PREFACE 



THE Central Eskimo live away up north in 

 that great American archipelago which lies be- 

 tween Hudson Bay, Baffin Bay, and the Arctic 

 Ocean; an archipelago in which the islands are 

 so large, so numerous, and so irregular in outline 

 that, as one looks at a map of them, he could 

 fancy they were " chunks " of the continent 

 which had been broken to pieces by some huge 

 iceberg that bumped into it. 



The land is ice-bound during so much of the 

 year that the inhabitants cannot depend upon 

 getting a living by the cultivation of the soil, and 

 have to subsist almost entirely upon meat which 

 they get from reindeer, seal, bear, whale, and 

 walrus. 



In summer their clothing is of sealskin and 

 fishskin ; and in winter it is of the thicker reindeer 

 hides. Their life is a hard one owing to the 

 rigorous climate, and they make it harder by their 

 superstitions, for diseases are supposed to be 

 cured by charms and incantations of the shaman 

 or priest; and everything in the way of hunting, 



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