2G2 EMPLOYMENT OF TIME. 



laid-up for the winter, the sewing, together with cleaning the skins, 

 commences, and is most industriously carried on for two months 

 following. The men are now also engaged in setting nets under 

 the ice for seals, in catching small fish with hook and line through 

 holes in the ice, or in preparing implements used at other seasons. As 

 midwinter approaches, the new dresses are completed, and ahout ten 

 days at this season are spent in enjoyments, chiefly dancing in the 

 kar-ri-gi, every one appearing in his or her best attire. This time 

 of the year being one in which hunting or fishing cannot well be 

 attended to, and no indoor work remaining to be performed, is 

 perhaps sufficient reason why it should be chosen for festivities in 

 the high latitude of Point Barrow, when the sun is not visible for 

 about seventy days ; but it may not equally explain the prevalence 

 of the same custom about the same period in Kotzebue Sound, 

 lat. 66°, when the reindeer might be successfully pursued through- 

 out the winter, the people then collecting from many miles around, 

 to hold a festival in the neighbourhood of Cape Kruzenstern. The 

 amusements being concluded, a few set out early in January ; but it 

 is later when the larger parties take their departure for the land in 

 search of deer, scattering themselves over the flat ground at a 

 variable distance of three to eight or ten days' journey from the 

 village, and hollowing out dwellings in the deep snow-drift under 

 the banks of the rivers, through the ice of which they make holes 

 for catching fish by nets and for obtaining a supply of water. This 

 occupies the majority of the people until April, the few who remain 

 at home receiving supplies from time to time, besides spearing a 

 few seals by watching for them as they come to breathe through 

 the cracks in the ice ; or, if it is not in a favourable state for this 

 near the shore, they make snow-houses to live in among the 

 grounded masses in the offing. Having brought home the spoils of 

 the chase, in the end of April they commence preparing their boats 

 for launching and the implements used in capturing the whale, 

 which gives employment for the men. The women are now also 

 busily engaged in making watertight seal-skin boots and other 

 articles of dress appropriate for summer wear. Towards the end of 

 May, birds, chiefly eider and king-ducks, engage much attention 

 from the whole population as they pass over the village northward, 

 in rapidly succeeding flights of one to two hundred birds, alter- 

 nately male and female. The whales having disappeared and the 

 birds passed, a short interval is allowed to prepare dresses for 

 another festival, which takes place in the end of June, and occupies 

 six or eight days, when the dancing is performed in the open air. 

 Early in July more than one-third of the community take their 



