l6o GRINNELL 



pieces, the cover, the bottom, and the sides. The thin 

 plank which forms the sides is cut part way through 

 in the line where the corners are to come, and is then 

 steamed and gradually bent, and at last when the opposite 

 ends come together to form the fourth corner of the box, 

 they are fitted in a tight joint and sewed together with 

 twigs or sometimes with cedar bark. Such boxes were 

 once universally employed to hold oil, but at present their 

 use has been largely superseded by articles of white man- 

 ufacture. 



From the poles which support the roof of the shelter 

 hang delicacies of various sorts, all from the hair seal's 

 body. There are flippers, sides of ribs, strips of blubber 

 and braided seal intestines. All these things are eaten; 

 and, in fact, during this fishing the Indians must subsist 

 chiefly on the flesh of the seal. The flippers appear to 

 be regarded as especially choice. We saw many women 

 roasting them over the fire. After they were cooked the 

 women pulled them out of the ashes, and heating an iron 

 in the fire singed the hair which remained on the skin and 

 then tore the flippers to pieces and picked the meat from 

 the bones. Here was seen a primitive form of kettle, 

 common perhaps to all North American tribes; it was a 

 large seal skin, laced by its margin to a square frame of 

 poles, hanging down in the middle eighteen inches or two 

 feet, and full of strips of blubber; it would hold from one 

 to two bushels. 



The process of ' butchering ' the seals absolutely rever- 

 ses the method common in other regions. The product 

 sought for is the blubber, which is attached to the hide. 

 This being the case the Indian woman does not skin her 

 seal, but opens it by a long gash along the belly and cuts 

 out from the inside of the hide the meat and the bones, 

 leaving the blubber attached to the skin. The flippers 

 are cut off, the legs, the ribs, and loins taken from the 



