Food 103 



After these parts come the ribs and the sternum, which are often coated with a 

 layer of fat; the ribs are sometimes cracked between the teeth in order to extract 

 the tiny quantity of marrow they contain. Last of all come the chine, the neck 

 and the head; the last is split into four pieces, first down and then across, before 

 being put into the pot, and the brains, as well as the marrow of the jaw-bones, 

 are carefully picked out and eaten. 



The marrow of the caribou, especially that of the leg-bones, is a great 

 delicacy. The Copper Eskimo first scrapes all the meat and sinew from the bone 

 with his knife; in autumn this is allowed to freeze and is eaten, sinew and all, 

 in that condition; but in spring and summer the sinew is separated for making 

 seal and fish lines. AiVhen the bone is clean the native takes two stones, one of 

 which, the hammer stone, should have a rather sharp edge. With these he 

 cracks off the knuckle at one end, then with the sharp edge of his hammer splits 

 the bone down its shank, and picks out the marrow with a bone spatula, saudlun. 

 On rare occasions, to vary the monotony a little, the bone is roasted in the fire 

 before the end is cracked off, when the marrow will flow out like very soft butter. 



Sometimes the Eskimos preserve all the bones that have contained marrow — 

 the vertebrae, ribs, leg and feet bones — pound them to fragments, and boil them 

 slowly over an open fire. The fat that separates out on the surface is skimmed 

 off with a ladle of musk-ox horn and poured into some convenient receptacle, 

 such as a bag or the pericardium of the caribou, where it solidifies to form a 

 pure white tallow. This is esteemed more highly perhaps than any other food 

 the natives possess. Mr. Stefansson says that the Baillie island natives never 

 boiled down the bones for their fat until the whaling ships came out and they 

 were taught by natives from farther west; among the Copper Eskimos, however, 

 it seems to have been done from time immemorial. 



For drying meat the Copper Eskimo rests a pole or board on two pillars 

 made by piling flat stones on top of one another, or by setting up large slabs on 

 edge. The meat is cut into thin slices and laid across the pole. Often these 

 racks will not suffice to hold the quantity that accumulates in the camp, and the 

 meat lies littered about in every possible place, on sleds, on seal-skins, and even 

 on boulders on the ground. The dogs are always kept tied up at this season, 

 and nothing save the flies can molest the meat. Fish are treated in the same 

 manner. About a week of warm, bright sunshine is sufficient to dry either meat 

 or fish, but if the weather is unsettled and the sky overcast two or even three 

 weeks may be required. The Copper Eskimo never learned to smoke his fish, 

 as the Eskimos do farther west. 



Lake trout and lake salmon are the principal fish that the natives secure. 

 Nearly all the lakes with which the country is dotted abound in both these 

 species, and they bite readily at a hook jigged through the ice at the end of a 

 line, either unbaited or with a strip from the fish's own belly as a bait. Many 

 are speared with a long trident (nuyakpak), or a double gaff (kakivak), in the 

 large pools that form on the edges of the lakes while the main portions are still 

 covered with ice. Hundreds of sahnon trout are caught in spring migrating 

 up the rivers to the lakes, while a few sculpi^is are speared through the ice in 

 the autumn at the mouths of certain creeks. Many tom-cod are caught with 

 long copper hooks through cracks in the sea ice during the spring and fall, 

 especially near Cape Krusenstern and around the islands in Bathurst inlet. 

 Long ago, a native told me, the little bullheads about an inch long that are so 

 dommon in the lakes and streams were quite an important item of food; now 

 the natives seldom trouble about them. In Noahognik, where caribou are 

 comparatively scarce but fish plentiful, the Eskimos resort to the lakes as soon 

 as sealing is abandoned, and jig for lake trout through holes in the ice; then 

 when the rivers and creeks break out in the late spring they go down to their 

 mouths or to their exits from the lakes and trap the migrating sahnon in 

 stone weirs, both the large fish ascending to the lakes to spawn and the young 



