266 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
similar to the practice described by Schwatka! among the “ Netschilluk” 
of King William’s Land, where a line of cairns as high as a man and 
50 to 100 yards apart is built along a ridge running obliquely to the 
water. When deer are seen feeding near the water the men form a 
skirmish line from the last cairn to the water and advance slowly. 
The deer mistake the cairns for men and take to the water, where they 
are easily speared. 
The most important deer hunt takes place in the late fall and early 
spring, when the natives go inland 50 or 75 miles to the upper waters of 
Kuaru and Kiulugrua, where the deer are exceedingly plentiful at this 
season. Capt. Herendeen, who went inland with the deer hunters in the 
autumn of 1882, reports that the bottom lands of Kulugrua “looked like 
a cattle yard,” from the tracks of the reindeer. They start as soon as 
it is possible to travel across the country with sledges, usually about the 
first of October, taking guns, ammunition, fishing tackle, and the nec- 
essary household utensils for themselves and their families, and stay till 
the daylight gets too short for hunting. In 1882, many parties got home 
about October 27 or 28. At this season there is seldom snow enough 
to build snow huts, so they generally live in tents, always close to the 
rivers from which they procure water for household use. The men 
spend their time hunting the deer, while the women bring in the game, 
attend to drying the skins and the household work, and catch whitefish 
and burbot through the ice of the rivers, which are now frozen hard 
enough for this purpose. Some of the old men and those who have not 
a supply of ammunition engage in the same pursuit. 
A comparatively small number of the people go out to this fall deer 
hunt, which appears to be a new custom, adopted since Dr. Simpson’s 
time. It was probably not worth while to go out after deer at seasons 
when there was not enough snow for digging pitfalls, since they depended 
chiefly on these for the capture of the reindeer before the introduction 
of firearms. Fully half of each village go out on the spring deer hunt, 
as they did in Maguire’s time, the first parties starting out with the 
return of the sun, about January 23, and the others following in the 
course of two or three weeks, and remain out till about the middle of 
April, when it is time to come back for the whale fishery. The people 
of Utkiaywin always travel to the hunting grounds by a regular road, 
which is the same as that followed by Lieut. Ray in his exploring trips. 
They travel along the coast on the ice wherever it is smooth enough till 
they reach Si/naru, and then strike across country, crossing Kuaru and 
reaching Kulugrua near the hill Nuasu’/knan. (See map, Pl. 11.) 
The people from Nuwtik travel straight across Elson Bay to the south 
till they reach nearly the same region. Some parties from Nuwik also 
hunt in the rough country between Kulugrua and Ikpikptin. As the 
sledges are heavily laden with camp equipage, provisions and oil for 
the lamps, they travel slowly, taking four or five days for the journey, 
' Science, vol. 4, 9, pp. 543-544. 
