MURDOCH. ] WHALING. 275 
sled and brought back and harnessed to the flat sled on which the 
umiak was lashed. The party, which consisted of five men and two 
women, one of whom remained with the sled load of gear, then started 
ahead, the women running in front of the dogs and the men pushing at 
the sides of the boat. The boat travels very easily and rapidly on 
smooth ice, but among the hummocks the men have hard work pushing 
and scrambling, and occasional stops have to be made to widen narrow 
places in the path and to chisel off projecting points of ice which might 
pierce the skin cover of the boat. When they came up to the first 
sled the women were again sent on with this while the men rested. 
The inflated sealskin floats, five or six in number, the whale harpoon, 
and whale spades, and ice picks were carried in the boats. 
A whaling umiak always carries a number of amulets to insure sue- 
cess. These consisted in this case of two wolf skulls, a dried raven, 
the axis vertebra of a seal, and numerous feathers. The skin of a 
golden eagle is considered an excellent charm for whaling, and Nika- 
waalu was particularly desirous to secure the tip of a red fox’s tail, 
which he said was a powerful amulet. The captain and harpooner 
wore fillets of mountain sheepskin, with a little crystal or stone image 
of a whale dangling at each side of the face, and the captain’s fillet was 
also fringed with the incisor teeth of the mountain sheep. Both wore 
little stone whales attached to the breast of the jacket, and one woman 
and one or two of the men had streaks of black lead on their faces.! 
When they are on the watch for whales the great harpoon is kept 
always rigged and resting in a crotch of ivory in the bow of the boat. 
When a whale is sighted they paddle up as close as possible and the 
harpooner thrusts the harpoon into him. The whale dives, with the 
floats attached to him, and the shaft, which is retained, is rigged for 
striking him when he Tises again. The other boats, if any are near, 
join in the chase until the whale is so wearied that he can be lanced 
or a favorable opportunity occurs for shooting him. All boats in sight 
at the time the whale is struck, as I understood, are entitled to an 
equal share of the whalebone. 
As soon as the whale is killed he is towed up to the edge of the land 
floe and everybody standing on the edge of the ice and in the boats 
begins hacking away, at random, at the flesh and blubber, some of 
them going to work more carefully to cut out the whalebone. The 
“cutting in” is managed without order or control, everybody who can 
be on the spot being apparently entitled to all the meat, blubber, and 
blackskin he or she can cut off. The same custom was practiced in 
Greenland, and is to this day in eastern Siberia. 
‘Compare Egede, Greenland, p. 102. ‘*When they go a Whale-catching they put on their best Gear 
or Apparel, as if they were going toa Wedding Feast, fancying that if they did not come cleanly and 
neatly dressed the Whale, who can’t bear sloven and dirty Habits, would shun them and fly from them.” 
See also Crantz, History of Greenland, Vol. 1, p. 121. ‘They dress themselves in the best manner 
for it, because, according to the portentous sayings of their sorcerers, if any one was to wear dirty 
cloaths, especially such in which he had touched a dead corpse, the whale would escape, or, even if it 
was already dead, would at least sink.” 
