Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/88

Whale bone is used for preference for shoeing sledges, as it glides easier than iron in severe frost and holds the mud shoeing better. Old whale bone, mostly taken from house ruins, is preferred to new bone, as the latter is saturated with fat and thus cannot hold the shoeing. An exceedingly important feature about the sledge of the Igiulik Eskimos is the mud shoeing. Peaty mud is taken in summer from the bottom of a small pond; it is more difficult to get it in winter when it has to be chopped up, thawed and cleaned of stones and lumps; sometimes it is kneaded with a board whipped with a thick seal thong, about two centimetres between each spiral winding. When the mud is to be laid on in the autumn it is thawed, mixed with water and thoroughly kneaded until it is of uniform consistence; it is then shaped into balls of about the size of a fist and these are laid along the runners and spread out into an even, 5–6 cm thick layer which, in order to hold better, is also laid a little way up the sides of the runners; this makes the runners about 10 cm wide at the bottom. With a knife (or a plane) the underside of the frozen mud is now smoothed flat and on top of this is laid the ice shoeing, water being poured on a piece of bear skin, which is quickly rubbed time after time over the mud surface until there is an even layer of ice over the whole of the runner, about two cm thick; I have once seen a brush of bear hair used in applying the water. Ice-shoeing can also be made of snow which has newly drifted together; it is dipped in water and smoothed out. A little salt or urine in the water makes the ice shoeing strong.

This process of putting mud shoeing on a sledge often lasts several hours and is by no means a pleasant task, as the mud must be laid on with the bare hands. Despite the considerable increase in weight thereby given the already heavy sledge, this shoeing is of great advantage in the cold period, when it does not so readily break off and the sledge is made to run much more easily. When driving over pack ice this shoeing lasts surprisingly well; only over stones does it readily break, for which reason care must be taken to avoid stones when travelling across country. If a large piece of the mud shoeing is lost and cannot be found, it is a great calamity which often involves an immediate pitching of camp. If the piece can be found, it is often lashed on by boring holes through it; otherwise an attempt must be made to repair it with moss fibre mixed with snow. and urine, or blood and gut, porridge, or any other material at hand. I have occasionally seen blood and caribou gut, the contents of caribou gut and stomach and caribou liver used as shoeing without mud; but it was not so durable and the dogs gnawed it. In order to be able to renew and repair the ice shoeing at any time they