332 



In addition to the care of the children, sewing and pre- 

 paring the skins, attending to the lamp and drying of the wet 

 clothes and kamikker, the woman has further the housewife's 

 task of preparing the food. This task is however not so great, 

 as the man cuts up the booty and brings the pieces of meat 

 into the tent or winter-house. She has thus only to keep the 

 pot boiling, and the art of cooking among the Polar Eskimos 

 is not very developed. Frequently the meat is taken from the 

 pot and eaten before it is quite cooked. Quite raw meat is 

 also eaten in large quantities ; the fondness for frozen and 

 rotten meat has already been mentioned. The skin of the 

 white whale and narwhal, the so-called Mattak, is eaten in large 

 amount and is a much-liked and quite pleasant dish. Fresh- 

 water is always used for cooking by the Polar Eskimos. For 

 about 9 months of the year all the drinking-water must be ob- 

 tained by melting freshwater ice over the blubber-lamp; the 

 ice is fairly easily obtained from the ice-bergs and ice-clumps, 

 which lie scattered about frozen in amongst the sea-ice. 



Fig. 22. Photograph of the tent described, seen from in front. 

 The outer tent-covering is pushed aside on both sides; the inner one 

 only on the left. In front of the tent stand Itsukusuk and Kags- 

 sàluk, both in house-costume (except Itsukusuk's Kamikker). It is 

 clearly seen, that Kagssâluk's left breast is somewhat atrophied ; this is 

 probably connected with the fact, that her place is always on the left 

 side of the main platform (at the cross on fig. 19), and that she has 

 her children on her right, in towards the middle of the tent, so that 

 as a rule only the right breast is used in giving milk (cf. fig. 23). 



Fig. 23 shows Kagssàluk and her two children, sitting in house- 

 costume inside the tent at the place marked in fig. 19. The child 

 feeding is her and Uvdloriark's daughter Natu (one year old); the 

 other is their son Inuterk. In the left hand she is holding an ulo. 

 In the back-ground the skin and poles of the tent. On the platform 

 is seen the skin-layer or cover and under this the layer of dried 

 grass, which is spread on the wood underneath. The side-platform 

 is to the right in the picture. 



