ESKIMOS 171 



keep away disease ; a white piece of deerskin and thread are 

 put on the ice for the same purposes. Seal bones must not be 

 given to the dogs. The souls of the sea animals abhor dead 

 bodies and blood, which must therefore be avoided by hunters. 

 This rule applies especially to women during their periods. 

 Everybody in the encampment may eat freely of the seals killed 

 by the successful hunter, but none of the meat must be removed 

 from his house. 



During the deer hunt no work must be done with sealskin. 

 The winter clothes and tents must be buried, while no seal or 

 walrus line may be taken inland. When hunting deer from 

 the kyak on the inland lakes a small piece of sealskin is de- 

 posited under a stone on the margin of the lake. 



When the musk-ox hunt is in progress, the hair must not be 

 removed from deerskins, and no work with iron may be under- 

 taken. 



All deerskin garments must be made on the land, and not 

 after the family has moved upon the ice, until the March 

 moon, when the women are allowed to work at deerskins in an 

 iglo on the land, but not on a day when a walrus has been 

 killed. Soapstone is another material which must not be worked 

 on the ice. ~No work may be undertaken on sealskins killed 

 during the winter, until the seals have pupped. The tusks of 

 freshly killed walrus must not be removed from the skull until 

 the winter, but work may be done during the season on tusks 

 taken before the new ice forms. 



When on the ice, deer meat must be taken into the house 

 through a hole in the side and not by the door, until after the 

 March moon, when both deerskins and meat may be taken 

 through the door. Deer must not be eaten on the same day with 

 seal or walrus, except in the walrus season, when it may be 

 eaten with the latter. Clothing must be changed before eating 

 seal in the walrus season. 



