LIFE AND HISTORY OF THE ESKIMOS 



some cash as well. The inhabitants glory in exciting hunting 

 experiences all the year round, and to meet a Cape Yorker is 

 nearly always to he counted as an adventure. 



All this imparts to them a certain nimbus ; but people from 

 the sheltered side, who do not wish to seem inferior, will as a 

 rule only admit that the Cape Yorkers may have the best clothes 

 and the warmest bunk-rugs in all the district, "but," they 

 add, ''their houses are cold, for they have only seal-blubber to 

 put into their lamps ; their dogs are lean and have ugly pelts 

 because they are not fed on the meat of the walrus and nar- 

 whal ; and finally, in spite of all their cleverness, they are very 

 fond of coming up to our well-filled meat stores to feed up their 

 dogs, and themselves eat their fill in Mataq when, during the 

 dark period, short commons is the order of the day." 



Akunarmiut comprises the district round the present Thule. 

 The chief means of livelihood here is the hunting of walrus, but 

 seals and narwhals as well are killed in abundance. 



It is of the utmost importance for subsistence here that 

 the ice between Saunders Island and Dalrymple Rock settles 

 evenly in the end of October and the beginning of November ; 

 for then the walrus remain for a long period by their breathing- 

 holes, which they break with their skulls. 



This hunting season is a beautiful and exciting time, with 

 races from morning till night. The point is to be the first one 

 with the sledge on the hunting-grounds, wherefore one may 

 see, early in the morning, or rather in the night, one sledge 

 after another shoot across the ice like a swift bird flying out into 

 darkness. It would not do to make up large parties, as this 

 gives small shares of the catch, so one spreads out as much as 

 possible ; and in the white darkness are discerned the contours 

 of many fur-clad hunters distributed along the ice, with harpoon 

 and line under their arms ready to take their chances. When 

 a walrus has been harpooned, one sees the many bear-trousered, 

 faun-like figures rushing up, joyful in the capture, to take their 

 share in the division of the catch. The heavy animal is pulled 

 up on the ice without difficulty by the aid of primitive tackle 

 fixed in the ice. 



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