434 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
to eat the burbot, another man was denied ptarmigan, and a woman! at 
Nuwitk was not allowed to eat “earth food,” that is, anything which 
grew upon the ground. Lieut. Ray also mentions a man who was for- 
bidden bear’s flesh.? 
We observed some traces of the superstition concerning the heads 
of seals and other marine animals taken in the chase, which has been 
noticed elsewhere. Crantz says:’ “‘The heads of seals must not be 
fractured, nor must they be thrown into the sea, but be piled in a heap 
before the door,‘ that the souls of the seals may not be enraged and 
seare their brethren from the coast.”. And Capt. Parry found that at 
Winter Island they carefully preserved the heads of all the animals 
killed during the winter, except two or three of the walrus which he 
obtained with great difficulty. The natives told him that they were to 
be thrown into the sea in the summer, but at Iglulik they readily sold 
them before the summer arrived.® 
I tried very hard to get a full series of skulls from the seals taken at 
Utkiaywin in the winter of 1882~83, but though I frequently asked the 
natives to bring them over for sale, they never did so, till at last one 
young woman promised to bring me all I wanted at the price of half a 
pound of gunpowder askull. Nevertheless, she brought over only two 
or three at that price. We did not observe what was done with the 
skulls, but frequently observed quantities of the smaller bones of the 
seals carefully tucked away in the crevices of the ice at some distance 
from the shore. We had comparatively little difficulty in obtaining 
skulls of the walrus, but I observed that the bottom of Ttseraru, the 
little pond at the edge of the village, was covered with old walrus skulls, 
as if they had been deposited there for years. The superstition appears 
to be in full force among the Chukches, who live near the place where 
the Vega wintered. Nordenskjéld was unable to purchase a pair of 
fresh walrus heads at the first village he visited, though the tusks were 
offered for sale the next day® and at Pitlekaj.7. ‘“‘Some prejudice * * * 
prevented the Chukches from parting with the heads of the seal, though 
* * * we offered a high price for them. ‘Irgatti’ (to-morrow) 
was the usual answer. But the promise was never kept.” 
Amulets.—Like the Greenlanders* and other Eskimos, they place 
great reliance on amulets or talismans, which are carried on the person, 
in the boat, or even inserted in weapons, each apparently with some 
! Report Point Barrow Expedition, p. 46. 
?Compare Rink, Tales, ete., p. 64; Crantz, vol. 1, p. 215, and Parry, 2d voyage, p. 548: ‘'Seal’s flesh 
1s forbidden, for instance, in one disease, that of the walrus in the other; the heart is denied to some, 
and the liver to others.” 
3Vol. 1, p. 216. 
4 Beechey saw the skulls of seals and other animals kept in piles round the houses at Hotham Inlet 
(Voyage, p. 259). 
5 Second Voyage, p. 510. 
® Vega, vol. 1, p. 435. 
7 Vega, vol. 2, p. 137. 
SJohn Davis describes the Greenlanders in 1586 as follows: ‘‘They are idolaters, and have images 
great store, which they wore about them, and in their boats, which we suppose they worship."’ (Hak- 
luyt, Voyages, etc., 1589, p. 782.) 
