INNUIT LIFE AND LAND. 387 



dine with their families ; but the women and children invariably 

 eat at home, and when they wait upon the males in the town hall 

 they always turn their backs to them while the men are dining, it 

 being considered a gross breach of good manners for a woman to 

 look at a man when he is eating. 



After breakfast the male Innuits start out, if the weather per- 

 mits, to hunt or fish, as the case may be. If a driving storm pre- 

 vents them, then in-door work is resumed or recourse to sleep again 

 assumed. At some time in the afternoon the fire is usually drawn 

 from the hot stoves on the hearth, the water and a kantag of cham- 

 ber-lye poured over them, which, arising in dense clouds of vapor, 

 gives notice (by its presence and its horrible ammoniacal odor) to 

 the delighted inmates that the bath is on. The kashga is heated 

 to suffocation, it is full of smoke, and the outside men run in from 

 their huts, with wisps of dry grass for towels, and bunches of alder- 

 twigs to flog their naked bodies. They throw off their garments ; 

 they shout and dance and whip themselves into profuse perspira- 

 tion as they caper in the hot vapor. More of their disgusting sub- 

 stitute for soap is rubbed on, and produces a lather which they 

 rinse off with cold water ; and, to cap the full enjoyment of this 

 satanic bath, these naked actors rush out and roll in a snow-bank 

 or plunge into the icy flood of some lake or river adjoining, as the 

 season warrants. This is the most enjoyable occasion of an In- 

 nuit's existence, so he solemnly affirms. Nothing else affords him 

 a tithe of the infinite pleasure which this orgie gives him. To us, 

 however, there is nothing so offensive about him as that stench 

 which such a performance arouses. 



When a bath is over, the smoke-hole is reopened (it was closed 

 during the process !), and fresh air descends upon those men who 

 sit around upon the platforms stupefied by that smoke and weak 

 from their profuse perspiration. Slowly these terrible odors leave 

 the kashga, and only the minor ones remain, rendering it quite 

 habitable once more. Night comes on : the huge stone lamps are 

 filled with seal-oil and lighted ; the men soon lop down for sleep in 

 their reindeer-skins or parkas, removing their trousers only, which 

 they roll up and use as pillows, tucking the parka snugly over and 

 around their bended knees, which are drawn up tightly to the ab- 

 domen. In the morning whoever happens to awake first relights 

 the lamp, if any of the fluid remains over ; if not, he goes to his 

 own cache and gets a supply. If he is a bachelor, he attends then 



