Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/56

belt; it is not always, however. that a dog is necessary for finding breathing holes. When the hole has been found, the dog is tied up some distance from it. Next, the hole must be examined to ascertain whether the hole has been recently used, and to find out the shape of it; the hole searcher is used for this purpose, being put vertically Image missingFig. 14.Rest for ice hunting harpoon. 2 : 3. into the hole; while the left hand loosely holds the upper part, the right hand turns the handle round so that the rod turns round its own axis, by which means the lower part, owing to the curve, will describe a wide arc; this is now allowed to follow the edge of the hole until the centre of the hole is found; this is marked by a small hole in the snow which covers the hole; it is in there that the harpoon is to be struck. If the hole has not been used recently, there is a thick layer of ice on the water. After thus having found that the hole has recently been used by a seal and the middle has been determined, the hunter builds himself a small shelter-wall of blocks of snow if it should be windy, the breathing hole lying excentrically so that he himself may sit in the centre of the shelter; a block of snow serves as a seat, and on it he lays a piece of caribou skin. Sometimes the feet are thrust into a bag of caribou skin (tuteriaq), which reaches almost to the knees, or they are placed on a double piece of caribou skin with the hair on both sides, or on a piece of hare skin. Often the hunter ties his knees together with a cord, qorotaq, so that if he falls asleep, his knees will not fall apart and creak. The harpoon is laid by his side on the two rests and a knife is stuck into the snow. The seal indicator is placed vertically in the hole and fastened to a stick (oftenest the seal hook), inserted obliquely into the snow by the side of the hole. If there is a very thick layer of snow on the ice, the hunter may use a wad of eiderdown or of hare fur which he presses a little way into the hole and, by means of the pressure of air when the seal comes, is blown into the air; the wad is fastened to a thin cord, the other end of which is tied to the knife or frozen fast to the ice.

All the hunter has to do now is to wait for the appearance of the seal. As soon as it comes, it touches the seal indicator, which rises up, the hunter seizes the harpoon and thrusts it with all his might through the centre of the hole; as a rule it will then hit the seal's head and the harpoon head will come off the shaft; but as the hunter