OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 



509 



staff. This instrument is used for the bird-dart only. The spear for salmon 

 or other fish, called kdkkee-wei, consists of a wooden staff with a spike of 

 bone or ivory, three inches long, secured at one end. On each side of the 

 spike is a curved prong, much like that of a pitch-fork, but made of flexible 

 horn which gives them a spring, and having a barb on the inner part of the 

 point turning downwards. Their fish-hooks (kakliokia) consist only of a nail 

 crooked and pointed at one end, the other being let into a piece of ivory to 

 which the line is attached. A piece of deer's horn or curved bone, only a 

 foot long, is used as a rod, and completes this very rude part of their fishing- 

 gear (10). 



Of their mode of killing seals in the winter, I have already spoken in the 

 course of the foregoing narrative, as far as we were enabled to make our- 

 selves acquainted with it. In their summer exploits on the water, the killing 

 of the whale is the most arduous undertaking which they have to perform ; 

 and one cannot sufficiently admire the courage and activity which, with gear 

 apparently so inadequate, it must require to accomplish this business. 

 Okotook, who was at the killing of two whales in the course of a single 

 summer, and who described the whole of it quite con amove, mentioned the 

 names of thirteen men who, each in his canoe, had assisted on one of these 

 occasions. When a fish is seen lying on the water, they cautiously paddle 

 up astern of him till a single canoe, preceding the rest, comes close to him 

 on one quarter, so as to enable the man to drive the katteelik into the 

 animal with all the force of both arms. This having the siatko, a long allele, 

 and the inflated seal-skin attached to it, the whale immediately dives, taking 

 the whole apparatus with him except the katteelik which, being disengaged 

 in the manner before described, floats to the surface and is picked up by 

 its owner. The animal re-appearing after some time, all the canoes again 

 paddle towards him, some warning being given by the seal-skin buoy float- 

 ing on the surface. Each man being furnished like the first, they repeat the 

 blows as often as they find opportunity, till perhaps every line has been thus 

 employed. After pursuing him in this manner, sometimes for half a day, he 

 is at length so wearied by the resistance of the buoys, and exhausted by loss 

 of blood, as to be obliged to rise more and more often to the surface when, 

 by frequent wounds with their spears, they succeed in killing him, and tow 

 their prize in triumph to the shore. It is probable that with the whale, as 

 with the smaller sea-animals, some privilege or perquisite is given to the first 

 striker ; and, like our own fishermen, they take a pride in having it known 



