Eskimos know the same mode 

 of procedure Ч In this .Maupok hunting, however,, a three- 

 legged stool is used, whose "weak and Ihin legs composed of 

 many, small pieces of wood are elegantly stiffened by means 

 of thin , diagonally wound thongs". This is the description 



1 cf. L. Mylius Erichsen and Harald Moltke: Grønland. København 1906, 

 p. 524. 



