126 CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



friends, or out fishing, with no other result than a frozen 

 foot. 



We thought that the natives we met on Kodiak Island were 

 dirty, but I believe that there is little to choose between them 

 and the people I found here. This, however, may to a certain 

 extent be excused, as they had no soap, and it is only due to 



state that the first thing 

 they begged of me was a 

 piece of soap. When I 

 asked why they did not 

 move down to the coast, 

 they answered with a grin 

 that they had no clothes, 

 but would come when the 

 days again became warmer, 

 and I was inclined to be- 

 lieve them. They walked 



NATIVE CHILDREN. about half-naked in the 



tent, and as soon as they 



had to go outside they wrapped themselves up in old blankets, 

 the larger holes of which were patched over with some very 

 dirty calico, while the smaller ones were stitched together with 

 sinews. 



The child was the axis round which this little household 

 rotated. If he wanted a thing he cried until he got it, and 

 needles, knives, and other things which are not considered 

 healthy toys for children were this little heathen's playthings. 



His father or brothers would play with him and make figures 

 with a piece of sinew exactly the same in kind as we made 

 in our childhood, only more in number. They taught him 

 songs and rhymes, and the little naked fellow would sit on a 

 piece of fur and laugh at the keen competition between his 

 father and brothers as to who could make the most fearful 

 faces. Now and then the people would stop playing, look 

 serious for a second, and then start an eager hunt for one of the 

 many lice which inhabited their ragged furs and which now 

 annoyed the owner by moving too fast. If caught, the louse 

 was set out for a swim in the water bucket or blubber lamp. It 

 was the mother's business to keep the head of her darling boy 

 clean, and she had the remarkable but by no means uncommon 





