102 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



from one group of lakes to another and incidentally hunting any caribou that 

 they might happen to encounter. By the end of July even the larger lakes 

 were becoming free of ice, and jigging with hook and line or spearing with the 

 long trident was no longer possible; besides it was necessary to obtain a supply 

 of short-haired summer skins for clothing. So the Eskimos began their summer 

 packing, scouring the land day after day, securing a caribou here one day, two 

 or three there the next, then no more perhaps for several days. When their 

 suppUes ran low they would sometimes rock the stones on the edges of the lakes 

 and spear the small fish that darted out, eating them raw; or they would draw 

 on the little stock of dried meat or back-fat that they carried for just such an 

 emergency. In the latter half of September the caribou began to straggle 

 back to the coast, and wait for the sea to freeze over so that they could migrate 

 south again. Those Eskimos who had rifles remained near the coast to inter- 

 cept them, the others, after a few days, went inland again to the lakes to fish, 

 trusting to buy later, from their more fortunate countrymen, the autumn skins 

 that they required for clothing, paying for them with fish. The main body of 

 the caribou had passed by the middle of October, although for several weeks 

 after an occasional herd of stragglers still drifted by. Satisfied with the game 

 they had already killed, three families now decided to return to the hills and 

 obtain a few fish which they could keep frozen for consumption during the winter; 

 but a fourth family, indifferent to the attractions of fish, remained on the coast. 

 Throughout November all these natives were living on the stores that they had 

 laid by during the preceding months; indeed it was not until well on in December 

 that sufiicient seals were caught to produce any noticeable change in their diet. 



In the valley of the Coppermine river and behind Bathurst inlet caribou 

 are even more numerous than in Victoria island. In other districts, again, they 

 are comparatively scarce, and the Eskimos depend far more on fish. Thus very 

 few caribou remain in Noahognik, on the south side of Dolphin and Union 

 strait, during the summer months, after the spring migration is over. Natives 

 who were spearing salmon here in June, 1916, went down to the Rae river in 

 July for their hunting. For some distance east of the Coppermine river, too, 

 most of the caribou disappear in the height of summer; it is only in the migrating 

 seasons, in early spring and in autumn, that they are plentiful. Fish, on the other 

 hand, are very abundant, and in certain areas squirrels; the fur of the latter is 

 almost as valuable to the Eskimos as its meat. 



In cutting up a caribou the Eskimo is careful to preserve every particle of 

 fat, even that around the intestinfes. In summer and autumn indeed, when the 

 intestines are coated with a thick lining of fat, they are eaten raw and intact, the 

 black pellets of excrement being usually, but not always, squeezed out between 

 thumb and finger.' The liver also, like seal liver, is eaten raw, while the kidneys 

 are thrown away or fed to the dogs. The lungs are sometimes cooked and 

 eaten, but they are little esteemed; the heart, however, is carefully preserved, 

 to be split later into two halves, and either boiled at once or laid out on a stone 

 to dry. The wall of the stomach, when emptied of its vegetable contents, is 

 sometimes retained for dog-food, while the reticulum, which is shaped like a 

 pouch, is cut off, filled with blood, and closed with one of the bone pins that a 

 hunter always carries on his bow-case; the blood is used, like seal-blood, to 

 thicken the bouillon after the meat has been boiled. Unborn fawns are skinned, 

 and either dried, or cooked at once, generally for the children to eat; sometimes, 

 however, they are thrown directly to the dogs. As a rule the first parts of a 

 caribou that are cooked, besides the tongue and the heart, are the fore- and 

 hind-quarters, the bones of which contain the much prized marrow; the tongue, 

 according to Eskimo rules of cookery, should be boiled with the tip uppermost . 



'Mr. Stefansson is mistaken, I think, when he says (Anthrop. Papers, A.M.N.H., Vol. XVI, pt. I, 

 p. 61) that the intestinal and kidney fat are usually boiled by the Copper Eskimos. To my knowledge 

 they were always eaten raw, though the back tat was often boiled. Alaskan and Mackenzie river Eskimos, 

 however, frequently boil the intestinal fat as well. 



