252 rHE HUDSON BAY ESKIMO. 



greatest delicacy, either frozen, raw or cooked, or dried and smoked. 

 Ill fact a tongue from tlie reindeer is good at any time or condition. 



Tlie hindquarters are seldom separated, but are placed within the 

 thoracic cavity, and either cached near the scene of slaughter or placed 

 on the kaiak and taken to a spot where others are deposited from whicli 

 supplies may be taken when the food for the winter is requii-ed. 



Here and there along the bank will be placed the body of a single 

 deer, sometimes two or three, which have been killed too far from the 

 present camp for the hunter to bring them home. These spots are 

 marked or remembered by some visible surrounding, lest the deep 

 snows of winter obscure the locality, and often the place can not be 

 found when wanted. The cache in which the tiesh is deposited is 

 simply a few stones or bowlders laid on the ground and the meat put 

 upon them. A rude sort of wall is made by piling stones upon the 

 meat until it is hidden from the ravages of ravens, gulls, foxes, wolves 

 and the detested wolverine. 



As soon as the hunter considers that the deer of that particular 

 locality have ceased to cross, he will repair to another station and go 

 through the same process. The deer which are first slain, when the 

 hunting season arrives, and the weather is still so warm that the flies 

 and decomposition ruin the meat, are reserved for supplies of dog food. 



MISCELLANEOUS IMPLEMENTS. 



I have already, in the earlier pages of this paper, referred to various 

 tools and implements. 



In addition to these, the Koksoagrayut have comparatively few tools. 



In former ages stone and ivory were fashioned into crude implements 

 for the purposes which are now better and more quickly .served by in- 

 struments of iron or steel. 



These people have now been so long in more or less direct contact 

 with traders who have supplied them with these necessaries that it is 

 rare to find one of the knives used in former times. Certain ojierations, 

 however, are even to this day better iierformed with a knife made of 

 ivory. The ice from the kaiak bottom or the sides of the boat may 

 best be removed by means of an ivory knife, resembling a snow knife 

 but shorter. Tlie steel knife is always kept sharp and if so used would, 

 on the unyielding, frozen skin-covering of those vessels, quickly cut a 

 hole. The Eskimo living remote from the trading stations use a snow 

 knife made from the tusk of a walrus or the main stem of the reindeer 

 antler. 



That steel or iron is deemed an improvement on the former materials 

 from wliich cutting instruments were made is shown by the crude 

 means now employed. If the person has not a knife an uinised spear- 

 head, having an iron point, is often employed instead for skinning ani- 

 niiils and dressing the skins. 



iStone lieads for weapons of all kinds have been discarded. Ivory 



