254 THE LABRADOR ESKIMOS AND THEIR FORMER RANGE. 



throughout the summer. A Frenchman from Canada, 

 named Makko, who had newly settled in the south, and 

 who sustained the double character of trader and Catholic 

 priest, was particularly successful in enticing the Esqui- 

 maux by the most tempting offers. Besides the evil 

 consequences resulting from these expeditions in a spir- 

 itual point of view, so large a proportion of their wares 

 was thus conveyed to the south that the annual vessel 

 which brought out provisions and other necessaries for 

 the brethren, and articles of barter for the natives, could 

 make up but a small cargo in return, though the brethren, 

 unwilling as they were to supply this ferocious race with 

 instruments which might facilitate the execution of their 

 revengeful projects, furnished them with the firearms 

 which they could otherwise, and on any terms, have pro- 

 cured from the south." 



Crantz then mentions a feature of Eskimo life which, 

 however repugnant to the feelings of the Moravians, is of 

 interest to the ethnologist, and has not, so far as we are 

 aware, been observed among the Eskimos of late years. 

 This was the erection of a temporary winter dstuf^ or 

 public game-house. " A kache, or pleasure-house, which, 

 to the grief of the missionaries, was erected in 1777 

 by the savages near Nain, and resorted to by visitors 

 from Okkak, has been described by the brethren. It 

 was built entirely of snow, sixteen feet high and seventy 

 feet square. The entrance was by a round porch, which 

 communicated with the main body of the house by a 

 long avenue terminated at the farther end by a heart- 

 shaped aperture, about eighteen inches broad and two 

 feet in height. For greater solidity the wall near the 

 entrance was congealed into ice by water poured upon it. 



