PREPARATION OF SEALSKINS. 



.17 



The skin, with the blubber, is cut from the flesh with the same 

 knife, or still more easily with the pana, the old device of which is 

 represented in Fig. 400 a (Parry II, p. 550). This knife is about one 

 foot and a half long (Parry II, p. 503). The use of the small prongs 

 near the blade was not explained by Parry. In Fig. 400 h is jDresented 

 a pana from the eastern coast of Hudson Bay, collected by Dr. R. 

 Bell; the handle is made of bone, the blade of iron. The flipjjers are 

 cut off at the joints, and thus the whole skin is drawn off in a single 

 piece. In dressing the animal the natives open the belly and first 

 scoop out the blood, then the entrails are taken out, the ribs are 

 separated from the breast bone and from the vertebrae, the fore 

 flippers (with the shoulders and the hind flippers) are taken out, tlie 

 only part remaining being the head, the spinal column, and the rump 

 bone. Generally these are not eaten, but are used for dogs' food. 



^•!"k 



Fig. 400. Pana or kuife for dissecting game, a (From Parry II, p. r>)8.) b (American Musemn of 

 Natural History.) 



The knife (ulo) used by the women serves to clean and prepare the 

 skins. This implement, with which almost all the cutting is done, 

 is shaped like a crescent, the handle being attached to the center, and 



