FEEDING THE SICK FOLKS 



few days of serious illness the quondam plump and 

 ruddy Eskimo is gaunt and haggard, with bony face 

 and wrinkled skin ; he seems to have grown old all 

 of a sudden. But with the beginning of con- 

 valescence the feeding begins. So soon as the 

 invalid loses his pains and his feeling of misery his 

 appetite returns, and he devours immense quantities 

 of meat and fish, washing them down with copious 

 draughts of water. This fattening process is even 

 more wonderful to watch than the wasting: the 

 hollow cheeks fill out, wrinkles disappear, limbs grow 

 round and plump again, and the face looks younger 

 day by day. All sorts of food are welcome, but 

 without a doubt the native foods are the foods that 

 work the miracle. I have seen the people sitting up 

 in bed, munching strip after strip of tough dried 

 codfish and leathery nipko (dried reindeer meat), and 

 dipping the strips between the bites into a cup of 

 cod-liver oil kept handy for the purpose. I suppose 

 the oil moistened the meat ; at any rate it gave it a 

 proper Eskimo flavour but it must be proper 

 Eskimo oil. I thought to save trouble by getting a 

 gallon of the real thing from the oil yard ; but no, 

 the sick folks wanted it fresh and home made, and I 

 besought their friends to bring them some. It came, 

 the crude article, brown and nauseous, the result of 

 frying livers over the stove in the family frying-pan ; 

 and it was like honey to their palate. They dipped 

 and chewed, and sucked and chewed and dipped 

 again, and said " Piovok " (it is good), (( Ananak " 

 (splendid). And I wondered, as I watched them 

 eat, whether it was that same all-useful frying-pan 

 that gave the subtle and indescribable flavour to all 

 home-made Eskimo foods, a flavour that the people 



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