Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/109

smaller than that of the Greenlanders; a kayak, he says, only weighs 25 lbs; presumably he is here referring to the caribou-hunting kayak, but even in that case the figure sounds rather improbable. Rae^[1] gives the following dimensions of a kayak at Repulse Bay: length 21 feet, breadth at the middle 19 inches, depth 9½ inches.

Whale boats and other European wooden boats have now partly superseded the kayak and the Aiviliks especially, since the time of the whalers, are excellent seamen and handle a boat with great skill. But it is only the more well-to-do among them who have a whale boat. Of the 27 families who lived on Southampton Island in the winter of 1921–22, five had whale boats; one of these boat owners also had a motor boat. Of the 14 families who lived about Repulse Bay, five of them had boats. The Iglulingmiut had no whale boats, but seven of them had boats with wooden skeletons, covered with skin. The skeleton is a copy of that of the whale boat or perhaps it is in fact that of a whale boat. When the Eskimos tell that in former days the people at Iglulik and Admiralty Inlet had large skin boats they are probably referring to such boats as these, originating out of European technique. The important Eskimo women's boat, the umiak, does not seem to have ever been. known to the Iglulik Eskimos, and none of the earlier expeditions have seen these boats among them.

Fig. 57 is one of these Eskimo skin boats. from the Iglulingmiut at Itibdjeriang. It is 4.80 m long, 1,45 m broad at the middle. It is very flatbottomed. The frame, which is made of European planks (presumably from an older boat), a few barrel staves and pieces of antler, consists of: a keel, constructed of a half-round beam over which a four-sided beam is laid the greater part of its length, at one end prolonged by a sledge cross-slat. From this, on about the same plane, run 15 pairs of crossbeams which are again prolonged in the ribs, which are attached to the gunwales, each of which consists of several pieces. Under the cross-beams and ribs are a number of stringers which, however, are not continuous but are made up of small boards. The stem is formed of a bent piece of antler and the stern is supported