CHAPTER IV 

 THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ESKIMO 



LONG before daybreak the Eskimo housewife 

 _/ rises, and at once supplies the lamp with a 

 new wick and more blubber ; and while the break 

 fast of seal s flesh is being prepared, the hunter 

 removes the block of snow constituting a door ; 

 then, making his way along the under-snow passage 

 where the sleeping dogs lie, he emerges into the open, 

 at which point a piercing Arctic wind greets him. 

 The sledge is cut loose from its ice fetters, and 

 the dogs are harnessed ready for an immediate 

 start. 



The women who stay at home are occupied in 

 making boots and clothing by sewing skins of the 

 seal, reindeer, or walrus ; children and puppies have . 

 to be fed and played with ; then, of course, there 

 is the hunter s evening meal to prepare : the raw 

 liver of a seal caught during the day is regarded 

 as a great delicacy. A strange superstition de 

 mands that women shall do no work while the 

 spoils a&e being unloaded from the sledge, for it is 

 thought that the supreme goddess Sedna, who 

 created all sea animals, will be extremely angry if 

 some mark of respect is not shown to her dead 



creatures. Seal and walrus soups constitute the 



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