70 THE 1 OIXT liAKKOW ESKIMO. 



pipe is different from any other tobacco smoke and is very disagreeable. 

 It lias some resemblance to the smell of some of the* cheaper brands of 

 North Carolina tobacco which are known to be adulterated with other 

 vegetable substances. The method of smoking is as follows: After 

 clearing ont the bowl witli the picker, a little wad of deer hair, plucked 

 from the clothes in some inconspicuous place, generally the front skirt 

 of the inner jacket, is rammed down to the bottom of the bowl. This is 

 to prevent the fine tobacco from getting into the stem and clogging it 

 up. The. bowl is then filled with tobacco, of which it only holds a very 

 small quantity. The mouthpiece is placed between the lips, the tobacco 

 ignited, and .all smoked out in two or three strong inhalations. The 

 smoke is very deeply inhaled and allowed to pass out slowly from the 

 mouth and nostrils, bringing tears to the eyes, often producing giddi 

 ness, and almost always a violent fit of coughing. I have seen a man 

 almost prostrated from the effects of a single pipeful. This method 

 (if smoking has been in vogue since the time of our first acquaintance 

 with these people. 1 



Though they smoke little at a time, they smoke frequently when to 

 bacco is plentiful. Of lateyears, since tobacco hasbecome plentiful, some 

 have adopted white men s pipes, which they smoke without inhaling, 

 and they are glad to get cigars, and, since our visit, cigarettes. In con 

 versation with us they usually called all means for smoking &quot;pai pa,&quot; 

 the children sometimes specifying &quot;pai pa-sigya&quot; (cigar) or &quot; rnukpara- 

 pai pa,&quot; paper-pipe (cigarette). The use of the kui nyi;, which name 

 appears to be applied only to the native pipes, seems to be confined to 

 the adults. We knew of no children owning them, though their parents 

 made no objection to their chewing tobacco or owning or using clay or 

 wooden pipes which they obtained from us. They carry their fondness 

 for tobacco so far that they will even eat the foul oily refuse from the 

 bottom of the bowl, the smallest portion of which would produce nausea 

 in a white man. This habit has been observed at Plover Bay, Siberia. 2 

 Tobacco ashes are also eaten, probably for the sake of the potash they 

 contain, as one of the men at T tkiavwin was fond of carbonate of soda, 

 which he told the doctor was just like what he got from his pipe. 

 Pipes of this type, differing in details, but all agreeing in having very 

 small bowls, frequently of metal, and some contrivance for opening the 

 stem, are used by the Eskimo from at least as far south as the Yukon 

 delta (as shown by the collections in the National Museum) to the An- 



1 Sec T. Simpson : Not content with chewing and smoking it, they swallowed the fumes till they 

 became sick, and seemed to revel in a momentary intoxication.&quot; Point Harrow (1837), Narrative, p. 156. 

 Also Kot/.ebne: &quot;They chew, snuff, smoke, and even swallow the smoke.&quot; Kotzebne Sound (181G) 

 Voyage, vol. 1, p. 237. ]leeehey also describes the people of Hothani Inlet in 182G as smoking in the 

 manner above described, obtaining the hair from a strip of dogskin tied to lite, pipe. Their tobacco 

 was mixed with wood. Voyage, p. :!00. Petitot (Monographic, etc.. p. xxix) describes a precisely sim 

 ilar method of smoking among the Mackenzie. Eskimos. Their tobacco was &quot;melange a de la raclure 

 de sanle&quot; and the pipe was called kwifiepk,&quot; ( Voealmlaire, p. 54). 



* Sec Hooper, Tents, etc., p. 177, and Pall, Alaska, p. 81. 



