Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/234

There are several games which may be included in the term Sport:

Fisticuffs. Was formerly used as a sort of greeting or introduction when a strange tribe was on a visit; it was also practised among the Iglulik Eskimos themselves for the purpose of settling disputes. The method is that two men strike each other, in turn with the closed hand, either on the left temple (quperneq) or on the bare left shoulder (tigdlungneq); the blow is struck with the inner side of the hand and describes a horizontal curve from right to left. The one who holds out longest is the winner. In former days especially these fights often became serious; there still lives an old man on Southampton Island who, in his younger days, killed a Netsilik by a blow on the temple during one of these contests, and it sometimes happened Image missingFig. 171.
Nuglutang. that the beaten contestant, exasperated with pain and anger, resorted to the knife.^[1] Nowadays it is only the young people who amuse themselves in this manner, and they always stop in good time.

One summer night at Beach Point I saw a number of young people playing, besides fisticuffs: tug-of-war with a length of seal-thong (aqsaraq), at each end of which was a wooden handle, the two contestants sitting on the ground with their feet braced against each other's and pulling on the handles; pulling by locking two fingers together or two arms; with a ring of seal-thong held between them, two men lay on the ground at full length and each tried to draw the other to him; holding each other by the head, each put a finger in the corner of the other's mouth and pulled until one gave up; throwing with stones at a stone set up on a bigger one, or seeing who had the longest throw.

An aqsaraq fron Itibdjeriang consists of two wooden sticks, about 13 cm long, 2½ cm thick, tied together with a strip of walrus hide which rests in grooves and has the ends sewn together; distance between the sticks about 3 cm.

The game of atdlungatoq consists in a thong being stretched. across the snow house, fastened with toggles to the outer side of the house, or it may be stretched outside between two stone pillars. On this thong they do physical exercises: sitting on the thong and bringing the legs over without losing balance, etc., a game that is also spoken of by Hall.^[2]

Kalivertartoq: One holds the thin end of the whip and another the handle; in skipping with it, one or two must stand in and jump over the lash so that it passes under them. At Aningatartoq the one who is skipping holds the rope himself.