MURDOCH.] HUNTING REINDEER. 267 



stopping for the night with tolerable regularity at certain stations where 

 the first partyjhat travels over the trail build snow huts, which are 

 used by those who follow them. At the rivers they are scattered ill 

 small camps of four or live families, about a day s journey apart. As 

 well as we could learn these camps are in regularly established places, 

 where the same people return every year, if they hunt at all. It even 

 seemed as if these localities were considered the property of certain 

 influential families, who could allow any others they pleased to join 

 their parties. 1 It is certain, at all events, that the people of Utkiavwln 

 did not hunt on the Ikpikpun with the men of Nuwfik. At this season 

 they live entirely in snow huts, often excavated in the deep drifts under 

 the river bluffs, and the men hunt deer whiles the women, as before, 

 catch fish in Kuarti and Kulugrua. None are taken in Ikpikpun. (See 

 above, p. 58.) 



Deer are generally very plentiful at this season, though sometimes, as 

 happened in February, 1883, there comes a warm southerly wind which 

 makes them all retreat farther inland for a few days. They are gener 

 ally hunted by chasing them on snowshoes, in the manner already de 

 scribed, but with much better chances of success, since when a number 

 of hunters are out in the same region the deer are kept moving, so that 

 a herd started by one hunter is very apt to run within gunshot of an 

 other. The natives have generally very good success in this spring 

 hunt. Two men who were hunting on shares for the station killed up 

 ward of ninety reindeer in the season of 1883. A great deal of the meat 

 is, of course, consumed on the spot, but a good many deer are brought 

 home frozen. They are skinned and brought home whole, only the 

 heads and legs being cut off. The latter are disjointed at the knee and 

 elbow. These frozen carcasses are usually cut up with a saw for cooking. 

 At this season the does are pregnant, and many good-sized fetuses are 

 brought home frozen. We were told that these were excellent food, 

 though we never saw them eaten. For the first two or three days after 

 the return of the deer hunters to the village all the little boys are play 

 ing with these fetuses, which they set up as targets for their blunt 

 arrows. 



Before starting for the deer hunt the hunters generally take the mov 

 able property which they do not mean to carry with them out of the 

 house and bury it in the snow for safe keeping, apparently thinking that 

 while a dishonest person might help himself to small articles left around 

 the house, he could hardly go to work and dig up a cache without at 

 tracting the attention of the neighbors. If both families from a house 

 go deer hunting, they either close it up entirely or else get some family 

 who have no house of their own to take care of it during their absence. 

 During the season, small parties, traveling light, with very little bag 

 gage, make flying trips to the village, usually to get a fresh supply of 



Dr. Richardson believes tbiit the hunting grounds of families are kept sacred among tho. Eskimo. 

 Searching Expedition, vol. 1. pp. 244.351. See. also, the name author s paper. New Philosophical Jour 

 nal, Tol. 52, p. 323. 



