Summer Life 131 



May 23 : Some of the men went hunting, others fished near the camp. The 

 women were busy all day cutting up caribou meat and setting it out to dry, 

 scraping skins, and feasting. Meat was lying all about the camp, on sleds, 

 stones, boards and sealskins; wherever meat was absent there were dogs 

 tied by their traces to large boulders. Just before our last migration 

 Milukkattak had made a tent from the skins of the caribou her husband 

 had killed; here at Lake Numikhoin Pissuak's family shared it with them. 

 At this period it was usually midnight when we went to bed, and noon 

 before we rose. Higilak held a shamanistic performance on the evening 

 of this day to discover whether we would find any Prince Albert sound 

 natives if we went on to Lake Tahiryuak. 



May 24: The whole party set out for Lake Tahiryuak, with the exception of 

 Tusayok, his wife and the little boy Haugak, who were left behind to look 

 after the drying meat. Besides my own sled, which was an ordinary 

 European sled shod with steel runners, there were two others, stripped of 

 their mud shoeing but protected by runners of whale's bone. Okalluk's 

 family carried all its possessions in a polar bear skin drawn by three dogs. 

 Several ptarmigan were shot during the day and one caribou. , Our camp in 

 the evening was rather unusual. There was a lean-to under which four of 

 the natives were huddled in their sleeping bags, one ordinary summer tent of 

 deer skins, and my own light canvas tent in which Ikpakhuak and Higilak 

 slept also. Some of the natives had no shelter at all. We had left our lamps 

 and blubber at Lake Numikhoin, and there was no fuel of any kind in the 

 neighbourhood, so the Eskimos satisfied their hunger with raw meat. 



May 25 : We reached Lake Tahiryuak in the evening, after killing three caribou 

 and some ptarmigan on the road. Everyone began to fish as soon as camp 

 was made. About 1 a.m., before we had turned into our sleeping-bags, 

 Higilak held a stance to discover whether any of the Prince Albert sound 

 natives would visit us. As the weather was mild and our tents too small 

 to hold all the company she held her performance in the open air. 



May 26 — 31 : Everyone was engaged in hunting or in fishing. One or more of 

 the women each day went out to collect okauyak for fuel; it was rather 

 scarce in this locality, or at least diSicult to find under the snow that still 

 covered the ground in most places. We were given one meal of cooked 

 meat each day, and for the rest ate semi-dried meat and fish. Higilak 

 divined on the evening of the 28th to try and discover whether the Prince 

 Albert sound natives were coming or not. 



June 1: About noon a Kanghiryuak (Prince Albert sound) family arrived 

 travelling by sled across the lake. It consisted of a man Kunana, his wife 

 Allikammik, their little baby, and a young man named Imerak. A dance 

 was held in their honour, but while it was still in progress a second sled 

 appeared, with three more Kanghiryuak natives, Nilgak, a cripple, his wife 

 Utuaiyok, and a boy of about 11 years named Akoaksiun. This second 

 family joined its tent to Kunana's, making the open end of the latter's 

 tent a common entrance for both. Higilak held a stance in the dance- 

 house, after which some of the natives amused themselves with drumming 

 and singing, while the others crawled into their sleeping-bags. Several 

 natives slept in the dance-house during* the next few days, as the skins 

 which they had brought for shelters had been used to form its roof. Each 

 morning they rolled back their sleeping gear against the wall out of the 

 way of the dancers. 



23335—91 



