Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/235

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Ball games are very popular in summer: both men and women, often with children in the back-pouches, take part ant often roll over in a bunch on the grass. There are various games: Ataujartut: there are two sides, and the object is to keep passing the ball to and fro and preventing the opposing side from getting it; the player who has the ball may only retain it a moment; sometimes the men form one side and the women the other. Atariaq: One stands in the middle and the others around him; the ball is knocked alternately to him and to those around him; it must not be held but knocked on immediately. The ball used in these games is usually of seal skin filled with gravel. These national games are now being more and more forced into the background by football and baseball.

Iglukitartut is the name of a ball game with two or three stones, one in one hand and two in the other; these stones are thrown into the air and caught by different hands in turn. When playing piqlertartut they use a small ball of the cartilage of a walrus breast-bone; it is thrown on to the ground and bounces up again; the players sit on the platform and try to catch it and throw it again, but as the floor is uneven, it is very uncertain in which direction it will bounce. Boas[1] figures from the Aiviliks two rings of baleen tied together, which were used as a kind of ball.

A favourite pastime of the women is "cat's cradle". the making of string figures (ajaragtut); these are also mentioned by Parry.[2] An exhaustive work has recently been published on the string figures of another Central Eskimo tribe, the Copper Eskimos, by D. Jenness[3] and I will therefore limit myself to indicating which of Jenness' figures are included in our collection from the Iglulik Eskimos and to illustrating some figures that are not in Jenness' collection. The following figures from the Iglulik Eskimos are known from the Copper Eskimos; they are given first by the Iglulik-Eskimo name, then follows the meaning of the name, the tribal-group from which we obtained it (Aiv., Igl., Tun.) and finally their number and name in Jenness' work:

  • Ukaliartjuk, hare, Aiv. — XXVI, hare.
  • Agdlarssuk, brown bear without head, Aiv. Tun. — I. Two brown bears.
  • Amarorssuk, wolf, Aiv. — XXVIII wolf.
  • Tugtúnguaq, caribou, Aiv. Tun. — XXIV, caribou.
  • Tuluarssuk, raven, Aiv. Tun. — XXVII, raven.
  • Teriangniarssuk, fox, Aiv. Tun. — XCV, fox.
  1. ↑ 1901 fig. 161.
  2. ↑ 1824 p. 293.
  3. ↑ 1925.
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