MURDOCH.] DOGS AND DRIVING. 359 



back on the sled and drag back on the harness till the team comes to 

 a halt. 



The leader, who is usually a woman or child sometimes guides the 

 team by a line attached to the trace, and Lieut. Kay says he has seen 

 them, when traveling in the interior, tie a piece of blubber or meat on 

 the end of a string and drag it on the snow just ahead of the leader. 

 The natives seldom ride on the sledge except with a light load on a 

 smooth road. A few old and decrepit people like Yu ksifia always trav 

 eled on sledges between the villages, and the people who came down 

 with empty sledges for provisions from the whaling camp, always rode 

 on the well beaten trail where the dogs would run without leading. 1 

 The dog whip so universally employed by the eastern Eskimo, is not 

 used at Point Barrow, but when Lieut. Ray made a whip for driving 

 his team, the natives called it Ipirau ta, a name essentially identical 

 with that used in the east. They especially distinguished Ipirau ta, a 

 whip with a lash, from a cudgel, anau ta. The latter woitl has also the 

 same meaning in the eastern dialects. 



We saw nothing of the custom of protecting the dogs feet with seal 

 skin shoes, so prevalent on the Siberian coast. 2 Curiously enough the 

 only other localities in which the use of this contrivance is mentioned 

 are in the extreme east. 1 During the first warm weather in the spring, 

 before the dogs have shed their heavy winter coats, they suffer a great 

 deal from the heat and can go only a short distance without lying down 

 to rest. 



The method of harnessing and driving the dogs varies considerably 

 m different localities. Among the eastern natives the dogs are usually 

 harnessed abreast, each with a separate trace running to the sledge. 

 and the driver generally rides, guiding the dogs with a whip. The 

 leader usually has a longer trace than the, rest. The harness used at 

 Fury and Hecla Straits is precisely the same as that at Point Barrow, 

 but in Greenland, according to Dr. Kane, it consists of a &quot;simple breast- 

 strap,&quot; with a single trace. The illustration, however, in Rink s Tales 

 and Traditions, opposite p. 232, which was drawn by a native Green- 

 lander, shows a pattern of harness similar to that used in Siberia and 

 described by Nordeiiskiold 4 as &quot;made of inch- wide straps of skin, form 

 ing a neck or shoulder band, united on both sides by a strap to a girth, 

 to one side of which the draft strap is fastened.&quot; It is a curious fact 

 that the two extremes of the Eskimo raee (for even if the people of Pitle- 

 kaj be Chukchi in blood, they are Eskimo in culture) should use the 

 same pattern of harness, while a different form prevails between them. 

 The Siberians also habitually ride upon the sledges, and use a whip, 

 and on some parts of the coast, at least, harness the dogs abreast. In 



Compare Dull. Alaska, p. 25. 



See Hooper, Tents, etc., p. 195, and Nunlenakiiild, Vega, vol. 2, p. 96, where one of these shoes is fig 

 ured. 



*See Kiimlii n Contributions, p. 42. 

 Vega, vol. 2, p. 95. 



