118 THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT [ETH. ANN. 18 
other purposes that every house is provided with one or more tubs in 
which a constantly renewed supply is kept. 
Marmot skins and the skins of muskrats and birds are rubbed and 
worked in the hands, after which the women usé their teeth to chew 
the harder parts to render them soft; they are then stretched and 
dried and a slight wash of oil is applied to render them more pliable. 
The skins of salmon and losh are dressed and used for making bags, 
boots, mittens, and waterproof garments by the Eskimo of the lower 
Yukon. The intestines of seals, cleaned and inflated, are dried, and 
form a kind of translucent parchment, which is eut into strips and 
sewed to form the waterproof frocks worn by the men when at sea in 
the kaiaks or when out on land in rainy weather. These garments 
will-shed water for several hours. Coverings for the smoke holes in 
roofs of houses and kashims are made of this material, which is used 
also for covering bedding during transportation or in open camps. 
The Eskimo who live away from the coast, lacking the sea animals, 
use the intestines of deer and bears for similar purposes. 
HUNTING AND HUNTING IMPLEMENTS 
ANIMAL TRAPS AND SNARES 
Owing to the rapid extermination of reindeer in the neighborhood of 
the coast of Norton sound, the natives depend on hunting the various 
kinds of seals and on fishing for their main supply of food. For over a 
hundred miles along that coast, during my residence at St Michael, not 
a dozen reindeer were killed each year. Twenty years earlier reindeer 
were extremely numerous throughout the same district, but the intro- 
duction of firearms, after the Americans took possession of the country, 
resulted in a wasteful slaughter by the natives, who soon succeeded in 
virtually exterminating these animals in the larger portion of the coast 
region. 
Before the introduction of firearms the Eskimo had various ingenious 
modes of capturing and killing deer. They were stalked in the usual 
manner by hunters, armed with bows and arrows, who approached the 
herds by creeping from one shelter to another until within bow shot. 
At other times two hunters went together, and when a herd of reindeer 
was seen one of the hunters walked immediately behind the other, so 
that their two bodies were in contact. Then, while keeping step as 
one man, they walked directly toward the herd. The deer would per- 
mit them to come within a certain distance and then make a wide eir- 
cuit for the purpose of passing behind the advancing hunters; the man 
in the rear then took advantage of the first hollow or other shelter to 
throw himself on the ground and lie hidden while his companion con- 
tinued onward, apparently without paying the slightest attention to 
the game; as a result the deer would circle in behind him, and while 
watching him-were almost certain to run within bow shot of the con- 
