Having now described in detail all the weapons and other implements
used in hunting, I am prepared to give an account of the time and
methods of pursuing the different kinds of game.
_The polar bear._--Bears are occasionally met with in the winter by
the seal hunters, roaming about the ice fields at some distance from
the shore. They usually run from a man and often do not make a stand
even when wounded. Occasionally, however, a bear rendered bold by
hunger comes in from the sea and makes an attack on some native’s
storehouse of seal meat even in the midst of the village. Of course,
in such a case he has very little chance of escape, as the natives all
turn out with their rifles and cut off his retreat. Two bears were
killed in this way at Utkiavwĭñ in the winter of 1882-’83. The bear is
always attacked with the rifle, often with the help of dogs to bring
him to bay. The umiaks when walrus hunting sometimes meet with bears
among the loose ice. If the bear is caught in the water, there is very
little difficulty in paddling up close enough to him to shoot him.
_The wolf._--The wolf can hardly be considered a regular object of
pursuit. Wolves are often seen and occasionally shot by deer hunters
in the winter, and one family in the summer of 1883 managed to catch a
couple of young wolf cubs alive, somewhere between Point Barrow and
the Colville. These they brought home with them and kept them picketed
on the tundra just outside of the village, with a little kennel of
snow to shelter them, carefully feeding them till winter, when their
fur had grown long enough for use in trimming hoods. They were then
killed with a stone-headed arrow, which we were told was necessary for
the purpose, and their skins dressed and cut into strips which were
sold around the village. Superstition required that the man who killed
these wolves should sleep outside of the house in a tent or snow hut
for “one moon” after killing them. We did not learn the reason for
this practice beyond that it would be “bad” to do otherwise.
_The fox._--Foxes are sometimes shot, but are generally taken in the
traps described above, which are usually set some distance from the
village so as to avoid catching prowling dogs. Though generally
exceedingly shy, the fox is sometimes rendered careless by hunger. One
of the women at the deer-hunters’ camp in the spring of 1882 caught
one in the little snow house built to store the meat and killed him
with a stick.
_The reindeer._--Reindeer are comparatively scarce within the radius
of a day’s march from Point Barrow, though solitary animals and small
parties are to be seen almost any day in the winter a few miles inland
from the seacoast. In the autumn, which is the rutting season, they
occasionally wander down to the lagoons back of the beach. Nearly
every day in the autumn and winter, when the weather is not stormy,
one or more natives are out looking for reindeer, usually traveling on
snowshoes and carrying their rifles slung on their backs. The deer are
generally very wild and often perceive a man and begin to run at a
distance of a mile or two, though a rutting buck will sometimes fancy
that a skin-clad Eskimo is a rival buck, and come toward him,
especially if the hunter crouches down and keeps perfectly still.
The usual method of hunting is to walk off inland until a deer is
sighted, when the hunter moves directly toward him at a rapid pace,
without regard to the wind or attempting to conceal himself, which
would be almost hopeless in such open country. As soon as the deer
starts to run, the hunter quickens his pace--to a run, if he has
“wind” enough--and follows the game as long as he can keep it in
sight, trusting that the well known curiosity of the deer will induce
it to “circle” round, in order to see what it is that is following him
with such pertinacity. Should the deer turn, as often happens,
especially if there is more than one of them, the hunter alters his
course so as to head him off, and as soon as he gets within long rifle
range opens fire, and keeps it up till the animal is hit or escapes
out of range. Strange as it may seem, a number of deer are killed
every winter in this way.
If a deer be killed, the hunter usually “butchers” him on the spot,
and brings in as much of the meat as he can carry on his back, leaving
the rest, carefully covered with slabs of snow to protect it from the
foxes, to be brought in as soon as convenient by a dog sled, which
follows the hunter’s tracks to the place.
During the spring the deer retire some distance from the Point, and
the does then drop their fawns. At this season nearly all the natives
are busily engaged in the whale fishery, and pay little attention to
the reindeer, so that we did not learn where they went to. When the
fawns are perhaps a month old a small party, say a young man and his
wife, sometimes makes a short journey to the eastward to procure fawn
skins for clothing. They say that the fawns at this age can be caught
by running them down. During the summer again the deer come down to
the coast in small numbers, taking to the water in the lagoons, or
even in the sea, when the flies become troublesome.
Sometimes in warm, calm weather the flies are so numerous that the
deer is driven perfectly frantic, and runs along without looking where
he is going, so that, as the natives say, a hunter who places himself
in the deer’s path has no difficulty in shooting him. Flies were
unusually scarce both summers that we were at the station, so that we
never had an opportunity of seeing this done. When a deer is seen
swimming he is pursued with the kaiak and lanced in the manner already
described. In July, 1883, one man from Utkiavwĭñ made a short journey
inland, “carrying” his kaiak from lake to lake, and killed two deer in
this way without firing a shot. I believe this method of hunting is
frequently practiced by the parties who go east for trading in the
summer, and those who visit the rivers for the purpose of hunting.
The natives seemed to expect deer in summer at the lagoons, as along
the isthmus between Imê´kpûñ and Imêkpûnĭglu they had set up a range
of stakes, evidently intended to turn the deer up the beach where he
would be seen from the camp at Pernijû. Only one deer, however, came
down either summer, and he escaped without being seen. This
contrivance of setting up stakes to guide the deer in a certain
direction is very commonly used by the Eskimo. Egede gives a curious
description of the practice in Greenland in his day: They “chase them
[i.e., the reindeer] by Clap-hunting, setting upon them on all sides
and surrounding them with all their Women and Children to force them
into Defiles and Narrow Passages, where the Men armed lay in wait for
them and kill them. And when they have not People enough to surround
them, then they put up white Poles (to make up the Number that is
wanted) with Pieces of Turf to head them, which frightens the Deer and
hinders it from escaping.”[N364] Pl. 4, of the same work, is a very
curious illustration of this style of hunting.
[Footnote N364: Greenland, p. 62.]
A similar method is practiced at the Coppermine River, where the deer
are led by ranges of turf toward the spot where the archer is
hidden.[N365] Franklin also noticed between the Mackenzie and the
Colville similar ranges of driftwood stumps leading across the plain
to two cairns on a hill,[N366] and Thomas Simpson mentions a similar
range near Herschel Island,[N367] and double rows of turf to represent
men leading down to a small lake near Point Pitt, for the purpose of
driving the deer into the water where they could be speared.[N368]
This is similar to the practice described by Schwatka[N369] among the
“Netschilluk” of King William’s Land, where a line of cairns as high
as a man and 50 to 100 yards apart is built along a ridge running
obliquely to the water. When deer are seen feeding near the water the
men form a skirmish line from the last cairn to the water and advance
slowly. The deer mistake the cairns for men and take to the water,
where they are easily speared.
[Footnote N365: Franklin, 1st Exped., vol. 2, p. 181.]
[Footnote N366: 2d Exped., p. 137.]
[Footnote N367: Narrative, p. 114.]
[Footnote N368: Ibid., p. 138.]
[Footnote N369: Science, vol. 4, 9, pp. 543-544.]
The most important deer hunt takes place in the late fall and early
spring, when the natives go inland 50 or 75 miles to the upper waters
of Kuaru and Kulugrua, where the deer are exceedingly plentiful at
this season. Capt. Herendeen, who went inland with the deer hunters in
the autumn of 1882, reports that the bottom lands of Kulugrua “looked
like a cattle yard,” from the tracks of the reindeer. They start as
soon as it is possible to travel across the country with sledges,
usually about the first of October, taking guns, ammunition, fishing
tackle, and the necessary household utensils for themselves and their
families, and stay till the daylight gets too short for hunting. In
1882, many parties got home about October 27 or 28. At this season
there is seldom snow enough to build snow huts, so they generally live
in tents, always close to the rivers from which they procure water for
household use. The men spend their time hunting the deer, while the
women bring in the game, attend to drying the skins and the household
work, and catch whitefish and burbot through the ice of the rivers,
which are now frozen hard enough for this purpose. Some of the old men
and those who have not a supply of ammunition engage in the same
pursuit.
A comparatively small number of the people go out to this fall deer
hunt, which appears to be a new custom, adopted since Dr. Simpson’s
time. It was probably not worth while to go out after deer at seasons
when there was not enough snow for digging pitfalls, since they
depended chiefly on these for the capture of the reindeer before the
introduction of firearms. Fully half of each village go out on the
spring deer hunt, as they did in Maguire’s time, the first parties
starting out with the return of the sun, about January 23, and the
others following in the course of two or three weeks, and remain out
till about the middle of April, when it is time to come back for the
whale fishery. The people of Utkiavwĭñ always travel to the hunting
grounds by a regular road, which is the same as that followed by
Lieut. Ray in his exploring trips. They travel along the coast on the
ice wherever it is smooth enough till they reach Sĭ´ñaru, and then
strike across country, crossing Kuaru and reaching Kulugrua near the
hill Nuasu´knan. (See map, Pl. II.)
The people from Nuwŭk travel straight across Elson Bay to the south
till they reach nearly the same region. Some parties from Nuwŭk also
hunt in the rough country between Kulugrua and Ikpĭkpûñ. As the
sledges are heavily laden with camp equipage, provisions and oil for
the lamps, they travel slowly, taking four or five days for the
journey, stopping for the night with tolerable regularity at certain
stations where the first party that travels over the trail build snow
huts, which are used by those who follow them. At the rivers they are
scattered in small camps of four or five families, about a day’s
journey apart. As well as we could learn these camps are in regularly
established places, where the same people return every year, if they
hunt at all. It even seemed as if these localities were considered the
property of certain influential families, who could allow any others
they pleased to join their parties.[N370] It is certain, at all
events, that the people of Utkiavwĭñ did not hunt on the Ikpĭkpûñ with
the men of Nuwŭk. At this season they live entirely in snow huts,
often excavated in the deep drifts under the river bluffs, and the men
hunt deer while the women, as before, catch fish in Kuaru and
Kulugrua. None are taken in Ikpĭkpûñ. (See above, p. 58.)
[Footnote N370: Dr. Richardson believes that the hunting grounds
of families are kept sacred among the Eskimo. Searching
Expedition, vol. 1, pp. 244, 351. See also, the same author’s
paper, New Philosophical Journal, vol. 52, p. 323.]
Deer are generally very plentiful at this season, though sometimes, as
happened in February, 1883, there comes a warm southerly wind which
makes them all retreat farther inland for a few days. They are
generally hunted by chasing them on snowshoes, in the manner already
described, but with much better chances of success, since when a
number of hunters are out in the same region the deer are kept moving,
so that a herd started by one hunter is very apt to run within gunshot
of another. The natives have generally very good success in this
spring hunt. Two men who were hunting on shares for the station killed
upward of ninety reindeer in the season of 1883. A great deal of the
meat is, of course, consumed on the spot, but a good many deer are
brought home frozen. They are skinned and brought home whole, only the
heads and legs being cut off. The latter are disjointed at the knee
and elbow. These frozen carcasses are usually cut up with a saw for
cooking. At this season the does are pregnant, and many good-sized
fetuses are brought home frozen. We were told that these were
excellent food, though we never saw them eaten. For the first two or
three days after the return of the deer hunters to the village all the
little boys are playing with these fetuses, which they set up as
targets for their blunt arrows.
Before starting for the deer hunt the hunters generally take the
movable property which they do not mean to carry with them out of the
house and bury it in the snow for safe keeping, apparently thinking
that while a dishonest person might help himself to small articles
left around the house, he could hardly go to work and dig up a cache
without attracting the attention of the neighbors. If both families
from a house go deer hunting, they either close it up entirely or else
get some family who have no house of their own to take care of it
during their absence. During the season, small parties, traveling
light, with very little baggage, make flying trips to the village,
usually to get a fresh supply of ammunition or oil, and at the end of
the season a lucky hunter almost always sends in to borrow extra dogs
and hire women and children to help bring in his game. The skins,
which at this season are very thick and heavy, suitable only for
blankets, heavy stockings, etc., are simply rough dried in the open
air, and brought in stacked up on a flat sled. Lieut. Ray met a Nuwŭk
party returning in 1882 with a pile of these skins that looked like a
load of hay. With such heavy loads they, of course, travel very
slowly. A few natives, especially when short of ammunition, still use
at this season the snow pitfalls mentioned by Capt. Maguire.[N371]
[Footnote N371: Northwest Passage, Appendix, p. 387.]
The following is the description of those seen by Lieut. Ray in 1883:
A round hole is dug in the drifted snow, along the bank of a stream or
lake. This is about 5 feet in diameter and 5 or 6 feet deep, and is
brought up to within 2 or 3 inches of the surface, where there is only
a small hole, through which the snow was removed. This is carefully
closed with a thin slab of snow and baited by strewing reindeer moss
and bunches of grass over the thin surface, through which the deer
breaks as soon as he steps on it. The natives say that they sometimes
get two deer at once.
This method of hunting the reindeer appears uncommon among the Eskimo.
I find no mention of it except at Repulse Bay,[N372] and among the
Netsillingmiut, where dogs’ urine is said to be sprinkled on the snow
as a bait to attract the deer by its “Salzgehalt.”[N373] Lieut. Ray
was informed by the natives that the “Nunatañmiun” also captured deer
by means of a rawhide noose set across a regular deer path, when they
discovered such. The noose is held up and spread by a couple of
sticks, and the end staked to the ground with a piece of antler.
A similar method was practiced by the natives of Norton Sound.[N374]
A few parties visit the rivers in summer for the purpose of hunting
reindeer, but most of the natives are either off on the trading
expeditions previously mentioned or else settled in the small camps
along the coast, 3 or 4 miles apart, whence they occasionally go a
short distance inland in search of reindeer.
[Footnote N372: Rae, Narratives, etc., p. 135.]
[Footnote N373: Klutschak, “Als Eskimo,” etc., p. 131.]
[Footnote N374: Dall, Alaska, p. 147.]
_The seal._--The flesh of the smaller seals forms such a staple of
food, and their blubber and skin serve so many important purposes,
that their capture is one of the most necessary pursuits at Point
Barrow, and is carried on at all seasons of the year and in many
different methods. During the season of open water many seals are shot
from the umiaks engaged in whaling and walrus hunting or caught in
nets set along the shore at Elson Bay. This is also the only season
when seals can be captured with the small kaiak darts.
The principal seal fishery, however, begins with the closing of the
sea, usually about the middle of October. When the pack ice comes in
there are usually many small open pools, to which the seals resort for
air. Most of the able-bodied men in the village are out every day
armed with the rifle and retrieving harpoon, traveling many miles
among the ice hummocks in search of such holes. When a seal shows his
head he is shot at with the rifle, and the hunter, if successful,
secures his game with the harpoon. This method of hunting is practiced
throughout the winter wherever open holes form in the ice. A native
going to visit his nets or to examine the condition of the ice always
carries his rifle and retrieving harpoon, in case he should come
across an open hole where seals might be found. The hunt at this
season is accompanied with considerable danger, as the ice pack is not
yet firmly consolidated and portions of it frequently move offshore
with a shift of the wind, so that the hunter runs the risk of being
carried out to sea. The natives exercise considerable care, and
generally avoid crossing a crack if the wind, however light, is
blowing offshore; but in spite of their precautions men are every now
and then carried off to sea and never return.
The hunters meet with many exciting adventures. On the morning of
November 24, 1882, all the heavy ice outside of the bar broke away
from the shore, leaving a wide lead, and began to move rapidly to the
northeast, carrying with it three seal hunters. They were fortunately
near enough to the village to be seen by the loungers on the village
hill, who gave the alarm. An umiak was immediately mounted on a flat
sled and carried out over the shore ice with great rapidity, so that
the men were easily rescued. The promptness and energy with which the
people at the village acted showed how well the danger was
appreciated.
At this season of the year a single calm night is sufficient to cover
all the holes and leads with young ice strong enough to support a man,
and occasionally before the pack comes in the open sea freezes over.
In this young ice the seals make their breathing holes (adlu), “about
the Bigness of a Halfpenny,” as Egede says, and the natives employ the
stabbing harpoon for their capture. At the present day this is seldom
used alone, but the seal is shot through the head as he comes to the
surface, and the spear only used to secure him. Seals which have been
shot in this way are sometimes carried off by the current before they
can be harpooned. As far as I can learn, this practice of shooting
seals at the adlu is peculiar to Point Barrow (including probably the
rest of the Arctic coast as far as Kotzebue Sound), though the use of
the _una_, as already stated, is very general.
This method of hunting can generally be prosecuted only a few days at
a time, as the movements of the pack soon break up the fields of young
ice, though new fields frequently form in the course of the season.
After the January gales the pack is so firmly consolidated that there
are no longer any open holes or leads, and when the spring leads open
young ice seldom forms, so that this method of hunting is as a rule
confined to the period between the middle of October and the early
part of January.
With the departure of the sun, about the middle of November, begins
the netting, which is the most important fishery of the year, but
which can be prosecuted with success only in the darkest nights. The
natives say that even a bright aurora interferes with the netting. At
this season narrow leads of open water are often formed parallel to
the shore, and frequently remain open for several days. The natives
are constantly reconnoitering the ice in search of such leads, and
when one is found nearly all the men in the village go out to it with
their nets. A place is sought where the ice is tolerably level and not
too thick for about a hundred yards back from the lead, at which
distance the nets are set, often a number of them close together, in
the manner already described, so that they hang like curtains under
the ice, parallel to the edge of the open water. When darkness comes
on the hunters begin to rattle on the ice with their ice picks,
scratch with the seal call, or make some other gentle and continuous
noise, which soon excites the curiosity of the seals that are swimming
about in the open lead. One at length dives under the ice and swims in
the direction of the sound, which of course leads him directly into
the net, where he is entangled.
On favorable nights a great many seals are captured in this way. For
instance, on the night of December 2, 1882, the netters from Utkiavwĭñ
alone took at least one hundred seals. Such lucky hauls are not
common, however. As the weather at this season is often excessively
cold, the seals freeze stiff soon after they are taken from the net,
and if sufficient snow has fallen they are stacked up by sticking
their hind flippers in the snow. This keeps them from being covered up
and lost if the snow begins to drift. I have counted thirty seals, the
property of one native, piled up in this way into a single stack. The
women and children go out at their convenience with dog sleds and
bring in the seals. A woman, however, who is at work on deerskin
clothing must not touch a hand to the seals or the sled on which they
are loaded, but may lend a hand at hauling on the drag line. When the
seals are brought to the edge of the beach they must not be taken on
land till each has been given a mouthful of fresh water. We did not
learn the object of this practice, but Nordenskiöld, who observed a
similar custom at Pitlekaj, was informed that it was to keep the leads
from closing.[N375]
[Footnote N375: Vega, vol. 2, p. 130. Compare the custom observed
in Baffin Land, of sprinkling a few drops of water on the head of
the seal before it is cut up, mentioned by Hall, Arctic
Researches, p. 573.]
When the lead keeps open for several days, or there is a prospect of
its opening again, the hunter leaves his gear out on the ice,
sometimes bringing his ice pick, scoop, and setting pole part way home
and sticking them up in the snow alongside of the path. In 1884 a lead
remained open for several days about 3 or 4 miles from the village,
and the natives made a regular beaten trail out to it. When we visited
the netting ground the lead had closed, but nearly all the men had
left their gear sticking up near it, with the nets tied up and hung
upon the ice picks. They had built little walls of snow slabs as a
protection against the wind. The season for this netting ends with the
January gales, which close the leads permanently.
Later in the winter the seals resort to very inconsiderable cracks
among the hummocks for air, and nets are set hanging around these
cracks, so that a seal can not approach the crack without being
caught. There was such a crack just in the edge of the rough land
floe, not half a mile from Utkiavwĭñ, in February, 1883, from which
two men took several seals, visiting the nets every day or two. Those
men who do not go off on the deer hunt keep one or more seal nets set
all winter, either in this way or in the third method, which can be
practiced only after the daylight has come back, when the ice is
thick. At this season there are frequently to be found among the
hummocks what the natives call _i´glus_, dome-shaped snow houses about
6 feet in diameter and 2 or 3 feet high, with a smooth round hole in
the top, and communicating with the water. These are undoubtedly the
same as the snow burrows described by Kumlien,[N376] which the female
seal builds to bring forth her young in.[N377] They are curious
constructions, looking astonishingly like a man’s work. The natives
told me that nets set at these places were for the capture of young
seals (nĕtyiáru). It appears that these houses are the property of a
single female only until her young one is able to take to the water,
as a net is kept set at one of these holes, as well as I could
understand, sometimes capturing several seals. The net is set flat
under the hole, the corners being drawn out by cords let down through
small holes in a circle round the main opening, through which the net
is drawn. A seal rising to the surface runs his head through the
meshes of the net. The small holes and sometimes the middle one are
carefully covered with slabs of snow.
[Footnote N376: Contributions, p. 57.]
[Footnote N377: Hall, Arctic Researches, pp. 507 and 578, with
diagrams.]
The officers of the revenue steamer _Corwin_, who made the sledge
journey along the northeast coast of Siberia in the early summer of
1881, saw seal nets set in this way, flat, under air holes in the ice,
with a hole for each corner of the net. When a seal was caught the net
was drawn up through the middle hole with a hooked pole.[N378] In 1883
they began setting these nets at Point Barrow about March 4, and
probably about the same date the year before, though we did not happen
to observe this method of netting until considerably later.
[Footnote N378: Hooper, Corwin Report, p. 25.]
In June and July, when the ice becomes rotten and worn into holes, the
seals “haul out” to bask in the sun, and are then stalked and shot.
They are exceedingly wary at this season. The seal usually taken in
the methods above described is the rough or ringed seal (Phoca
fœtida), but in 1881 a single male ribbon seal (Histriophoca fasciata)
was netted, and in 1882 a native shot one at the breathing hole, but
it was carried away by the current before he could secure it. The
natives said that they sometimes caught the harbor seal (P. vitulina)
in the shore nets in Elson Bay. The bearded seal (Erignathus
barbatus), whose skin is especially prized for making harpoon lines,
boot soles, umiak covers, etc., is never very abundant, and occurs
chiefly in the season of open water, when it is captured from the
umiak with harpoon and rifle, but they are sometimes found in the
winter, as two were killed at breathing holes in the rough ice January
8, 1883.
_The walrus._--The walrus occurs only during the season of open water,
and is almost always captured from the umiak with the large harpoon
and rifle. The whaling boats usually find a few, especially late in
the season, and after the trading parties have gone in the summer the
natives who remain are generally out in the boats a good deal of the
time looking for walrus and seals. As a general thing walrus are
especially plenty in September, when much loose ice is moving
backwards and forwards with the current, frequently sleeping in large
herds upon cakes of ice. The boats, which are out nearly every day at
this season with volunteer crews, not regularly organized as for
whaling, paddle as near as they can to these sleeping herds and try to
shoot them in the head, aiming also to “fasten” to as many as they can
with the harpoon and float as they hurry into the water. A harpooned
walrus is followed up with the boat and shot with the rifle when a
chance is offered. Swimming walruses are chased with the boat and
“fastened to” by darting the harpoon. When a walrus is killed it is
towed up to the nearest cake of ice and cut up on the spot. We never
knew of the kaiak being used in walrus-hunting, as is the custom among
the eastern Eskimo.
_The whale._--The pursuit of the “bowhead” whale (Balæna mysticetus),
so valuable not only for the food furnished by its flesh and
“blackskin” and the oil from its blubber, but for the whalebone, which
serves so many useful purposes in the arts of the Eskimo and is
besides the chief article of trade with the ships, is carried on with
great regularity and formality. In the first place all the umialĭks
(boat-owners) or those who are to be the captains of whaling umiaks,
before the deer hunters start out in January, bring all the gear to be
used in the whale fishery to the kû´dyĭgĭ, where it is consecrated by
a ceremony consisting of drumming and singing, perhaps partaking of
the nature of an incantation.
Capt. Herendeen was the only one of our party who witnessed this
ceremony, which took place at Utkiavwĭñ on January 9, 1883, and he did
not bring back a detailed account of the proceedings. During part of
the ceremony all the umialĭks were seated in a row upon the floor, and
a woman passed down the line marking each across the face with an
oblique streak of blacklead. As soon as the deer hunters return in the
spring they begin getting ready for the whales, covering the boats,
fitting lines to harpoons, and putting gear of all sorts in perfect
order. Every article to be used in whaling--harpoons, lances, paddles,
and even the timbers of the boats--must be scraped perfectly
clean.[N379] This work is generally done by the umialĭk himself and
his family, as the crews do not enter on their duties till the whaling
actually commences. The crews are regularly organized for the season,
and are made up during the winter and early spring. They consist of
eight or ten persons to each boat, including the captain, who is
always the owner of the boat, and sits in the stern and steers, using
a larger paddle than the rest, and the harpooner, who occupies the
bow. When a bombgun is carried it is intrusted to a third man, who
sits in the waist of the boat, and whose duty it is to shoot the whale
whenever he sees a favorable opportunity, whether it has been
harpooned or not. The rest are simply paddlers.
[Footnote N379: Compare Egede, Greenland, p. 102. The whale “can’t
bear sloven and dirty habits.”]
When used for whaling, the umiak is propelled by paddles alone, sails
and oars never being even taken on board. Men are preferred for the
whaling crews when enough can be secured, otherwise the vacancies are
filled by women, who make efficient paddlers. Some umialĭks hire their
crews, paying them a stipulated price in tobacco and other articles,
and providing them with food during the season. Others ship men on
shares. We did not learn the exact proportions of these shares in any
case. They appear to concern the whalebone alone, as all seem to be
entitled to as much of the flesh and blubber as they can cut off in
the general scramble. At this season exploring parties are out every
day examining the state of the ice to ascertain when the pack is
likely to break away from the landfloe, and also to find the best path
for the umiaks through the hummocks.
In 1882 the condition of the ice was such that the boats could be
taken out directly from Utkiavwĭñ, by a somewhat winding path, to the
edge of the land floe about five or six miles from the shore. This
path was marked out by the seal-hunters during the winter, and some of
the natives spent their leisure time widening and improving it,
knocking off projecting points of ice with picks and whale spades, and
filling up the worst of the inequalities. Much of the path, however,
was exceedingly rough and difficult when it was considered finished.
In 1883 the land floe was so rough and wide abreast of the village
that no practicable path could be made, so all the whalemen with their
families moved up to Imê´kpûñ and encamped in tents as already
described (see p. 84) for the season. From this point a tolerably
straight and easy path was made out to the edge of the land floe. The
natives informed me as early as April 1 that it would be necessary for
them to move up to Imê´kpûñ, adding that the ice abreast of the
village was very heavy and would move only when warm weather came.
This prediction was correct, as the season of 1883 was so late that no
ships reached the station until August 1.
About the middle of April the natives begin anxiously to expect an
east or southeast wind (nígyǝ) to drive off the pack and open the
leads, and should it not speedily blow from that quarter recourse is
had to supernatural means to bring it. A party of men go out and sit
in a semicircle facing the sea on the village cliff, while one man in
the middle beats a drum and sings a monotonous chant, interrupted by
curious vibrating cries, accompanied with a violent shaking of the
head from side to side. This ceremony is conducted with great
solemnity, and the natives seemed disinclined to have us witness it,
so that we learned very little about it. They, however, told us that
the chant was addressed to a tuaña or spirit, requesting him to make
the desired wind blow.[N380] It does not appear to be necessary that
the man who delivers the invocation should be a regular magician or
“doctor.” A succession of unsuccessful attempts were made in 1882,
some of them by men who never to our knowledge practiced incantations
on other occasions. During this period, and while the whaling is going
on, no pounding must be done in the village, and it is not allowable
even to rap with the knuckles on wood for fear of frightening away the
whales.[N381] It is interesting to find that at Norton Sound, where
the whale is not pursued, this superstition has been transferred to
the salmon fishery, one of the most important industries of the year.
Mr. Dall[N382] says: “While the fishery lasts no wood must be cut with
an axe, or the salmon will disappear.”
[Footnote N380: Hall speaks of seeing the angeko “very busy
ankooting on the hills”--“To try and get the pack ice out of the
bay.”--Arctic Res., p. 573.]
[Footnote N381: Compare Rink, Tales, etc., p. 55: “To the customs
just enumerated may be added various regulations regarding the
chase, especially that of the whale, this animal being easily
scared away by various kinds of impurity or disorder.”]
[Footnote N382: Alaska, p. 147.]
As soon as the lead opens, and sometimes before when the prospect
looks promising, the boats are taken out to the edge of the land floe
and kept out there during the season, which lasts till about the last
week in June, when they are brought in and got ready for the summer
expeditions. When the lead closes, as often happens, the boats are
hauled up on the ice and many or all of the crews come home until
there are prospects of open water. When there is open water, the boats
are always on the lookout for whales, either cruising about in the
lead or lying up at the edge of the floe, the crews eating and
sleeping when they can get a chance and shooting seals and ducks when
there are no whales in sight. The women and children travel back and
forth between the village and the boats, carrying supplies of food for
the whalemen.
In 1883, there was a regular beaten trail along the smooth shore ice
between Imê´kpûñ and Utkiavwĭñ, where people were constantly traveling
back and forth. When the boats are out no woman is allowed to sew, as
was noticed by Dr. Simpson.[N383] To carry the umiak out over the ice
it is lashed on a flat sled and drawn by dogs and men. A description
of one of these boats which I accompanied for part of its journey out
to the open water, will show how a whaleboat is fitted out. The
rifles, harpoons, lances, and other gear of the party were sent on
ahead on a sled drawn by half a dozen dogs, with a woman to lead them.
After these had made a short stage, they were unfastened from this
sled and brought back and harnessed to the flat sled on which the
umiak was lashed. The party, which consisted of five men and two
women, one of whom remained with the sled load of gear, then started
ahead, the women running in front of the dogs and the men pushing at
the sides of the boat. The boat travels very easily and rapidly on
smooth ice, but among the hummocks the men have hard work pushing and
scrambling, and occasional stops have to be made to widen narrow
places in the path and to chisel off projecting points of ice which
might pierce the skin cover of the boat. When they came up to the
first sled the women were again sent on with this while the men
rested. The inflated sealskin floats, five or six in number, the whale
harpoon, and whale spades, and ice picks were carried in the boats.
[Footnote N383: Loc. cit., p. 261.]
A whaling umiak always carries a number of amulets to insure success.
These consisted in this case of two wolf skulls, a dried raven, the
axis vertebra of a seal, and numerous feathers. The skin of a golden
eagle is considered an excellent charm for whaling, and Nĭkawaalu was
particularly desirous to secure the tip of a red fox’s tail, which he
said was a powerful amulet. The captain and harpooner wore fillets of
mountain sheepskin, with a little crystal or stone image of a whale
dangling at each side of the face, and the captain’s fillet was also
fringed with the incisor teeth of the mountain sheep. Both wore little
stone whales attached to the breast of the jacket, and one woman and
one or two of the men had streaks of black lead on their faces.[N384]
[Footnote N384: Compare Egede, Greenland, p. 102. “When they go a
Whale-catching they put on their best Gear or Apparel, as if they
were going to a Wedding Feast, fancying that if they did not come
cleanly and neatly dressed the Whale, who can’t bear sloven and
dirty Habits, would shun them and fly from them.”
See also Crantz, History of Greenland, Vol. I, p. 121. “They dress
themselves in the best manner for it, because, according to the
portentous sayings of their sorcerers, if any one was to wear
dirty cloaths, especially such in which he had touched a dead
corpse, the whale would escape, or, even if it was already dead,
would at least sink.”]
When they are on the watch for whales the great harpoon is kept always
rigged and resting in a crotch of ivory in the bow of the boat. When a
whale is sighted they paddle up as close as possible and the harpooner
thrusts the harpoon into him. The whale dives, with the floats
attached to him, and the shaft, which is retained, is rigged for
striking him when he rises again. The other boats, if any are near,
join in the chase until the whale is so wearied that he can be lanced
or a favorable opportunity occurs for shooting him. All boats in sight
at the time the whale is struck, as I understood, are entitled to an
equal share of the whalebone.
As soon as the whale is killed he is towed up to the edge of the land
floe and everybody standing on the edge of the ice and in the boats
begins hacking away, at random, at the flesh and blubber, some of them
going to work more carefully to cut out the whalebone. The “cutting
in” is managed without order or control, everybody who can be on the
spot being apparently entitled to all the meat, blubber, and blackskin
he or she can cut off. The same custom was practiced in Greenland, and
is to this day in eastern Siberia.
While they are very particular in all superstitious observances
regarding the whales, they are less careful about certain things, such
as loud talking and firing guns at seals and fowl when they are
waiting for whales, which really hurt their chances with the timid
animals. They are less energetic than one would suppose in pursuit of
the whale, according to Capt. Herendeen, who spent several days each
season with the whaleboats. Instead of cruising about the lead in
search of whales they are rather inclined to lie in wait for them at
the edge of the floe, so that when the open water is wide many whales
escape.
When the leads are very narrow the whales are sometimes shot with the
bombgun from the edge of the ice. Success in this appears to be
variable. In 1882 only one small whale was secured, and in 1883 one
full-grown one, though several were struck and lost each season. The
veteran whaling-master, Capt. L. C. Owen, informs me that one season
the boats of these two villages captured ten. The season of 1885 was
very successful. The natives of the two villages are reported to have
taken twenty-eight whales. Capt. E. E. Smith, however, informs me that
only seven of these were full-grown.
When actually engaged in whaling the umialik exercises a very fair
degree of discipline, but at other times he seems hardly able to keep
his men from straggling off to go home or to visit their seal nets,
etc., so that he sometimes has to chase a whale “short-handed.”
Nowhere else among the Eskimo does the whale fishery appear to be
conducted in such regular manner with formally organized crews as upon
this northwest coast. From all accounts the animal is only casually
pursued elsewhere with fleets of kaiaks or umiaks manned by volunteer
crews.[N385]
[Footnote N385: See Egede, Greenland, p. 102; Crantz, History of
Greenland, Vol. I, p. 121; Parry, 2d. Voy., p. 509 (Iglulik);
McClure, Northwest Passage, p. 92 (Cape Bathurst).]
The beluga or white whale is only casually pursued, and as far as I
could learn is always shot with the rifle. It is not abundant.
_Fowl._--During the winter months a few ptarmigan are occasionally
shot, but the natives pay no special attention to birds until the
spring migrations. The first ducks appear a little later than the
whales, about the end of April or the first week of May, and from that
time till the middle of June scarcely a day passes when they are not
more or less plenty. The king ducks (Somateria spectabilis) are the
first to appear, while the Pacific eiders (S. v-nigra) arrive somewhat
later, and are more abundant towards the end of the migrations. At
this season all women and children, and many men, go armed with the
bolas, and everybody is always on the lookout for flocks of ducks. On
four or five favorable days each season, at intervals of a week or ten
days, there are great flights of eiders coming up in huge flocks of
two or three hundred, stretched out in long diagonal lines. These
flocks follow one another in rapid succession and keep the line of the
coast, apparently striking straight across Peard Bay from the Seahorse
Islands to a point four or five miles below Utkiavwĭñ, and most of
them fly up along the smooth shore-ice to Pernyû or Point Barrow. Some
flocks always fly up among the hummocks of the land floe, and a few
others turn eastward below the village and continue their course to
the northeast across the land.
On the days between the great flights there are always a few flocks
passing, and some days when there is no flight along shore they are
very abundant out at the open water, where the whalemen shoot them in
the intervals of whaling. When a great flight begins the people at the
village hasten out and form a sort of skirmish line across the shore
ice from the shore to the hummocks, a few sometimes stationing
themselves among the latter. They take but little pains to conceal
themselves, frequently sitting out on the open ice-field on sealing
stools or squares of bearskins. The ducks generally keep on their
course without paying much attention to the men, and in fact one may
often get a shot by running so as to head off an approaching flock.
Firing, however, frightens them and makes them rise to a considerable
height, often out of gunshot. Many ducks are taken with guns and bolas
in these flights.
Rather late in the season the old squaws (Clangula hyemalis) pass to
the northeast in large flocks, but usually go so high than none are
taken. A good many of these, however, with a few eiders, geese, brant,
and loons, remain and breed on the tundra, and are occasionally shot
by the natives, though most of them are too busy with whaling and seal
and walrus hunting to pay much attention to birds. Small parties of
two or three lads or young men, sometimes with their wives, make short
excursions inland to the small streams and sand islands east of Point
Barrow, after birds and eggs, and the boys from the small camps along
the coast towards Woody Inlet are always on the lookout for eggs and
small birds, such as they can kill with their bows and arrows or catch
in snares. They say that the parties which go east, and those which
visit the rivers in summer, get many eggs and find plenty of ducks,
geese, and swans, which have molted their flight feathers so that they
are unable fly.
About the end of July the return migration of the ducks begins. At
this season the flocks, which are generally smaller and more compact
than in the spring, come from the east along the northern shore, and
cross out to sea at the isthmus of Pernyû, where the natives assemble
in large numbers to shoot them as well as to meet with the
Nunatañmiun. All the people who have been scattered along the coast in
small camps gradually collect at this season at Pernyû, and the
returning eastern parties generally stop there two or three days;
while, after they have brought their families back to the village, the
men frequently walk up to Pernyû for a day or two of duck shooting.
The tents are pitched just in the bend of Elson Bay, and north of them
is a narrow place in the sandspit over which the ducks often pass.
Here the natives dig shallow pits in the gravel, in which they post
themselves with guns and bolas. A line of posts is set up along the
bend of the beach from the tents almost to the outlet of Imêkpûniglu.
When a light breeze is blowing from the northeast the ducks, no matter
how far off shore they are when first seen, always head for the point
of land on the other side of this outlet, probably with the intention
of following the line of lagoons and going out to sea farther down the
coast, as they sometimes do. When, however, they reach this critical
point they catch sight of the posts, and the natives who are watching
them sharply set up a shrill yell. Frightened by this and by the line
of posts, nine times out of ten, if the cry is given at the right
moment, the ducks will falter, become confused, and, finally,
collecting into a compact body will whirl along the line of posts,
past the tents, flying close to the water, and turn out to sea at the
first open space, which is just where the gunners are posted. This
habit of yelling to frighten the ducks and bring them within gunshot
has been observed on the Siberian coast in places where the ducks are
in the habit of flying in and out from lagoons over low bars.[N386]
Should the wind blow hard from the east, however, or blow from any
other quarter, the ducks do not fly in such abundance, nor do they pay
much attention to the posts or the yelling, but often keep on their
course down the lagoons, or head straight for the beach and cross
wherever they strike it. The latter is generally the habit with the
old squaws, who come rather late in the migrations, while the black
brant (Branta nigricans) are more apt to go down the lagoons. A few
pintail ducks (Dafila acuta), are occasionally shot at this season,
and are sometimes found in the two little village ponds (Tûseraru).
The shooting at Pernyû usually lasts till the middle or end of
September, during which month the natives also shoot a good many gulls
(Larus barrovianus and Rhodostethia rosea) as they fly along the
shore.
[Footnote N386: Von der Lagune aus pflegten jeden Morgen und Abend
grosse Entenschaaren über den Ort hinweg nach dem Meere zu
fliegen. Dann wurden durch Pfeifen und Schreien die Thiere so
geängstigt, dass sie ihren Flug abwärts richteten und nun durch
die mit grosser Sicherheit geworfene Schleuder oder durch
Flintenschüsse erreicht werden konnten. (East Cape), Krause
Brothers, Geographische Blätter, Vol. 5, pt. 1, p. 32.
“The birds were easily called from their course of flight, as we
repeatedly observed. If a flock should be passing a hundred yards
or more to one side, the natives would utter a long, peculiar cry,
and the flock would turn instantly to one side and sweep by in a
circuit, thus affording the coveted opportunity for bringing down
some of their number.” (Cape Wankarem), Nelson, Cruise of the
Corwin, p. 100.]