THE alaska:n^ fishinggeounds. ■ 111 



Hope slio-wed no signs of life, the natives being off fishing, hunting, and perhaps trading. There 

 were plenty of drying-frames, and at various points along the low shore were large conical piles 

 of drift-wood. 



The spear-points observed at Cape Lisburne were made of copper or iron in a bone socket. 

 Sometimes chert or some other hard stone replaces the metal. At Icy Cape a great number of 

 chert fiakes were found at an old Eskimo encampment, where the spear-maker had been at work. 

 The pole to which the head is attached is usually nearly six feet long, the shank forming a socket 

 fitting on a pivot on the pole and firmly lashed on. To the pole is fastened, by seal-skin thongs, 

 an inflated seal-stomach. The natives throw these lances into a whale and the buoys prevent his 

 sinking very far; each time when he comes up to breathe more and more lances are thrust into 

 him, until finally the death stroke is given. The flesh and blubber are common property ; the 

 whalebone belongs to the captors of the animal. The jaw-bone is used for various purposes; cut 

 into strips of suitable thickness, it is employed for shoeing sled-runners ; the ribs and i^arts of 

 the jaws are frequently planted in the ground in a circle for the frame- work of winter dwellings; 

 blubber-holes are secured by a covering of similar bones; ribs also are sunk upright into the 

 ground to serve as posts for stretching lines and for supports of various kinds. It is hard to tell 

 whether the Eskimo prefer whale meat fresh or tainted; they eat it very freely and with apparent 

 relish when it becomes simply revolting to our taste. The crisp, hard cracklings left by the 

 whalers after trying out the oil are eagerly sought for by traveling parties. 



The walrus and the seal are of more importance to the Eskimo than the whale, both of them 

 being more readily obtained and supplying a greater number of wants. The flesh of the whale of 

 course serves as food, the oil as food and fuel, the bone for house-frames and certain utensils, the 

 baleen as an article of trade; but whales are hard to capture and are. not to be depended upon, 

 while walrus and seal, judging from the numerous remains of these animals found wherever we 

 landed on the Arctic shores, and from the numberless appliances for which they serve, are the' 

 great essentials, not only to the comfort, but to the very existence of the natives. To use the 

 language of Captain Hooper: "The seal may be called the mainstay of the Innuit of Arctic 

 Alaska. The flesh and oil form his chief articles of subsistence; the skin furnishes him clothing, 

 tents, and boats; cut into thongs, it is used to make nets for catching fish and birds. The oil is 

 also burned in lamps {nannue), which light and warm the tupecJcs during the long, dark winter 

 nights." 1 



In the vicinity of Icy Cape we saw great quantities of broken skulls of walrus and seal and 

 of polar bear. Heaps of burned bones were quite frequent ; the natives burn the bones to 

 appease the spirit dwelling in the animal, fearing a failure in their future hunting if this mark of 

 respect be withheld. 



Walrus ivory has many uses besides that of a basis of trade; whole tusks of the proper shape 

 are formed into handsome and very effective ice-picks; snow-knives, resembling somewhat in 

 shape the throw-sticks of some Indians, are made of this ivory; numberless implements of small 

 size but great usefulness are manufactured from the same material. 



The number of species of edible Arctic fishes is small, and there is no question that fish- 

 food is much less important to those Innuit than the flesh of seals and walrus, but it is consumed 

 in considerable quantities and forms a very agreeable variation from the ordinary diet. Two species 

 of flat-fish are known to be abundant, and the small polar cod is superlatively so. Two sculpins 

 named in the appended list (species of Cottus) reach a large size and they are very common. All 



■ Report of Cruise of Corwin, 1881, pp. 58, 59. 



