May, 1S63.I Tltc FtTst Sccil Ciuujkt b/j (i loufig Innait. 171 



coffee were welcome adjuncts. He thought young seal-flippers, hair 

 and all except the finger-nails, tender and nice as a spring-chicken ; 

 but of his experience, generally, of the effects of old seal and walrus 

 meat, he says that for days after eating it, his tongue tasted badly, as 

 though it were much furred, and that seal-meat alone or seal-meat with 

 blubber is terrible on a white man — excessively constipating. On 

 the Innuits the effect is less serious. Cooked seal-blood when eaten 

 becomes equivalent to the "^apjpm" of the she polar bear, which it 

 produces by eating moss preceding hibernation ; indeed, it amounts 

 almost to an immovable mechanical obsti-uction to what nature de- 

 signed should have free way. Walrus-meat affects the system about 

 the same way. Too-koo-li-too believed that the reason the Innuits 

 are so dark-colored is because of their eating so much raw seal-meat 

 and blood ; and that the Kinna-patoos, whose country is in the vicinity 

 of Chesterfield Inlet, must be a lighter-skinned people, as they never 

 eat raw seal-meat. Hall remarks, in connection with this, that Innuit 

 babies when quite young are nearly white. 



The first exploit in seal-catching by a young native is thus 

 detailed : 



The mother of the hoj Ivee-chucJc came to the entrance of our Tiom-mong, her 

 whole frame shaking with joy, while she told the news she had just henrd, that 

 her son had harpooned and killed a seal in its hole. Then she went from Icom- 

 mong to Ivm-mong, notifying the women that her son was on his way back with the 

 prize, and started off with all speed to meet him. I watched every movement 

 closely. As she met him, the dogs were stoi>ped and the joyous mother embraced 

 her darling successful boy, then stooped and patted the seal as though it were a 

 living pet. She next disengaged the dogs' harness from the drauglit-line, and 

 started toward her Icoin-mong, dragging the seal after her, when the women, with 

 their oodloos, hastened to meet her. It was a woman's race. Old OoTc-har-loo 

 hobbled along as fast as she could, but was left far behind, and, therefore, she 



