CARIBOU OR AMERICAN REINDEER. 
119 
they have been mixed with the salivary and gastric juices of a ruminating 
animal. Many of the Indians and Canadian voyagers prefer this savoury 
mixture after 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 propor- 
tion 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 depouil'e of the Deer is added to it, is one of the 
greatest treats that can be offered to a resident in the fur countries.” 
“ 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.” 
Captain Lyon’s private journal contains some accounts of this species : 
“ The Reindeer visits the polar regions at the latter end of May or the 
early part of June, and remains until late in September. On his first 
arrival he is thin and his flesh is tasteless, but the short summer is sufficient 
to fatten him to two or three inches on the haunches. When feeding on 
the level ground, an Esquimaux makes no attempt to approach him, but 
should a few rocks be near, the wary hunter feels secure of his prey. 
Behind one of these he cautiously creeps, and having laid himself very 
close, with his bow and arrow before him, imitates the bellow of the Deer 
when calling to each other. Sometimes, for more complete deception, the 
hunter wears his Deer-skin coat and hood so drawn over his head as to 
resemble, in a great measure, the unsuspecting animals he is enticing. 
Though the bellow proves a considerable attraction, yet if a man has great 
