100 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



he enters the hut. If the meat is not quite cooked he will often undress and eat 

 in bed. In spring and summer, when the weather is mild and the daylight long, 

 it is altogether uncertain when the husband will return. If the fishing is poor 

 he will probably turn up as the sun reaches the west; if good, not until it is well 

 in the north; while if he happens to be caribou hunting he may be absent twenty- 

 four hours or more. The wife then cooks whenever she feels inclined, eats her 

 meal alone, and puts some of the meat away for him so that he may eat the 

 moment he returns. Woe betide the wife who keeps him waiting after a day 

 spent in fishing or hunting! Even if the whole family has participated in the^ 

 same pursuit the wife should return early, if possible, so as to have everything 

 ready for the rest when they arrive in camp. 



If the weather is inclement and the men unable to go out hunting they 

 frequently spend much of the day in bed. The wife then cooks when she wishes, 

 usually towards evening. A little food is often left on the table at night or beside 

 the door of the tent close to their heads, so that they can reach out and eat, if 

 they wake up, without stirring from their sleeping-bags. 



The quantity of food consumed at one meal naturally varies according 

 to the amount of fat it contains. Men and dogs will half -starve on a diet of lean 

 caribou-meat, however plentiful, whereas half the quantity of blubbery seal- 

 meat will satisfy their desires and keep them well nourished. The appetite of 

 the average Eskimo is not abnormal; as Dr. Anderson has pointed out, it is no 

 greater than that of a white man living under the same conditions on the same 

 diet. 



The fish and deer-meat dried in the summer, and the meat kept frozen 

 from the autumn, are generally all consumed by the beginning of the new year. 

 In these latitudes the sun disappears for the winter night about the beginning 

 of December, and few seals are caught before the middle of that month. On 

 December 6, 1914, "dinner" in an Eskimo's hut consisted of four courses, 

 caribou-fat, frozen caribou-meat, a dried and very mouldy fish, and, last of all, 

 a portion of boiled caribou-leg. The Eskimos were camped on the coast at the 

 time, so the boiling of caribou-meat was not prohibited. They like to have a stock 

 of caribou back-fat to eat with the frozen meat and to nibble at whenever they feel 

 inclined. During the winter, however, seal-meat constitutes their principal, 

 and for several months their only food. Small pieces of skin and blubber are 

 frequently eaten both when cutting up the seal and later; especially is this the 

 case with the bearded seal. A strip of blubber is usually left on the table inside 

 the hut, and the visitor helps himself to a small cube of it about the size of a 

 sugar lump. The liver g,nd kidneys are always eaten raw, generally unfrozen, 

 while the intestines of the bearded seal are considered a delicacy. So, too, are 

 the flippers, both of the bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus) and of the rough 

 seal {Phoca hispida). The blood is poured into a sealskin bucket, and kept for 

 thickening the soup; generally it freezes into a solid lump. 



To prepare a meal at this season the wife hangs the pot over the lamp, 

 scours it out with her fingers, and fills it with crystalline snow, anyu, which she 

 crushes with her ulo or more rarely with the horn snow-knife, haviuyak. The 

 meat is placed in the cold water and slowly brought to a boil, when the surface 

 is covered with a thick scum. It is then taken out, squeezed between the thumb 

 and fore-finger to drain off the water, and laid on the table to cool. Seal blood, 

 liquid or frozen, now takes its place in the pot; it too is allowed to simmer, then 

 the steaming broth is dished out in musk-ox ladles (or any convenient dish) 

 and handed round to everyone present.' A little raw blubber is nearly always 

 eaten with the seal-meat, but most of it is consumed in the lamp or fed to the 

 dogs. When migrating a little meat, either raw and frozen, or boiled on the 

 previous day, is placed in a convenient place on the sled for lunch. In good 



'For a fuller description of an Eskimo meal in winter, see Mr. Stetansson's excellent accounts, My 

 Life with the Eskimo, p. 176 et seg., and Anthrop. Papers, A.M.N.H., Vol. XIV, pt. I, p. 243. 



