64 THE POINT BAKKOW ESKIMO. 



men cat by thciiisflvcs. AVlicii in tlic dcci-lnuiting camps, according- 

 t(i Lieut, liay. tliey eat but little in the nioining, and can really be said 

 to take no more tlian one full meal a day, which is eaten at nightwhen 

 tlie day's work is done.' When on the march they usually take a few 

 uioutlifuls of tlie jiemmiean above described before they start out in 

 the morning, and rarely touch food a.uain till they g" into eaiu]! at 

 night. 

 I When a I'amily returns from the spring deer liunt witli plenty of ven- 

 I ison tlie\- usually keeji open lions<' for a day or two. The women of the 

 houseliold. with sometimes the assistance of a neighbor or two, keep 

 the pot continually boiling, .sending in dishes of meat at intervals, 

 while the house is fidl of gue.sts who .stay for a short time, eating, 

 smoking, and chat ting, and then retire to make room for others. Messes 

 are sometimes sent out to invalids who can not come to the feast. One 

 household in the spring of 1883 consumed in this way two whole rein- 

 deer in 24 hours. They nse only their hands and a knife in eating meat, 

 usually filling the mouth and cutting or biting oif the mouthful. They 

 are large eaters, some of them, especially the women, eating all the time 

 when they have plenty, but we never saw them gorge themselves in the 

 manner described by Dr. Kane (2d Grinnell Exp., passim) and other 

 writers. 

 ; Their habits of lios](itality prevent their laying up any large supply 

 i of meat, though blubbei- is carefully saved for commercial use, and they 

 depend for subsistence, almost from day to day, on their .success in 

 hunting. When encani] led, however, in small parties in the summer they 

 often take more seals than they can consume. The carcasses of these, 

 stripped of their skins and blubber, are buried in the gravel close to the 

 camp, and dug up and brought home when meat becomes scarce in the 

 winter. 



The habitual drink is water, which these people consume in great 

 quantities when they can obtain it. and like to have very cold. In the 

 winter there is always a lump of clean snow on a rack close to the lamp, 

 with a tub under it to eateh the water that drips from it. This is re- 

 plaeetl in the summer b\- a bucket of fresh water from some i)ond or 

 lake. When the men are sitting in their open air clubs at the .summer 

 ••amps there is always a bucket of fresh water in the middle of the cir- 

 cle, with a dipper to drink fioni. Hardly a native ever passed the sta- 

 tion without stopping for a drink of water, often drinking a quart of 

 cold water at a time. When tramping about in the winter they eat 

 large (luantities of ice and snow, and on the march the women carry 

 small canteens of sealskin, which they fill with snow and carry inside 

 of their jackets, where the heat of the body melts the snow and keeps 



' "They have no set Time for Meals, hut every one eats when he is hungry, except when they go to 

 sea. and then tlieir chief Repa.st is a supper .after they are come home in the Evening." (Egede, Green- 

 lanil. p. ns. Compare also. Crautz, vol. 1, p. 145.) 



