LITTLE JOHN 



house that I caught a glimpse of one of the customs 

 of the people. 



I happened to turn into the house to speak to 

 little John about some piece of work or other, and 

 found the family at dinner. They all began to rise 

 shyly from their places, but John and I are good 

 friends, and after a little argument they all sat down 

 again and allowed me to sit on a box by the wall 

 and do my talking while they ate. They would 

 have been far better pleased if I had joined them at 

 their food, but no amount of tasting and trying has 

 ever reconciled me to the fishy flavour of seal meat, 

 and they knew it. As John sagely remarked, " You 

 Kablunaks (Europeans) have different mouths from 



ours." 



It was a queer dinner-party. The table was 

 pushed into the corner, and littered as usual with 

 clothes and books and relics of work hastily laid 

 aside, and dinner was spread on the floor. " Laying 

 the table for dinner" was an unheard-of thing in 

 John's household, though there are Eskimos who 

 have arrived at the dignity of knives and forks and 

 a table-cloth. John's family was dining in proper 

 Eskimo style, and on proper Eskimo food, too. The 

 centre of the feast was an enormous iron pot, heaped 

 with lumps and slabs and ribs and joints of raw seal 

 meat, a repulsive-looking pile, only partly thawed 

 and well bedewed with oil. 



Round the pot the family squatted, every one, 

 excepting only the baby, armed with a business-like 

 knife. Katli had a half-moon-shaped leather knife 

 that she had been using for the boots ; John himself 

 unhitched a formidable butcher knife from his belt, 

 and the others had claspknives or penknives or any 



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