Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/67

of knives, drill, saw and adze, pipe and tobacco as long as it lasts; a salmon spear is often taken along too. Dog and man share the often considerable burdens between them, the children who can walk follow behind, whilst the younger ones are carried in the frock-pouch. Then, when they reach the caribou district, they camp and the hunting commences, until conditions compel them to move to another place. The caribou caught are skinned, the hides are dried and deposited under stones, and the meat that is not eaten at once is also stored in caches which are marked by a small cairn, usually a big stone, erected at the end. In winter, snow houses are built in the caribou area, and then they do not move about so much, as with the sledges which have by this time been fetched the men can cover greater distances. The sledges carry the shot caribou to the snow houses, where they are skinned and eaten; at this time of the year nothing is left to be cached; the meat is now lean, and large quantities of lean, frozen caribou meat are required to satisfy man and dog; the summer depots often have to be brought into use. If the hunter is on foot, the meat is hidden under the snow until it can be brought in by sledge, and only two or three marrow bones, the tongue or the fillet, are taken along as tit-bits for those at home: a caribou that has been shot should, however, preferably be skinned the same day, as otherwise the flesh goes bad.

The hunting itself merely consists of stalking the caribou until the range is short enough for a shot and, as caribou are extremely alert and shy, this is often a work of extreme patience. As the senses. of smell and hearing of the caribou are better developed than its sight, it has to be approached up wind; the last part of the approach usually proceeds at a crawl, advantage being taken of stones and unevennesses of the ground for cover. At the first shot the caribou are often bewildered and sometimes run straight towards the hunter. whose task is thus an easy one. In summer, caribou hunting is immeasurably easier, for then they have plenty of food, their worst enemies, the wolves, are not so importunate and thus do not make them so shy, and the colour of the terrain makes it easier to get quite close to them unobserved. In winter, when everything is white, it is more difficult; it is worst in still, clear weather, for then footsteps can be heard far away; if the terrain is flat into the bargain, hunting may be almost impossible; long periods of this kind of weather will often bring the Eskimos to the verge of starvation. Caribou hunting is easiest in slightly misty weather, preferably with a little wind and snowfall, provided that it is no denser than that the caribou can be seen at long distances. When the snow is drifting thickly or there is a blizzard, caribou hunting is impossible.