268 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
ammunition or oil, and at the end of the season a lucky hunter almost 
always sends in to borrow extra dogs and hire women and children to 
help bring in his game. The skins, which at this season are very thick 
and heavy, suitable only for blankets, heavy stockings, ete., are simply 
rough dried in the open air, and brought in stacked up on a flat sled. 
Lieut. Ray met a Nuwttk party returning in 1882 with a pile of these 
skins that looked like a load of hay. With such heavy loads they, of 
course, travel very slowly. A few natives, especially when short of 
ammunition, still use at this season the snow pitfalls mentioned by 
Capt. Maguire.! 
The following is the description of those seen by Lieut. Ray in 1885: 
A round hole is dug in the drifted snow, along the bank of a stream or 
lake. This is about 5 feet in diameter and 5 or 6 feet deep, and is brought 
up to within 2 or 3 inches of the surface, where there is only a small 
hole, through which the snow was removed. This is carefully closed 
with a thin slab of snow and baited by strewing reindeer moss and 
bunches of grass over the thin surface, through. which the deer breaks 
as soon as he stepson it. The natives say that they sometimes get two 
deer at once. 
This method of hunting the reindeer appears uncommon among the 
Eskimo. I find no mention of it except at Repulse Bay.’ and among 
the Netsillingmiut, where dogs’ urine is said to be sprinkled on the 
show as a bait to attract the deer by its “Salzgehalt.”’> Lieut. Ray 
was informed by the natives that the ‘‘Nunatanmiun” also captured 
deer by means of a rawhide noose set across a regular deer path, when 
they discovered such. The noose is held up and spread by a couple of 
sticks, and the end staked to the ground witha piece of antler. A sim- 
ilar method was practiced by the natives of Norton Sound.* A few 
parties visit the rivers in summer for the purpose of hunting reindeer, 
but most of the natives are either off on the trading expeditions pre- 
viously mentioned or else settled in the small camps along the coast, 
3 or 4 miles apart, whence they occasionally go a short distance inland 
in search of reindeer. 
The seal_—The flesh of the smaller seals forms such a staple of food, and 
their blubber and skin serve so many important purposes, that their cap- 
ture is one of the most necessary pursuits at Point Barrow, and is car- 
ried on at all seasons of the year and in many different methods. During 
the season of open water many seals are shot from the umiaks engaged 
in whaling and walrus hunting or caught in nets set along the shore at 
Elson Bay. This is also the only season when seals can be captured 
with the small kaiak darts. 
The principal seal fishery, however, begins with the closing of the sea, 
usually about the middle of October. When the pack ice comes in 
there are usually many small open pools, to which the seals resort for 
air. Most of the able-bodied men in the village are out every day armed 
1 Northwest Passage, Appendix, p. 387. 3 Klutschak, ‘‘Als Eskimo,” ete., p.13L 
2 Rae, Narratives, etc., p. 135. 4 Dall, Alaska, p. 147. 
