ESKIMOS 157 
During the month of June the weather is generally fine, and 
ducks and geese are plentiful in the open water of the ponds 
and sea. The ice becomes very rotten towards the end of the 
month, and soon after breaks away from the shores, when the 
kyaks come into use. This is the most pleasant season of the 
year for the Eskimos, and they always sing about its pleasures 
in their sing-songs to be described later. Game of all kinds is 
abundant; the deer come to the coast at this season; seals are 
plentiful in the open water, and walruses are floating about on 
the loose ice; the Arctic salmon swarm in the shallow water 
along the coast, and thousands of eggs of the sea fowl may be 
collected from any of the smaller outer islands. A little later 
the white porpoise enters the mouths of the larger rivers in 
schools, and is killed with the harpoon and gun from the kyaks. 
The summer harpoon differs from the winter one, in that the 
iron Work of the latter is replaced by ivory obtained from wal- 
rus tusks. The handle is stout, and made of wood from four 
to six feet long; at one end it is tipped with ivory, with a cone- 
like socket in its upper side, into which a similar cone on the 
lower end of the ivory shaft fits. The two are joined together 
by a thong of seal-line passing through holes in the ivory of 
each piece about two inches from their ends. This thong is 
made tight, and holds the cones in place while the harpoon is in 
use and until the head enters some animal, when the weight of 
the shaft causes the cones to slip and the shaft hangs loose from 
the wooden handle. The shaft is usually made from a single 
tusk, and is from twelve to eighteen inches long, but sometimes 
it is made by splicing two pieces, and they are joined by bands 
of lead run through mortised holes in the two pieces. The shaft 
in its lower end at the cone is usually over an inch in diameter, 
and tapers slowly to the upper end, where it is about a quarter 
of an inch thick. There is generally the natural curve of the 
tusk in the shaft, so that it is not quite straight. An ivory head 
fits the upper end of the shaft, and it is tipped by an arrow- 
