62 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
the violence of the surf, we saw one woman collect a lapful of these 
“clam-heads,” which she said she was going to eat. The “blackskin” 
(epidermis) of the whale is considered a great delicacy by them, as by 
all the other Eskimo who are able to procure it, and they are also very 
fond of the tough white skin or gum round the roots of the whalebone.! 
We saw and heard nothing of the habit so generally noticed among 
other Eskimo and in Siberia of eating the half-digested contents of the 
stomach of the reindeer, but we found that they were fond of the feces 
taken from the rectum of the deer. I find that this curious habit has 
been noticed among Eskimo only in two other places—Greenland in 
former times and Boothia Felix. The Greenlanders ate “the Dung of 
the Rein-deer, taken out of the Guts when they clean them; the Entrails 
of Partridges and the like Out-cast, pass for Dainties with them.”? The 
dung of the musk ox and reindeer when fresh were considered a delicacy 
by the Boothians, according to J. C. Ross.* The entrails of fowls are 
also considered a great delicacy and are carefully cooked as a separate 
dish.* 
As far as our observations go these people eat little, if any, more fat 
than civilized man, and, as a rule, not by itself. Fat may occasionally 
be eaten (they are fond of the fat on the inside of duck skins), but they 
do not habitually eat the great quantities of blubber spoken of in some 
other places ® or drink oil, as the Hudson Bay Eskimo are said to do 
by Hall, or use it as a sauce for dry food, like the natives of Norton 
Sound. It is usually supposed and generally stated in the popular ac- 
counts of the Eskimo that it is a physiological necessity for them to eat 
enormous quantities of blubber in order to obtain a sufficient amount ot 
carbon to enable them to maintain their animal heat in the cold climate 
which they inhabit. A careful comparison, however, of the reports of 
actual observers® shows that an excessive eating of fat is not the rule, 
and is perhaps confined to the territory near Boothia Felix. 
Eggs of all kinds, except, of course, the smallest, are eagerly sought 
for, but the smaller birds are seldom eaten, as it is a waste of time and 
ammunition to pursue them. We saw this people eat no vegetable sub- 
stances, though they informed us that the buds of the willow were some- 
times eaten. Of late years they have acquired a fondness for many 
kinds of civilized food, especially bread of any kind, flour, sugar, and 
molasses, and some of them are learning to like salt. They were very 
Compare Hooper, Tents, ete. ‘This, which the Tuski call their sugar,” p. 174; and Hall, Arctic 
Researches, p. 132 (Baffin Land). 
2Egede, Greenland, p. 136. 
3Appendix to Ross’s 2d Voyage, p. xix. 
4Compare the passage from Egede, just quoted, and also Kumlien. Contributions, ete., p. 20, at Cum- 
berland Gulf. 
5¥For instance, Schwatka says that the Nétcilik of King William Land devour enormous quantities 
of seal blubber, ‘‘noticeably more in summer than the other tribes,’ viz, those of the western shores 
of Hudson's Bay (Science, vol. 4, p. 544). Parry speaks of the natives of the Savage Islands, Hud- 
son’s Strait, eating raw blubber and sucking the oil remaining on the skins they had emptied (2d Voy- 
age, p. 14). 
©See for example Egede’s Greenland, p. 134; Crantz, History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 144; Dall, 
Alaska, passim; Hooper. Tents of the Tuski, p. 170; Nordenskiéld, Vega, p. 110. 
