The Caribou Eskimos/Part 1/Chapter 6

Materials. We have seen how the life of the Caribou Eskimos has been like an undaunted struggle against distances, against climate and against the scarcity of food, and how, in that struggle, they have been victorious over nature by bending to it while undergoing a far-reaching process of adaptation. Their life is founded upon a primitive technology which, in itself, is very greatly dependent upon what their surroundings can yield and what they require. The local material sets its stamp upon the technique and, even if the experiment has only been partly successful, there is thus a sound idea behind Vidal de la Blache's cartographical exhibition of the various environment-types of the world.^[1]

In all their doings the Eskimos are a sober race, and it is obvious that one of the causes of this psychological peculiarity is to be found in nature, which nearly compels people to concentrate their lives upon the satisfying of only the most elementary requirements. A consideration of the means with which they have succeeded in helping themselves provides a salutory lesson on the scope of human energy. But on the other hand they would not be human — and especially primitively human — if they had not purchased this result at the expense of a onesidedness which betrays their limitations. Eskimo culture as a whole is incredibly onesided — or specialised, to use a nicer word — and, even in material culture, which signifies the pinnacle of its achievement, a onesidedness is displayed that is not entirely due to environment and tradition, but almost certainly to psychological inertia too.

Hardly anyone will venture to assert that man is logical, and pri mitive people have this quality least of all. "Wer einfach annimt, dass das Ergebniss der materiellen Entwickelung einer Art Parallelogramm der Kräfte zwischen den praktischen Zwecken und den vorhandenen Mitteln entsprechen muss ... wird nie das Rechte treffen und immer aufs neue vor Unbegreiflichkeiten stehen".^[2] Why do not the Coast ​Pâdlimiut use blubber for fuel; why did they cover their kayaks with caribou skin instead of with the much more watertight sealskin, if it is not just the outcome of a onesidedness which clings to what they have inherited from their forefathers — a mental inertia, which perhaps barely realises the requirements of logical thought?

And yet we cannot ignore the fact that this onesidedness is not entirely the Eskimos' own fault. Their country contains, as a sort of potential energy, natural treasures the exploitation of which is forbidden by nature herself. If historical tradition were not similarly wanting, the lack of fuel alone would forbid the Eskimos to smelt copper in their country in the same manner as the climate would prevent even ourselves from obtaining the full benefit of its water power.

It has, however, also been of great importance to the present stage of culture of the Caribou Eskimos that they have on many points lacked the historical tradition necessary to the ultilisation of the material at hand. New objects, ready for use, may literally have lain at their door; that nevertheless they have not been picked up, although there was no geographical obstacle, must be the fault of particular historical circumstances. This applies to the art of pottery making which Therkel Mathiassen found in the old house ruins at Repulse Bay,^[3] and it applies to the so-called coiled basketry which Lyon mentions from Iglulik and which is still practised by the Netsilik tribes.^[4] Baleen is not used as material as among the Aivilingmiut, and this is naturally primary because whaling is unknown; but this again is on account of historical circumstances.

It is the animal products, and among them again those of the caribou, which entirely predominate in the technology of the Caribou Eskimos. Skin for clothing, bags and thongs, sinews for thread, bones and antlers for various implements, teeth for ornaments, fat for lighting, are all working materials from the same animal, the meat of which also forms the principal food. The musk-ox never attained the same importance as the caribou and, now that its horn, which in particular was utilised for bows and soup ladles, has been made superfluous by the introduction of rifles and enamelled utensils, and its bones, which are more compact and hard than caribou bone, are not really necessary either, the prohibition against shooting it means no great loss to the people. Of the aquatic mammals the most important material is the skin, which is used for boots and thongs, although to a smaller extent than might be expected; the blubber is only made use of by very few. Walrus ivory is used very ​little, even at the coast; it is a beautiful material but, on account of its brittleness, is often unsuitable.

Of the products of the plant world nothing can approach wood, which is put to relatively great use as a fuel and as material for implements. The immense length of the sledges and the use of wood in many cases where other Central Eskimos use bone, etc. are possibly owing to the neighbourship of the Caribou Eskimos with the forests. And yet, if other materials are often preferred, if for instance skin bags take the place of wooden boxes, horn ladles that of wooden spoons, the reason is scarcely that the Caribou Eskimos have once lived under conditions where wood was more rare, but rather the difficulty of working wood with their original tools.^[5]

The unorganic world provides the Eskimos with a strange material, snow, the use of which has already been described. Soapstone lamps, where proper lamps are used, and scrapers of sandstone are still everyday implements; but otherwise the stone age now belongs. to such a distant past that all other stone technique is forgotten. Two roads lay open to the Caribou Eskimos, along which they could obtain metal, viz. to Bathurst Inlet, with its rich copper deposits, and to the north, where Therkel Mathiassen has found a little meteoric iron during his excavations at Repulse Bay.^[6] It has previously been mentioned, and may be repeated here, that it is very uncertain whether the Caribou Eskimos really have become acquainted with metals along these paths, and even if they have, under no circumstance has it brought about any revolution in their technique. There is no doubt that at any rate the regular use of metal, especially iron, first dates from the establishment of the H. B. C. post at Churchill. Some round-iron is now imported for harpoon foreshafts and hoopiron for sledge shoes; most of the iron, however, comes into the hands of the Eskimos ready made into implements which are either used. as they are, or are later transformed for other purposes. The importation of wood now makes it unnecessary for the northern Caribou Eskimos to journey down to lower Thelon River to fetch drift wood. It is only occasionally that the southern Caribou Eskimos purchase wood.

The only material which may be said to be unusable for at any rate semi-religious reasons is dogskin; but apart from hunting, the handicrafts are in other respects the domain in which taboo regula​tions most often exercise an influence. In some cases they concern the material itself, and here as in other directions it seems to have been the new, that which signified something unusual and therefore dangerous, which gave rise to their establishment. Thus iron was a new material on which no one must work during the musk-ox hunt. Here again the sea is proved to be dangerous, in that wood from the interior must not be worked in seal-hunting time, and walrus ivory must not be manufactured as long as it is new.

Methods. It has been repeated to the point of triteness that steady industry is foreign to primitive psychology.^[7] The same inconstancy which so often brings Caribou Eskimo economy to disaster forbids them to make more out of their handiwork than necessity demands. When they are not out hunting, the men spend long periods of the day lying or sitting on the platform, where their sole form of activity consists of sleeping, talking, or smoking. And, as a matter of fact, the same applies to their northern neighbours the Aivilingmiut, Iglulingmiut and the Netsilik group. The West Greenlanders, of whom the more pure-blooded have otherwise, not wholly without reason, been accused of laziness, are far more industrious than the people at Hudson Bay, not to speak of the Polar Eskimos who, in this as in other matters, possess all the best qualities of the Eskimo stock and who, in idle hours, almost always find a piece of dog harness requiring repair, or a harpoon needing a new point.

On the whole the women are more steadily industrious than the men, probably because they are not so much exposed to the violent strain and subsequent relaxation of the hunter's life. The Qaernermiut women, who attach great importance to handsome fur clothing, sew with real diligence. The Pâdlimiut women are poor seamstresses and think more of cooking or of making tea. In a Pâdlimiut camp there is almost always some woman or other busy with the cooking pot or the tea kettle.

As stated, the Qaernermiut women are really skilful at treating skins, and the men, no matter what their tribe, build snow houses with enviable rapidity and efficiency. But otherwise their skill at handicrafts is of a very low order. The Caribou Eskimos, and for that matter all Eskimos on the west side of Hudson Bay, rarely aim higher than making an implement useful; finish is a matter of no account, and a West Greenlander would be ashamed to use most of the implements with which hunting is carried on at Hudson Bay. The pleasure of creating attractive lines and wellbalanced proportions seldom appears over the mental horizon of the Caribou Eskimos. It is ordinarily not unjustly that Bücher places "der ausgesprochen künstlerische ​Charakter aller ihrer Produkte" as a kind of common characteristic of primitive peoples as a whole.^[8] Here we search for it in vain. In reality it seems to be an original feature among the Central Eskimo tribes, for we meet it in one on the earliest writers who observed them, William Baffin. Of his visit to Savage Islands in Hudson Strait he writes: "These people haue their apparell, botes, tentes, with other necesaryes, much like to the inhabitannte of Groyneland, sauing that they are not so neate and artefitiall, seminge to bee more rude and vncivill, raynginge vp and doune as theare fishinge is in season".^[9] But it must in truth be added, that it has not become better since a semi-European meat-can culture has seen the light.

Nearly all working methods are individual, as are the hunting methods. There is not much more than the covering of the kayaks and the erecting of tents that demands the joint work of several people; the men, however, readily help each other in the building of snow houses. It is said nowadays that women of other families were paid for helping to cover a kayak; but, contrary to all Eskimo ideas and customs as this is, it can scarcely be correct. The few instances where there was co-operation are rather cases of what Bücher calls Bittarbeit.^[10] Working songs, in the sense attributed to the word by this writer, seem to be unknown among these Eskimos, however, and this is easily comprehensible, inasmuch as none of the work which requires co-operation among them is remarkable for any rhythm. It is another aspect of the question, however, that many, especially the women, as a rule hum to themselves while working.

There is an inherited distribution of labour between man and woman which leaves all work in hard materials such as metal, wood and bone, as well as the making of thongs, to the lot of the men, whereas the women have to undertake the preparation of skins and sewing. This distribution is, however, exclusively a practical one and it is not acting contrary to any taboo if the one sex treads into the sphere of the other. On the contrary, it often happens that men help their wives with the hard work of skin-scraping, and no man is afraid of cooking or using the needle and thread if need be. On the other hand I have never seen any woman undertake the work of a man, although this is probably a mere accident.^[11]

The taboo regulations come into effect in another manner as regards the work, this being forbidden in certain cases. The prohibition in the first place comes into force in special circumstances, such as ​the day after a shaman seance, after a death, or some such serious event; and secondly it is regularly recurring with the seasons. An example of a regularly recurring taboo against a particular kind of work is the prohibition against sewing new deerskin clothing during seal-hunting time, and before the snow houses are built in the autumn, which is one of the most strictly observed rules among the coast population. The prohibitions naturally affect a greater or smaller number of people, all according to their kind and the reasons which have served to establish them.

Stone. The time when the Caribou Eskimos used stone for the points of their weapons, knives, etc. is now so distant that no tradition has been preserved as to the methods of working, and there is no archæological find which can throw light upon this. It is not known whether these Eskimos have used the flint flaker which was used as near to their area as on Southampton Island.^[12]

Skin scrapers of sandstone still occur commonly. This rock is found in situ south of Baker Lake, its region stretching to the west to Dubawnt and Thelon rivers (see p. 39), but during the Ice Age loose blocks of it have been spread beyond these borders. It is the loose blocks that are worked, being held in the left hand and hewn with another stone or the neck of a common axe. It is then ground with a whetting stone of harder material, presumably of primitive rock. Unfortunately, I have never had an opportunity of being present during the making of one of these scrapers.

Soapstone is commonly used for pipe-heads, and formerly for cooking pots and — among the Qaernermiut and Hauneqtôrmiut — for lamps. The working of the soft soapstone differs only little from the wood technique. The stone is shaped with a knife; red sandstone. however, is said to have been used formerly, too, but how is not known. If a soapstone vessel was to be repaired, the Pâdlimiut bored holes near the edges of the broken pieces and lashed them together with sinew thread. The Qaernermiut knew how to make a sort of cement of blood, mixed with ashes; hair was not put into the cement as is the custom among many other Eskimos.

Metal. It has been stated already that the working of metals is scarcely of old date among the Caribou Eskimos. It is improbable that they have ever lived in a "Copper Age" like their kinsmen at Coronation Gulf (p. 233). Of hoop-iron, round iron or scrapped, imported iron goods the Caribou Eskimos now fashion various necessaries: ​sledge shoes, foreshafts and points for harpoons, lance points, knife blades, etc. The big blades for the women's knives are made of broad saw blades. All metal is worked cold, and hammer and file are the principal tools. Stefánsson saw among the Copper Eskimos "many spear-shaped knives said to be made by the Pallirmiut by sawing gun-barrels lengthwise and beating them out cold so as not to lose the temper".^[13] Hardly anyone would make knives in this tedious manner nowadays, Image missingFig. 89.Whittling knives. but would prefer to buy them. The Caribou Eskimos know how to rivet metal parts together, as will appear from the manner in which the blade of the woman's knife is fastened to the tang of the handle.

Whetting stones [hidli·t] are used for sharpening metal edges; there is a specimen, about 7 by 3 cm, from the Pâdlimiut, Eskimo Point (P 28: 215). From the same place there is also a smaller one, measuring 8 by 1.2 cm (P 28: 216). From the west coast of Hudson Bay Boas describes a knife sharpener consisting of a musk-ox tooth hafted to a piece of wood.^[14] In the Thule collection there are similar specimens from the Netsilik Eskimos, but not from the Caribou Eskimos.

Wood and bone. The ordinary Eskimo adze is lacking and is said never to have been used in the interior. This is an important fact. On the other hand the Coast Pâdlimiut believe that it was formerly known at the coast, and a shaft, presumably that of an adze, is contained in a grave find from Sentry Island (pt. II p. 8). Imported axes are now bought by the Eskimos, but in fact are not so common as might have been expected if the adze had been a part of their original cultural possessions.

Nowadays, however, when splitting large pieces of wood, they use iron axes and wedges of antler, which are driven into the split. Formerly it was necessary to "flense" the big tree trunks, which the River Thelon brings down, with the aid of pieces of iron.^[15] The implement used was perhaps, like that of the Netsilik Eskimos' [qiɳusᴀ·q], a sort of splitting knife consisting of a small piece of iron with ​a handle. Two implements from Eskimo Point, which are figured by Hawkes,^[16] may be of this kind; their blades, however, are so long that in character they closely approach ordinary, short-hafted whittling knives.

There are two kinds of whittling knives [hanälrut], one with a long, the other with a short handle. The long-hafted knife is used when long, uniform cuts are required, as when kayak laths are to be made. The Eskimos grip the handle with the palm of the hand downwards (as do the Greenlanders, but contrary to both Chipewyan and Cree) and rest its butt end against the hip or the leg; the cut is taken in towards the worker. The blade of the knife is often slightly bent over near the point, which of course is particularly of importance when hollowing out wooden trays and bowls. From the Pâdlimiut at Hikoligjuaq there is a long-handled knife (P 28: 208; fig. 89 a) with pointed iron blade, which, by means of two copper nails, is fastened to the side of an intermediate piece of antler. This is again scarfed and nailed to a wooden handle. Total length 40.3 cm, of which the. free part of the blade accounts for 6.2 cm. Fig. 89 c illustrates another knife from the same tribe and place (P 28: 209). The pointed, bent iron blade is inserted in a slot in the wooden handle and the joint bound with babiche. To a hole in the middle of the handle is tied a sheath of unhaired deerskin by means of sinew thread, the sheath being sewn up by overcast stitches along one edge.^[17] Length as of the foregoing specimen; length of sheath 14.5 cm.

The short-handled whittling knife is used when drilled holes are to be enlarged, for instance the holes in the kayak gunwale into which the ribs are morticed. On a specimen (P 28: 207; fig. 89 b) which, like the two foregoing, is from the Pâdlimiut, Hikoligjuaq, the pointed iron blade is set in a slot in a handle of antler and fastened with two rivets. Length 18.5 cm, of which the blade measures 7.5 cm.

What has been the appearance of the whittling knife prior to the introduction of iron cannot be said. Whether the blade has been of stone or, as some thought, of a hard flake of bone, whether the handle was bent instead of the blade as now, are questions which the Eskimos were unable to answer. The opinion that the blade was of bone may mean that they used a sharpened rib or piece of an antler, which in addition already had the desired curve. The probability is, however, that stone blades were used. See also pt. H on this subject.

A mitten is sometimes used for protecting the hand while working, but no proper finger-stall is ever used and, as nobody sits unclad in​doors, there is no knee-pad either, as was formerly the case in Greenland.

The hand-drill is said to be known, but I have never seen any myself. The usual drill is the bow-drill, which is represented in the Thule collection by a specimen (P 28: 210; fig. 90) from the Pâdlimiut at Hikoligjuaq. The drill itself [iko·tᴀq] has an iron bit and a wooden shank, shaped rather like an hour-glass but conical at the butt end; length 27 cm, of which the bit measures 2.7 cm. Image missingFig. 90.Bow-drill. The mouthpiece [kiɳmiᴀq] is often made of a caribou astragalus, but in this case it is a half-moon shaped piece of wood with a socket for the drill shank on the convex edge and two projections on the concave edge; 10 by 4.4 cm. The bow [pitikxerᴀq], the diminutive of the term for the ordinary arrow-bow, is of wood, 41.5 cm long and at the points furnished with holes, in which a string of seal-thong is placed.

The women have a miniature bow-drill with which they pierce the roots of the caribou front teeth which finish off loosely hanging strings of beads among their trimmings. On a drill of this kind (P 28: 212) from the Pâdlimiut at Eskimo Point the bit is a three-edged sewing needle inserted in a wooden shank, 13.2 cm long, which at the head is bound with sinew thread, and at the butt is pointed. The bow is of wood, 14.2 cm long and has a string of sinew thread tied round notches near the ends. The thimble is used as a mouthpiece.

In some cases, when particularly large holes are to be bored, the Qaernermiut are said to use a drill which, like the fire-drill, is worked by two people. One presses the drill on with a piece of ice while the other drills with a loose thong instead of with a bow.

Some now make planes [qaᴱrqut] on the imported pattern, consisting of a rectangular or trapeziform block of wood with an iron cutter. A plane from the Pâdlimiut, Eskimo Point, measures 20.8 by 7.2 cm (P 28: 213; fig. 91).

​The Caribou Eskimos are clever at scarfing several pieces of wood or bone together. Some of the implements which are described in the foregoing chapters have shafts which are scarfed and then lashed or nailed together. Glue is never used on wood. Otherwise wood-working is not at a very high level and cannot be compared with that in Alaska nor in Greenland; at any rate as regards West Greenland it is obvious that Danish, and perhaps even Norsemen's wood-working has exercised considerable influence. A primitive form of tenon-making is employed as among other Eskimos for joining kayak ribs with the gunwales. Grooving and dovetailing are, on the other hand, unknown, and the same applies to all coopering. When wood or bone is to be bent, it is held in hot water. Arrow shafts and similar rods. were straightened by means of a special "arrow straightener" (p. 105).

Joining of diverse materials. We have seen how. implements of identical materials are joined: broken pieces of soapstone Image missingFig. 91.Plane. vessels by lashing or cementing, metal articles by riveting, wood or bone articles by scarfing and lashing; later on we come to skin articles, in which the sewing of the various pieces may be compared with the cases mentioned before, and to thongs, which are joined by knots and splicing. Here is a summary of the methods by which compound implements of diverse materials are joined:^[18]

1. Fastening the working part to a shoulder on the handle.
2. Inserting the working part into a hole or groove in the handle.
3. Inserting the handle into the working part.
4. Lashing.
5. Riveting.
6. Scarfing.
7. Loops, buckles, etc.

These are principally the same methods as are known from West Greenland, with the difference that at the latter place some European methods have been adopted.^[19]

Preparing skins. In contrast to the sub-arctic Indians, the Caribou Eskimos exclusively prepare their skins mechanically. It is true that a chemical process seems to take place with the very fatty ​skins of aquatic mammals, a sort of very primitive oil tanning;^[20] but it is quite involuntary. Urine tanning and the use of blood, as among many Eskimos further west and also in Labrador and Greenland outside the Thule district, are not known either. The Indians maintain that their tanning with brain or liver and the smoking of the skins Image missingFig. 92.Scrapers. makes them less hard after drying, and this explanation has gradually been accepted by many ethnographers. Smoking the skins, according to the Indians, also makes them more waterproof. Bogoras, too, says that the intensive smoking of the skins has the effect that they do not shrink when drying and become waterproof "to a considerable degree".^[21] Apparently emphasis must be laid upon intensive smoking. I have worn Chipewyan moccasins both of smoked caribou and smoked moose skins, and really am not impressed by their impervious​ness to water. And Hanbury asserts that the skins of the Eskimos are fully equal to those of the Indians.^[22] My own experience is that nothing surpasses in pliability the mechanically treated, hairy skins when they are fresh, and, after drying, they are neither better nor worse. than the tanned skins. Unhaired caribou skin is perhaps a little harder. as the Eskimos prepare it than when it is tanned; the difference is only slight, however.

The curing is done with various kinds of scrapers. There are three general forms which are all intended to be held in one hand, and the scraping is done in the direction away from the worker and — in Image missingFig. 93.Scrapers. contrast to the custom in West. Greenland — with the palm of the hand upwards. With one kind of scraper [hᴇ·rdleriaut] the skin is freed of the subcutaneous tissue and appendant remains of flesh and fat. Very often this scraper is made of the proximal part of a caribou scapula, the handle being at the socket whilst the ridge on the outer side is removed. Where the distal part of the blade is cut off there is a narrow, straight and sharpened edge on the upper side of the scraper (the inner side of the bone). In the Thule collection. there are two scrapers of this type. A specimen (P 28: 180; fig. 92 j) from the Pâdlimiut, Eskimo Point, is 14.2 cm long and at the edge8 cm wide. Another one (P 28: 181) comes from the Hauneqtôrmiut Besides caribou scapula, similar scrapers are also made of split and cut limb bones. A scraper (P 28: 183; fig. 92 h) from the Pâdlimiut, Hikoligjuaq, 15.2 cm long and 4.9 cm wide, is of musk-ox humerus, and from the Qaernermiut, Chesterfield Inlet, there is a scraper of the same material (P 28: 184; fig. 93 a) and also one which is probably of the bone of a bearded seal (P 28: 185). These scrapers are narrower at the edge than those of caribou scapula, and in many cases the epiphysis forms a unilateral extension at the back, which ensures a firm grip. A similar scraper (P 28: 182; fig. 92 i) from the Pâdlimiut, Hikoligjuaq, is made out of the front portion of the lower jaw of a musk-ox, the outer side behind the big foramen incisivum being removed. Length 18.2 cm.

The fibres of the skin are broken and stretched with a scraper of sandstone [ihitqut]. The specimens I have seen in use have always ​been wholly of stone, but Boas figures stone scrapers from the Qaernermiut with a handle of antler.^[23] These scrapers have a symmetrical and convex edge and narrow down towards the rear, where they are shaped as if bent over into a beak which, when the scraper is gripped in the hand, turns to the left and gives a firm grip. Boas is of the opinion that this extension is an imitation of the bone handles with which stone and iron scrapers are fitted.^[24] The thought that the peculiar form of the scraper is not original is undoubtedly correct; but in order to find the primitive form one must rather go behind the bone handles and right back to the bone scrapers with the natural extension formed by the epiphysis. From Hikoligjuaq, Eskimo Point, and the country south of Chesterfield Inlet there are specimens of this type of scraper (P 188, 189, 190, and 192; figg. 92 a–b and 93 b), varying in length between 9 and 9.2 cm, in width of edge between 5 and 6.6 cm. In a tent ring at Hauneqtôq, lower Kazan River, a particularly large stone scraper was found, 12.8 cm long and 7.8 cm wide (P 20: 4), whereas the measurements of the toy scraper of a little Pâdlimio girl (P 28: 191) are only 7.1 and 3.8 cm.

A third kind of scraper [ta’cikit] is used for scraping the skin thin. Nowadays it always has an iron blade, the edge of which is sharpened either on the upper or the lower side, and a handle of wood or bone. Very sharp scrapers of hard bone seem to have been used before iron became common. The blade may be formed out of a piece of saw blade, as on a specimen from the Pâdlimiut, Hikoligjuaq, on which the saw teeth are still preserved on one edge. This specimen (P 28: 196; fig. 92 f), which measures 11.2 by 7 cm, has a handle of two pieces of wood, that on the underside being the shorter. The blade is fastened by four nails to the upper side of the handle. Of two other scrapers from the same tribe and place, one (P 28: 193) has the blade inserted without nails in a single piece of antler, the other a handle of two pieces of antler, to which the blade is fastened by copper rivets (P 28: 195; fig. 92 d). From the same place there is also a scraper with a handle of a single piece of wood (P 28: 197). These specimens vary in length between 11.1 cm and 8.7 cm, in width between 5.5 and 4 cm. Fig. 92 c shows a Hauneqtôrmiut scraper with a peculiar wooden handle (P 28: 198) and fig. 92 e an antler-hafted specimen from the same tribe (P 28: 194).

Besides the three forms of scrapers described, considered as being indispensible in every household, there is a two-handled scraper consisting of a tubular bone, the epiphyses of which form handles, whilst the whole bone, or at any rate the diaphysis, has been split and one ​of the edges sharpened to an edge. This form is called [hagiƀʒut] and is used as a fat scraper; but I have never met with a single one in use. It is said to be made of musk-ox or bear bone or of walrus penis bone; Boas, however, figures a specimen of caribou bone from the west coast of Hudson Bay.^[25] In the Ethnographical Museum of the Academy of Science in Leningrad I have seen a scraper of this type (M. No. 957—50) with the following inscription: "Suck-e-we-pug. Used in scraping seal skin. Kenepetu."

Whilst these scrapers are used in preparing skins, there is sometimes employed, for softening skins which have become too stiff through lying, a sort of scraper the name of which, like the single-handled scrapers, is stated to be [hᴇ·rdleriaut]. From the Pâdlimiut, Eskimo Point, there is one of these (P 28: 187; fig. 92 g) formed out of the shovel part of an antler, sharpened and cut with parallel sides with the exception of a short, curved branch at the top which forms a good handle; size 25.2 by 8.8 cm.

Special scraping boards for placing under the skin while working, as in West Greenland, are not used.

When a caribou is skinned, the hide is simply dried and put away, the proper curing not taking place until it is to be used. During the drying process it is only stretched when it is not to be used for clothes.^[26] The expedition had with it a number of Lapp reindeer skins in order not to be destitute of clothing when the first winter came along. They were very stiff and hard, and both the Eskimos at Hudson Bay and our Greenlanders were of the opinion that this was because they had been stretched during drying. For pressing the water out of the skins of animals killed in rivers or lakes, a knife-like implement is used [imᴇqtu·t] which is made of a pointed and split piece of antler by removing the spongy tissue on the foremost piece. This makes a hollow blade at the front and a handle with a plane-convex section at the back. From the Pâdlimiut, Hikoligjuaq, there are two specimens (P 28: 177 and 178; fig. 94), of which one is 16, the other 18 cm long, with handles 11 and 8.5 cm long respectively. It seems that the Caribou Eskimos do not know the coarse-toothed bone combs with which loose hairs are combed out of the skins, and the specimen which Boas mentions from the west coast of Hudson Bay^[27] is presumably from the Aivilingmiut.

​When the skin is brought out for use, the women usually first lie with it one night with the flesh side next to their naked body, in order that the body heat may act upon the fibres. This is a most unpleasant process. The skin is then cleaned with the bone scraper, and the fibres are stretched and crushed with the stone scraper, the skin being spread with the flesh-side upwards over the thigh of the worker. The scraping is performed partly in the direction of the lie of the hair and partly to the sides. This is very hard labour, and one often sees men with their upper bodies naked, scraping so that the perspiration pours down them. After this the skin is wrung in the hands, moistened and put away for a day, to be finally scraped to a suitable thickness with Image missingFig. 94.Implements for squeezing water out of skins. the iron scraper. The latter is a process which requires great care in order that the skin may not be accidentally cut. Skins prepared in the manner described are used for clothing.

Kayak coverings, summer boots and trimmings for clothing are made of unhaired deerskin. It can be prepared. in two ways. If time is short, the hair is simply shaved off with a sharp ulo, this being used as a kind of scraper and led against the lie of the hair, which is cut off at the root. Otherwise the skin is used for a time as a platform rug, which gives it a certain degree of softness, and afterwards it is placed in water for a few days until the hair is loosened and can easily be scraped off. Skin for the decoration of clothing is sun-bleached in frosty weather and scraped thin. A variant of the method is used when making drum skins, which, by the way, in contrast to the other kinds of skin, are always prepared by the men. The hair is first removed with a knife, and then the skin is placed in water and scraped in a wet condition.

Hairy fjord-seal skin is only used by a very few Coast Qaernermiut for clothing, they having presumably learned the method of the Aivilingmiut. The blubber is scraped off and the skin pegged out on the ground and dried. Later on it is again wetted with a little water and scraped, whereafter it is allowed to lie one night rolled up with the hair-side out; next day it is thoroughly chewed.

Among the coast population there are three methods of preparing unhaired sealskin, two of them being exactly similar to those used when unhaired caribou skin is wanted. To obtain ordinary unhaired, dark fjord-seal skin for boot legs, etc. [qÃrmᴀqxät], the hair is re​Fig. 95.Padlimiul women, one of them chewing a sealskin boot sole. Sentry Island. moved with the woman's knife, which is run against the lie of the hair. This is done after the blubber has been scraped off, but before the skin has become dry after flensing. It is then stretched out on the ground and dried.

Sealskin, which has been deprived of its dark epidermis [u’ᵗnᴇq], ​is obtained in two ways. Either the skin is placed in hot water after the blubber has been scraped off; in this manner the hair and epidermis are loosened so that they can be scraped off easily, after which it is stretched out on the ground and dried; or the skin is rolled up with the blubber on and placed in the sun or in the tent until it becomes sour. By this process, which in cold weather takes several days, the epidermis is loosened. This kind of skin is used for edgings on dark skin and, in former times, occasionally for kayaks. Sole skin [atuɳakxᴀq] is of bearded seal skin instead of fjord-seal, but is made in a similar manner by being placed in hot water. After drying it is chewed (fig. 95). Unhaired sealskin which is prepared with snow and thus assumes a creamy colour — the [kiäktᴀq] of the Polar Eskimos — is not known to the Caribou Eskimos.

How musk-ox skin was prepared I cannot say; but presumably it was in a similar manner to hairy deerskin. Bear and fox skins are only dried and sold, and are not used by the Caribou Eskimos themselves. While drying at the trading post the fox skin, flayed whole, is stretched over a board; the Eskimos, however, never do anything with the skins themselves before they are sold. The curing of bird skins and gut is not known, nor the split skins of the walrus and bearded seal and the skin of the walrus penis prepared by some Eskimos.

Sinew thread. All sewing with skins is performed with sinew thread [ivalo]. The thread is made almost exclusively of the spinal sinews of the caribou, which are easy to split. Sinews of other animals are not used, nor thread of gullet skin, which is used by some other Eskimos. The sinew is softened in water and scraped free of remains of flesh.^[28] It is then spread out to dry on a board. and is split after drying. This is the same process as in West Greenland, whereas the Polar Eskimos split the sinew while wet and thus obtain a thread that is circular in cross section. The thread is never rolled on the cheek, as the West Greenlanders do, but is moistened between the lips at the time of sewing.

Sinew thread is plaited with the fingers into cords of various thicknesses, and either three or four ply. Thin cords [pelrᴀ·q] are used for shoe-laces, sewing kayaks, etc., whilst the thick cords [ulamᴇqtᴀq] are used for lines for ice-hole fishing, stretching-cords on drums, etc.

Sewing. A clever housewife and a clever seamstress are practically synonymous conceptions among the Eskimos. As has already been stated, the Qaernermiut women are in this respect de​cidedly superior to the Pâdlimiut. The sewing needle [metqut] nowadays is always an imported steel needle. Originally, needles were made of the rudimentary metatarsal bone of the caribou, and most Eskimos agree that they had an eye. From the Pâdlimiut, Eskimo Point, there are two models of sewing needles (P 28: 201 b–c), of ivory, slightly flattened at the head and each provided with two holes; length 6.2 cm. Image missingFig. 96.Needle case (a) and cushions (b-d), sewing bag (e) and thimble (f). and 5.1 cm. Ivory needles are mentioned from the coast districts in the eighteenth century.^[29]

The needles are kept in a cushion of moss. There is one from the Pâdlimiut, Eskimo Point, sewn into blue cloth and fastened to a small bag of cloth, white at the front, blue at the back, edged with red (P 28: 202; fig. 96 c). The cushion is 8.4 cm long and 4.2 cm across. There is another cushion from the same tribe and place (P 28: 203; fig. 96 d), doubtless made of a rolled up piece of a woollen sock inside a brass tube which serves as a needle case. At the bottom the sock is gathered into a lump, and to it is sewn a piece of cloth with bead embroidery: a flower with blue centre and five red, yellow-edged petals, surrounded by an inner circle of white and an outer circle of blue points. Length about 20 cm. This specimen is for carrying suspended on the breast. From the Qaernermiut there is a needle-skin (P 28: 204; fig. 96 b) consisting of a rolled piece of deerskin ​with the hair inside; at the top are two strips of skin by which it is hung on to the breast, fastened to the belt straps, and at the bottom. a strip of skin with a toggle-shaped thimble holder composed of white ivory and dark horn discs alternately. 3.4 cm long.

Real needle cases [kakpik] seem to be known only to the Qaernermiut, but are scarcely used any longer. In the collection there is a new, but handsomely made specimen of ivory (P 28: 205; fig. 96 a). It tapers a little towards the bottom and is pentagonal in cross section. All over it, except at the back, there are dot-and-circle ornaments. It can be closed at the top by means of a wooden plug, and it has two strips of skin for suspension. Length 8 cm. At the bottom hangs a toggle-shaped thimble holder, 4.3 cm. The sculpturally carved needle cases and thimbles described by Boas^[30] are not used and presumably originate from the Aivilingmiut (compare the use of whale motifs). The so-called "winged" needle case and the "anchor-shaped" thimble holder are not known either.

The thimble [tikᴇq], i. e. index-finger, is now as a rule an imported metal thimble without head. Formerly it was of unhaired skin, of caribou in the interior of the country, of bearded seal at the coast. It seems to have sometimes been merely an oval piece with a curved slit near one edge, thus forming a surface for the ball of the finger.^[31] From the Pâdlimiut, Eskimo Point, there is, however, a tubular thimble of bearded seal skin (P 28: 206; fig. 96 f), sewn together up the side and seamed top and bottom with overcast stitches; length 3 cm. The thimble is carried suspended on the thimble holder.

Thread, and sometimes needles, are kept in small sewing bags [ikpeaju·jᴀq]. From the Pâdlimiut, Eskimo Point, there is a square bag, 8 by 8 cm, of black, unhaired sealskin, furnished with a flap and a skin cord to bind round it (P 28: 201 a). On the front there is blue, white-spotted cotton cloth for sticking the needles in. Fig. 96 e represents an oval, double bag from the same group (P 28: 200). The front is of blue, the back of red cloth, and round the edge of the bag it is trimmed with dark canvas and white "brush-braid", at the opening with red tape. Along the edge is the following bead embroidery: outermost, three rows of purple; then two intersected yellow and two white, blue-striped rows; in the middle of each half of the bag a circular disc of yellow beads, above one of which the remains of embroidery with white yarn. Size 22.5 by 11.5 cm.

Sewing bags may also be of birds' heads or of split swan or goose feet. From the Qaernermiut there is a bag (P 28: 167; fig. 64 d) of the skins of four swan feet with the claws still on. The upper sides ​of the feet form the sides of the bag, whilst the bottom is made of the soles of the feet. At the top there is an edge of white, unhaired sealskin. The diameter at the bottom and the height are about 20 cm. Another, rather bigger bag, presumed to have been used for other small trifles too, is from Eskimo Point (P 28: 165; fig. 64 b). It consists of the whole skin of a newborn fawn. Head and neck are cut away, but the limbs have been allowed to remain. Length about 46 cm.

Skin is cut on a board with the woman's knife. A cutting board from the Pâdlimiut, Eskimo Point, measures 45 by 20 cm (P. 28: 199). The small sewing knives, which the West Greenlanders use for cutting out strips for their skin-mosaic, are lacking, as well as all the technique connected with this work. Creasers are not used either. The creases on the heels and toes of the boots are merely made with the fingernails, and therefore they never lie so closely and neatly as those of the Greenlanders. Holes for the boot-laces are cut with the corner of the woman's knife, or straps are separately sewn on for this purpose. Bodkins are not used for boring lace holes.

As with all other Eskimos whom I have had an opportunity of observing, sewing is performed according to a different method than with us. The woman has the thimble on her index finger and with this the needle is pushed into the skin, after which it is seized, palm upwards, between the thumb and middle finger. The stitch is taken from right to left. There are two kinds of seams: overcasting and running stitch, and each of them has a "blind" variant, the needle only being taken halfway through the thickness of the skin when a watertight seam is required. If the work is to be done with particular care, as for kayaks, watertight boots, etc., they make a double seam. an outer [umagᴀq] and an inner [ilul·igᴀq]

Simple overcasting [mᴇʳtquin·ᴀq], i. e. "only sewing", is employed for all hairy skins, for instance for clothing, and is therefore most used for all seams. It is also used for unhaired skin when a close seam is not required, for instance the just described sewing bag of swan feet, the whittling-knife sheath referred to on p. 238, and so on. Even indoor stockings of unhaired caribou skins may be sewn in this manner (see p. 208). Overcasting is also used sometimes for sewing unhaired skin with a double seam, in which case one of these is "blind"; this is found for instance on the legs of the indoor boots of unhaired deerskin described on p. 211. When the seam is double, however, one seam is as a rule a running stitch, and both possible combinations occur, it in some cases being the running seam, in others the overcasting seam, that is blind.

The running stitch is only employed on unhaired skin and al​ways, as far as I have been able to ascertain, in connection with double seams. As a rule the second seam is then overcasting. On one of the long sealskin boots referred to on p. 210 the soles are, however, sewn with a double seam of which one is ordinary running stitch, the other blind running stitch. A seam of this kind is the most watertight the Caribou Eskimos are able to produce.

Sewing is the only manner in which the Caribou Eskimos join skins. They do not know the skin plaiting of the West Greenlanders and the Alaskan Eskimos, which is undoubtedly connected with the corresponding technique of Siberian tribes.

Thongs. The Caribou Eskimos make their thongs of raw caribou, "babiche", or of the skin of the bearded seal or the walrus. In both cases this is the men's work. Babiche [qumigɔq] is made in this manner: As the thin belly skin cannot be used, the animal is skinned in the usual way. It is cleaned of fragments of flesh but is not scraped thin. The skin is then laid over the naked thigh, the warmth of which in the unheated snow houses in winter prevents it from freezing, and the hair is scraped off in the usual manner, after which the skin is put out on the snow to freeze. After the corners have been removed, the thong is cut out, commencing in the centre. and cutting in a spiral in a direction contrary to that of the sun. The knife blade is steadied in the snow. The thong is now placed in water for a short time, stretched with the hands, and dried. Babiche is much employed, not only in the interior but also out at the coast. It is not nearly as strong as the seal thong, however, and it is only slight compensation that it does not become so hard and stiff through drying as seal thong does.

It is strictly taboo to cut thongs of sea mammals [akʟunᴀ·q] in the interior of the country. When the Coast Eskimos make thongs of the skin of the bearded seal or walrus, a broad belt is carefully loosened and taken off, and then cleaned of blubber. It is thereafter treated like ordinary skin which is to be unhaired, the hair either being shaved off with a sharp knife or the skin is treated with hot water so that both hair and epidermis loosen. After this the thong is cut out like a continuous spiral. During this process some lay the skin on the ground and hold it firmly under one foot. The knife used must be very sharp, and it requires practice to get the thong equally thick over the whole. The knife is held with the point upwards and is brought in towards the worker, the thumb following along the right hand side of the thong and thus steadying the movement of the hand. After cutting, the thong is stretched out in the open air and dried in this manner (just as in West Greenland, whereas the Polar Eskimos dry their thongs in a coiled-up state), and finally the edges are ​smoothed off by laying a thin cord across the thong and drawing the cord along it. To soften the thong before use it is chewed. There are no thong-stretchers among the Caribou Eskimos. Sealskin is never cut in the same manner as caribou skin.

Thongs are joined together or to anything else by means of slings and knots and also by means of the characteristic “cut splicing”, as well as by stitching. Slings are used for instance for fastening the sinew backing of bows to the stave. The usual knots are the half hitch, the reef knot and the bow-line knot. The sheet bend is used when netting. For the purpose of preventing a knot from slipping, a slit is cut in the thong near the end, which is bent through the slit. A peculiar form of cut splicing is met with on the rear end of the whip-lash, which in this manner is made up of several thongs. A combination of splice and half hitch is used for loops behind traces. Double splicing, which is sometimes used for permanently joining two thongs, for instance when a broken trace is to be repaired, is made in this manner: a slit is cut in each thong-end, whereafter the end of one is run through the slit of the other, and then the long end of the latter through the slit on the first thong. Double splicing is also used for making loops. Sometimes, however, loops are made by the end being bent back and sewn on to the thong with a running stitch. The loop in which the harpoon head is held on the fore part of the harpoon shaft is, for instance, always sewn, in order that it may not catch in the wound. Sewn loops are also used for splicing instead of cut slits.^[32] This perhaps has something to do with the great use made of babiche, which is not so strong a material as seal thong.

Principles of art. We all know that art is a term which cannot be defined by any definite object but by a uniform psychological effect. This makes art a unity, but a unity which is rightly groupable under the intellectual culture of man. The definition also shows, however, that art, despite this unity, may be very slightly homogeneous, seen from the point of view of development. To use a biological expression, art is polyphyletic in its origin, and frequently it is not art in the general sense, because it does not consciously aim at artistic effect, but rather towards an effect of another kind, magical for instance.^[33] It is therefore justifiable in this work to disintegrate the psychological unity in favour of its historical elements. In less ab​stract terms this means that the forms of art which are closely connected with the Eskimo technique will be referred to here, whereas those forms of art which are so to say more loose from the material basis, will not be discussed at all except in so far as they affect the social life.

Among the Caribou Eskimos there is a deliberate striving for artistic effect; but it is very faintly expressed and exclusively decorative. Carving and engraving of ornaments are unimportant in the extreme. From these Eskimos I do not know one example of free sculpture or of the form of an implement having been influenced by ornamental considerations, with the exception of the marrow spoon from the Hauneqtôrmiut, figured on p. 145. Even if this is rare nowadays, it is not unknown among their northern neighbours the Aivilingmiut, and this despite the fact that they are more decultured than the Caribou Eskimos. Therefore the faintly developed sense of decorative art is doubtless something that is original with them, and thus I have no doubt that of the samples of Eskimo art which Boas reproduces from the west coast of Hudson Bay, none come from the Caribou Eskimos except a bow-drill from the Qaernermiut and possibly one other object.^[34] The inlaying or application of figures, which especially at Angmagsalik has attained to an imposing stage, is likewise unknown.

The effect of art is a more or less composite, but in any case a pleasurable sensation. As psychologists know, one essential incitement of this is repetition, both for purely physiological reasons and because in all conceptions of art there are not only immediate perception and recollection, but also anticipation, the fulfilment of which gives pleasure. Repetition is therefore a fundamental principle in all art, whether it is literal repetition or the higher forms: symmetry and the harmony of composition.^[35] If we transfer these principles to the art of the Caribou Eskimos, we find in the engraved ornaments a simple repetition of the same element, without their arranging themselves in any organic whole. All they think of is covering as much of the surface as possible, a principle that is also known for instance from West ​Greenland.^[36] The material available for study is too small, however, for it to be decided whether organised principles are traceable in the graphic art of the Caribou Eskimos as is the case among other Eskimo tribes.

Some arrangement, partly of a symmetrical nature, is observable in the rare, painted ornaments; but it is in the decoration of the clothing, both in their interchanging of variously coloured skins and in the bead embroidery, that the principle of symmetry is most perceptible. This is really a natural consequence of the symmetry of the body. and therefore I would not venture to assert that the application of the principle especially in this domain is due to the fact that just these painted ornaments and bead embroideries seem to be of non-Eskimo origin, but adopted from the Indians. The Caribou Eskimos know no Image missingFig. 97.Drill-bow with hunting score. art the effect of which only rests upon a harmonious balancing of the elements of the composition.

Engraved ornaments. These are so rare that their use. is simply denied by some Eskimos, and in all I have only seen three specimens of it. One is the needle case from the Pâdlimiut referred to above, decorated with dot-and-circle ornaments. The other is a bone handle on a woman's knife, on which a number of crossed lines formed a poor, net-like pattern; this knife was hung up as an offering on a sacred stone on Sentry Island and therefore could not be acquired. Finally, the third specimen is the bow for a bow-drill from the Pâdlimiut, Hikoligjuaq (P 28: 211; fig. 97). It is of wood, 46 cm long, and on the concave side of one wing are engraved 17 equilateral triangles (symbol characters) and five figures, each consisting of one horizontal and two vertical lines, the horizontal line projecting to the right of the vertical lines (symbol characters). According to the explanation given me by the owner, this is more a primitive picture-writing than actual ornamentation. The triangles represent bearded seals, the other figures bears, and their number show how many of these the owner has to his score. A similar drill-bow from the Qaernermiut, furnished with triangles and dots, is figured by Boas^[37] and perhaps is to be interpreted in the same manner.

From the neighbours of the Caribou Eskimos we know such primitive engravings as Y-formed figures, toothed lines and duplication of these, the transversal lines alternating. I have not met with any of these ornaments among the Caribou Eskimos, unless the forehead tattooing of the women is to be regarded as a Y-ornament, which seems very doubtful.

Painted ornaments. Skin dyeing is not known at all, but some objects are, quite exceptionally, painted. For this purpose they use red ochre and a black mineral colour which is mixed with fat. From the Qaernermiut Boas figures both a kayak and model kayaks and paddles, painted with red and black bands.^[38] Ochre and fat are used for caulking the kayak seams, this presumably having led to the objects named being painted whereas others are not. A purely ornamental addition is the wide, red stripe on the bag of unhaired deerskin from Baker Lake, described on p. 196.

Magical belief is undoubtedly the explanation of the caribou picture painted on a Harvaqtôrmiut kayak from lower Kazan River (p. 187; fig. 98). This picture is the only attempt at realistic reproduction of form that I have seen made by any Caribou Eskimo sua sponte. The drawings they make on request as illustrations of some subject or other are very childish. Fig. 99 shows some of them.

Clothing is never painted.

Bead embroidery. Beads are mostly used in two ways: as Image missingFig. 99.Pâdlimiut drawings: a, snow house and tent; b, dog sledge; c, kayaker killing a swimming caribou with a lance; d, woman — with the large hood and — and man; e, caribou; the dot in the figure to the left is a wound. ​loosely hanging strings on clothing and ornaments, and sewn into patterns on clothing, bags, etc. In the case of the former their use presumably dates back to an earlier use of local material, possibly teeth, fish vertebræ, etc. In its oldest form, sewing them on to the garment. is doubtless a derivation from ornamentation with various coloured skins along seams and edges, but has since passed through a rich Fig. 100.Qaernermiut girls. development which at times has led rather far away from the origin, and the elements which form this ornamentation make it certain that in this we have one of the none too numerous examples of late Indian influence among these Eskimos.

Although the patterns in the bead embroideries are infinitely varied, their changes depend merely upon the use of a few motifs (figg. 66, 76, 77, and 100). These are: straight or curved lines bordering the ornamented portion, zig-zag lines, circular discs, triangles and double-curves, which sometimes run into flower patterns.^[39] The already described garments, ornaments and bags show all these elements. Most common of all the patterns is the simple framing by means of lines. The occurrence of the double-curves, which also extends to the Aivilingmiut and Iglulingmiut, is particularly interesting, because these ornaments now seem to have been completely overgrown with flower-patterns among the neighbouring Chipewyan and Cree and therefore must be of a certain age among the Eskimos.