Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/216

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

IX. Food and its Preparing.

Meat is practically the sole food of the Iglulik Eskimos, or at any rate was until a very few years ago. Flour, especially in the form of biscuits and "flap-jacks", has nowadays come into use, although they only have flour during the first few days after a visit to the trading post.

Nearly all the animals living in their area are eaten, and the meat is cocked in various ways.

Caribou meat is the favourite food of the Iglulik Eskimos and, in autumn and the early winter, often in summer too, it is practically their one fare. Parry, too, says: "They like the (walrus) 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". Caribou meat is best in summer and early autumn, when the animals are fat, and caribou fat is a greatly prized food.

Most of the caribou meat is eaten in a frozen state, in summer raw; they eat large quantities of the cooked meat, however, when they have sufficient blubber for cooking. The parts of the caribou which are usually cooked are the breast and ribs, the saddle and the shoulders, the hindquarter taking a secondary place. Delicacies such as tongues and lower jaws are often cooked too: the latter are sometimes collected for a long time, are cooked and provide an uncommonly tasty and rich soup. If lean meat is being cooked, a piece of back fat — if they have any — is often put into the pot and, while eating, a small piece of fat is taken with every mouthful of meat. The men's method of eating is to take a piece out of the pot and pass it round, always in the direction of the sun, each man cutting a piece as large as he can stuff into his mouth, and thus it goes round until it has disappeared and a fresh piece can be put into circulation. A cup of soup (often a dipper of musk-ox horn) in the same manner goes from mouth to mouth. The soup secured through cooking the caribou meat is always drunk; it is sometimes made richer by adding blood before cooking. Even when they have plenty