438 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



and they take the titbits as a preliminary snack. If they are still 

 unsatisfied, a fish is scaled, gutted, and cut in long strips, the end 

 of one of these is dipped into the trickling blood and, thus seasoned, 

 is put into the mouth, divided into suitable mouthfuls with quick 

 knife-strokes -which seem to pass perilously near the point of the 

 eater's nose. The children playing about their busy mothers 

 receive pieces of liver or strips of muscle according to their size; 

 four-year-olds use the knife to cut the pieces almost as cleverly as 

 their elders, who invariably divide their fish or strips of reindeer 

 flesh in this manner. Soon the faces of mothers and children 

 shine with fish blood and liver oil, and the hands glisten with 

 adhering fish-scales. When all the fishes are scaled, split, and 

 hung up to dry, the dogs which have been sitting, covetous but not 

 importunate, beside the women, receive their portion also — the 

 scales and debris, which are thrown into a heap amid which the 

 black muzzles burrow eagerly. 



The morning work is over, and a short period of rest has been 

 earned. The mothers take their children on their laps, suckle the 

 nurslings, and then proceed to a work which is absolutely necessary, 

 not only to the little ones' comfort but to their own — the hunt for 

 parasites. One child after another lays its head in its mother's 

 lap, and finally she lays her own in that of her eldest daughter or 

 of a friend who hopes for a similar service, and the hunt proves 

 productive. That the booty secured is put between the lips, and 

 if not actually eaten, at least bitten to death, is nothing new to a 

 naturalist who has observed monkeys, and it confirms those who 

 see more than a mere hypothesis in Darwin's doctrine, or in the 

 belief that men may exhibit atavism, or a reversion to the habits 

 of a remote ancestor. 



The sun is sinking, the men, youths, and boys come back with 

 a new and rich harvest. They have eaten raw fish as they required, 

 but now their souls long for warm food. A great steaming kettle 

 of cooked fish, delicious salmonoids (genus Coregonus), the nearest 

 relative of the salmon, is set before them; its accompaniment is 

 bread dipped in and thoroughly saturated with fish fat. Brick-tea,^* 

 put on the fire with cold water and boiled for a long time, brings 



