HOW I LEARNED TO HUNT SEALS 279 



this was going on, the dogs were watching attentively, 

 not only because they knew that the hunt was in progress, 

 but also because experience had taught them that their 

 turn to help would soon come. 



After killing the seal by a rap on the head the man who 

 had caught it went over to fetch his dog. The seal 

 hunter's dog always wears a light leather harness. This 

 does not incommode him at all in walking. When the 

 seal has been killed, it is fastened to the harness by a 

 leather trace a few feet long and the dog is told to go 

 drag it home. If we had caught our seal early in the 

 day the dog would have gone home alone dragging the 

 catch up to the door of his master's house, while the 

 hunter went across the ice to some neighbor he saw 

 watching at another seal hole to co-operate with him as 

 our second hunter had in this case co-operated with us. 

 But we did not get our seal until it was almost time to go 

 home, so we followed the dog as he dragged the seal to 

 camp. 



This method of sealing is little used in most Eskimo 

 districts and not at all in others because the winds and 

 currents break up the ice enough so that you can get 

 seals in the open water all winter. There are two kinds 

 of localities where the method is the only one available. 

 These are on one hand such enclosed bodies of water 

 as Coronation Gulf, and on the other the stretches far 

 away from land (one or several hundred miles) where 

 the currents are so sluggish that the ice remains all winter 

 in unbroken masses, hundreds of square miles in area. 

 In my various exploratory journeys I have had little use 

 for the mauttok method, but I have always carried it in 

 my mind and felt about it as one feels about an accident 



