Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/89

usually take a small water-bag, which the woman carry in the backpouch if they have no small children. Fig. 44 (Iglulik) is a water-bag of this kind, of bearded-seal skin, joined in one seam along one side and the bottom, with a fairly narrow neck round which a cord can be tied; 36 cm long, and, in its present flattened state, 18 cm wide. A similar water-bag from Ponds Inlet is of five pieces of bladder skin sewn together, 27 cm long, 14 cm wide, but at the mouth only 7 cm wide.

In the autumn of 1922 the Eskimos on Southampton Island began to use mud shoeing in the middle of November; in the spring of Image missingFig. 44.Water-bag. 1922 I saw it used until 29th May, in 1923 until 21st May. When travelling late in spring the mud shoeing must be protected against the strong sun by means of a piece of skin hung down from the sides of the sledge to keep it in the shade, while the noses of the runners are wrapped in skins.

Sometimes when travelling on land a layer of walrus hide is laid under the runners instead of mud; the hide is frozen fast and the hair cut off, thus making the under side of the runners smooth; the ice-shoeing is then laid on this. Walrus hide does not last so well on ice as peat, however.

In former times, when wood could not be procured, sledges were made mostly of whale bone. Lyon^[1] describes the sledges at Iglulik: ". . . . made of the jaw-bones of the whale, sawed to about two inches to a foot. These are the runners, and are shod with a thin plank of the same material; the side-pieces are connected by means of bones, pieces of wood, or deer's horns, lashed across with a few inches space between each, and they yield to any great strain which the sledge may receive. The general breadth of the upper part of the sledge is about 20 inches, but the runners lean inwards and therefore at bottom it is rather greater. The length of bone sledges is from four feet to fourteen. Their weight is necessarily great; and one of moderate size, that is to say, about ten or twelve feet, was found to be 217 lbs." Parry^[2] mentions an 11' sledge which weighed 268 lbs and that the runners were often made of "several pieces of wood or bone scarfed and lashed together, the interstices being filled to make all smooth and firm with moss stuffed in tight and then cemented by throwing water to freeze upon it". Hall,^[3] too, mentions a whale bone sledge from Repulse Bay.