yA LABRADOR 
and used chiefly in times of scarcity. It is also prepared 
in northern Europe, and quite possibly may be found around 
the entire reindeer north. When starting for a day’s hunt 
in winter, the Nascaupee takes a cup of water, stirs in a 
handful of uinastikai, and drinks the mixture. Until 
through hunting he takes no more food. The same ab- 
stinence during the day’s hunting is noted of the Blackfeet 
by Shultz, and is doubtless common to the North American 
races. 
It is probable that the slightly digested moss which enters 
into the uinastikai appeals to our natural desire, seldom 
gratified in the northern life, for starchy food. A certain 
amount of this is contained by cladonia moss, although by 
itself it is hardly digestible. The Ungava Eskimo are said 
to chop up the caribou moss with seal oil as a sort of salad. 
If its use among primitive people is anything like coexten- 
sive with the range of the reindeer, there must be a practical 
justification for it. 
There are several kinds of berries in the semi-barrens, 
the service-berry, or mountain cranberry, being the one of 
principal importance to the Indians. To them it is known 
as uishitshimin, “‘bitter-berry.” The shore people call 
it simply the redberry. The cloud-berry, or bake-apple, 
grows here and there in damp places, even to the bleak 
bogs of the height of land east of the middle George River. 
Blueberries, delicate of flavour and structure, grow on many 
of the coast islands and inland hills. They grow so close 
to the ground in exposed places that often it is not easy to 
pick one without getting a little grit at the same time. 
The crowberry, or curlewberry, locally “blackberry,” is 
very common near the coast, but is insipid. 
