MAMMALIA. 945 
contents, termed by the Esquimaux nerrooks, and by the Greenlanders nerrokak or 
nerriookak, are also eaten, and it would appear that the lichens and other 
vegetable matters on which the caribou feeds are more easily digested by the 
human stomach when they have are mixed with the salivary and gastric juices 
of a ruminating animal. Many of the Indians and Canadian voyagers prefer 
this savoury mixture afier it has undergone a degree of fermentation, or lain 
to season, as they term it, for a few days. The blood, if mixed in proper 
proportion with a strong decoction of fat meat, forms, after some nicety in 
the cooking, a rich soup, which is very palatable and highly nutritious, but 
very difficult of digestion. When all the soft parts of the animal are consumed, 
the bones are pounded small, and a large quantity of marrow is extracted 
from them by boiling. This is used in making the better kinds of the mixture of 
dried meat and fat, which is named pemmican, and it is also preserved by the 
young men and females for anointing the hair and greasing the face on dress 
occasions. The tongue roasted, when fresh or when half dried, is a delicious 
morsel. When it is necessary to preserve the caribou meat for use at a future 
period, it is cut into thin slices and dried over the smoke of a slow fire, and then 
pounded betwixt two stones. This pounded meat is very dry and husky if 
eaten alone, but when a quantity of the back fat or depowillé of the deer is added 
to it, is one of the greatest treats that can be offered to a resident in the fur 
countries. Pemmican is formed by pouring one-third part of melted fat over the 
pounded meat and incorporating them well together. If kept dry it may be pre- 
served sound for three or four years, and from the quantity of nourishment it 
contains in small bulk, it is perhaps the best kind of food for those who travel 
through desert lands. Thueehawgan is a mixture of pounded deer’s meat and 
dried fish or fish-roe, which is eaten raw, or when made into soup, by throwing a 
handful of it into boiling water. 
The caribou travel in herds, varying in number from eight or ten to two or three 
hundred, and their daily excursions are generally towards the quarter from whence 
the wind blows. The Indians kill them with the bow and arrow or gun, take them 
in snares, or spear them in crossing rivers or lakes. The Esquimaux also take 
them in traps ingeniously formed of ice or snow. Of all the deer of North 
America, they are the most easy of approach, and are slaughtered in the greatest 
numbers. A single family of Indians will sometimes destroy two or three hundred 
in a few weeks, and in many cases they are killed for the sake of their tongues alone. 
The following extract from Captain Lyon’s interesting Journal, details some 
of the Esquimaux methods of killing them. ‘“‘ The rein-deer,’’ says he*, 
* Private Journal, p. 336, 
