510 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



that their spear has been the first to inflict a wound. They meet with the 

 most whales on the coast of Eiwillik. 



In attacking the walrus in the water, they use the same gear, but much 

 more caution than with the whale, always throwing the katteelik from some 

 distance, lest the animal should attack the canoe and demolish it with his 

 tusks. The walrus is in fact the only animal with which they use any cau- 

 tion of this kind. They like the flesh better than that of the seal ; but 

 venison is preferred by them to either of these, and indeed to any other kind 

 of meat. 



At Winter Island they carefully preserved the heads of all the animals 

 killed during the winter, except two or three of the walrus which we ob- 

 tained with great difficulty. There is probably some superstition attached 

 to this, but they told us that they were to be thrown into the sea in the 

 summer, which a Greenlander* studiously avoids doing ; and indeed, at 

 Igloolik, they had no objection to part with them before the summer 

 arrived. As the blood of the animals which they kill is all used as food of 

 the most luxurious kind, they are careful to avoid losing any portion of it ; 

 for this purpose they carry with them on their excursions a little instrument 

 of ivory called toopoota, in form and size exactly resembling a " twenty- 

 penny " nail (25), with which they stop up the orifice made by the spear,, 

 by thrusting it through the skin by the sides of the wound, and securing 

 it with a twist. I must here also mention a simple little instrument called 

 keipkuttuk, being a slender rod of bone nicely rounded, and having a point 

 at one end and a knob or else a laniard at the other (17). The use of 

 this is to thrust through the ice where they have reason to believe a seal is at 

 work underneath. This little instrument is sometimes made as delicate as a 

 fine wire, that the seal may not see it ; and a part still remaining above the 

 surface informs the fishermen by its motion whether the animal is employed 

 in making his hole : if not, it remains undisturbed, and the attempt is given 

 up in that place. 



One of the best of their bows was made of a single piece of fir, four feet 

 eight inches in length, flat on the inner side and rounded on the outer, 

 being five inches in girth about the middle where, however, it is strength- 

 ened on the concave side, when strung, by a piece of bone ten inches long, 

 firmly secured by tree-nails of the same material. At each end of the bow 



* Crantz, I., 216. 



