538 W. Thalbitzer 



between the various kinds of seal-meat (the same difference as the 

 Europeans find between beef, pork, mutton etc.) and the different 

 parts of the animal are not equally appreciated. Before boiling the 

 meat, it is generally washed in sea-water, and if it contains much 

 blood it is even given a very careful and long washing; it is then 

 boiled in fresh water in the soapstone pot over the oil-lamp, more 

 seldom in fresh water to which is added a little sea-water; the 

 water is shallow in the pot and the meat has to be turned several 

 times. The cooking goes on very slowly until the meat is quite 

 tender. No lid is used on the pot but a sort of floating lid is often 

 formed, the house-wife filling her mouth with blubber, chewing it 

 and afterwards spitting it out over the water. The boiled meat is 

 always served hanging by one or two bones to be used by the left 

 hand instead of a fork, while the right hand manipulates the knife; 

 mouthfuls are torn off by the teeth, the knife assisting just in front 

 of the lips. Each choice piece has an attendant lump of blubber 

 which makes it a still greater delicacy (making up for our sauce and 

 vegetables). Besides the meat of seals, that of walrus, whales, bears, 

 foxes, dogs and most sorts of birds is also used as food. Bear meat 

 is boiled in fresh water without salt. 



Dried meat inuk^^koq or panertän or salek^"arsimalin) of all sorts 

 of mammals, seals, whales, walrus, bears, dogs and of various birds 

 (ptarmigan, eider duck, black guillemot, sometimes raven) is also 

 common food, but is hardly appreciated so much as the fresh meat. 

 On the other hand, the lightly frozen, half-rotten seal-meat [qeetsiaq) 

 is considered by many almost as great a delicacy as newMy boiled 

 meat. Both this and dried meat are generally eaten with frozen 

 blubber which has been kept from the autumn in the large blubber- 

 bags (imikkat) out in the stone-cellars ^). The freezing of the meat 

 and blubber is simply carried out by depositing the seals captured 

 during the autumn at a certain place in the neighbourhood of the 

 house and covering them with snow. As they are wanted in the 

 course of the winter, they are carried into the house and cut up to 

 be eaten before being thawed. If the whole animal is not eaten at 

 once, the rest of the meat is boiled. The half- decomposed blubber 

 in the blubber-bags is used as gravy. 



The soup of the meat (neek"'aaq) is poured out of the pot and 

 drunk; it may often have been used before as gravy (neekwaamut 

 misittiijo 'to dip one's portion of meat in the soup.') Like the blood 

 the soup is sometimes only used as food for the dogs. But if the 



') When this blubber has been lying in tlie bags for a long time it o.\idizes and 

 is boiled into a sort of tar {itcinna<i or iitisaalisaa, j). .'')0Г)| used for the boat- 

 skins, making them water-tight. 



