Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/96

The journey to Kirchhoffer River (Angutimarik's team alone): October 29th, fed on a seal skin in which there had been blubber, some salmon and caribou bones. October 31st fed on a little oil with lumps of blubber. November 9th a dog died of hunger and several others were very weak. November 10th, fed on half a lean caribou. November 13th, fed on two whole caribou. November 15th, fed on a caribou and a half. At Darkness Lake, Kirchhoffer River: November 17th, fed on a caribou. November 22nd, 23rd and 29th fed on caribou meat; the dogs, at any rate the more sturdy ones, begun to improve.

Thus Hall^[1] is not far wrong when he writes: "The Iwillik people, in hard times, feed their dogs once a week." If there is plenty of meat the dogs are usually fed every other evening when on winter journeys; each dog then receives 1–1½ kilogrammes of meat; during halts they are only fed every third or fourth day.

The dogs are often fed in the simple manner that the meat is cut up and thrown to them promiscuously; but as this means that the big, powerful dogs always get more than their share, two to four dogs are sometimes taken into the house and allowed to eat from a heap of pieces of meat lying on a skin on the ground; if they are taken singly, the process is too slow; often a dog becomes so bewildered at coming into the house to such abundance that it forgets to eat; it is then merely kicked out again when time is up. At Iglulik we once saw a special dog feeding-box of walrus skin. frozen into shape. At Pingerqalik in February, 1924, where there were lots of food, the dogs were fed in the houses until they could eat no more and went outside of their own accord.

It will be understood that in the cold winter time the dogs are nearly always hungry and they sneak about trying to get a bite more than their ration. As a consequence, everything eatable — meat, skin clothing, seal-thongs, etc. — have to be hidden inside the houses or placed on a scaffolding where the dogs cannot reach them. Sledge lashings, traces and harness are eaten if one is not careful. Human faeces are regarded as a great delicacy, a circumstance which can involve much unpleasantness if one is not armed with a whip or a stick. If there is no door to the snow house — not all families possess a wooden door — a watch must constantly be kept in order that the dogs may not break in and eat the meat, the blubber in the lamp, and so on. If they try to make their way in they are greeted with severe blows with the snow-beater, a harpoon, axe, or a special implement — a whip without the thin lash, a weapon which can distribute terrible blows. A house-whip of this