538 SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



the ntitick only, are prepared by scraping off the hair and the fleshy parts 

 with an ooloo, and stretching them out tight on a frame, in which state they 

 are loCt over the lamps or in the sun for several days to dry ; and after this they 

 are well chewed by the women to make them iit for working. The dressing 

 of leather and of skins in the hair, is an art which the women have brought 

 to no inconsiderable degree of perfection. They perform this by first 

 cleansing the skin from as much of the fat and fleshy matter as the ooloo 

 will take off", and then rubbing it hard for several hours with a blunt scraper, 

 called s'udo'ol, so as nearly to dry it. It is then put into a vessel containing 

 urine and left to steep a couple of days, after which a drying completes the 

 process. Skins dressed in the hair are however not always thus steeped ; 

 the women, instead of this, chewing them for hours together till they arc 

 quite soft and clean. Some of the leather thus dressed looked nearly as 

 well as ours, and the hair was as firmly fixed to the pelt, but there was in 

 this respect a very great difference, according to the art or attention of the 

 housewife. Dyeing is an art wholly unknown to them. The women are 

 very expert at platting, which is usually done with three threads of sinew ; 

 if greater strength is required, several of these are twisted slackly together 

 as in the bow-strings. The quickness Avith which some of the women plat 

 is really surprising ; and it is well that they do so, for the quantity required 

 for the bows alone would otherwise occupy half the year in completing it. 



It may be supposed that among so cheerful a people as the Esquimaux there 

 are many games or sports practised ; indeed it was i-arely that we visited their 

 habitations without seeing some engaged in them. One of these our gentle- 

 men saw at Winter Island, on an occasion when most of the men were absent 

 from the huts on a sealing excursion, and in this Iligliuk was the chief per- 

 former. Being requested to amuse them in this way, she suddenly unbound 

 her hair, platted it, tied both ends together to keep it out of her way, and then 

 stepping out into the middle of the hut, began to make the most hideous faces 

 that can be conceived, by drawing both lips intd her mouth, poking forward 

 her chin, squinting frightfully, occasionally shutting one eye, and moving her 

 head from side to side as if her neck had been dislocated. This exhibition, 

 which they call dj/d/iit-tdk-pokc *, and which is evidently considered an ac- 

 complishment that few of them possess in perfection, distorts every feature 



* This name, as -well as those of the other games I ^ii now describing is given in the third 

 person singular of the verb used to express the performance. 



