MURDOCH. ] DOGS AND DRIVING. 359 
back on the sled and drag back on the harness till the team comes to 
a halt. 
The leader, who is usually a woman or child sometimes guides the 
team by a line attached to the trace, and Lieut. Ray says he has seen 
them, when traveling in the interior, tie a piece of blubber or meat on 
the end of a string and drag it on the snow just ahead of the leader. 
The natives seldom ride on the sledge except with a light load on a 
smooth road. A few old and decrepit people like Ya/ksina always trav- 
eled on sledges between the villages, and the people who came down 
with empty sledges for provisions from the whaling camp, always rode 
on the well beaten trail where the dogs would run without leading.' 
The dog whip so universally employed by the eastern Eskimo, is not 
used at Point Barrow, but when Lieut. Ray made a whip for driving 
his team, the natives calledit ipirau’ta, a name _ essentially identical 
with that used in the east. They especially distinguished ipirau‘ta, a 
whip with a lash, from a cudgel, anau’/ta. The latter word has also the 
same meaning in the eastern dialects. 
We saw nothing of the custom of protecting the dogs’ feet with seal- 
skin shoes, so prevalent on the Siberian coast.? Curiously enough the 
only other localities in which the use of this contrivance is mentioned 
are in the extreme east.’ During the first warm weather in the spring, 
before the dogs have shed their heavy winter coats, they suffer a great 
deal from the heat and can go only ashort distance without lying down 
to rest. 
The method of harnessing and driving the dogs varies considerably 
in different localities. Among the eastern natives the dogs are usually 
harnessed abreast, each with a separate trace running to the sledge. 
and the driver generally rides, guiding the dogs with a whip. The 
leader usually has a longer trace than the rest. The harness used at 
Fury and Hecla Straits is precisely the same as that at Point Barrow, 
but in Greenland, according to Dr. Kane, it consists of a “simple breast- 
strap,” with a single trace. The illustration, however, in Rink’s Tales 
and Traditions, opposite p. 232, which was drawn by a native Green- 
lander, shows a pattern of harness similar to that used in Siberia and 
described by Nordenskiéld* as “made of inch-wide straps of skin, form- 
ing a neck or shoulder band, united on both sides by a strap to a girth, 
to one side of which the draft strap is fastened.” It is a curious fact 
that the two extremes of the Eskimo race (for even if the people of Pitle- 
kaj be Chukchi in blood, they are Eskimo in culture) should use the 
same pattern of harness, while a different form prevails between them. 
The Siberians also habitually ride upon the sledges, and use a whip, 
and on some parts of the coast, at least, harness the dogs abreast. In 
‘Compare Dall. Alaska, p. 25. 
2See Hooper, Tents, ete., p. 195, and Nordenskiéld, Vega, vol. 2, p. 96, where one of these shoes is fig- 
ured. 
%See Kumlien, Contributions, p. 42. 
4Vega, vol. 2, p. 95. 
