Part 11

[Footnote N164: See Rink, Tales, etc., p. 7 (“skins” in this passage undoubtedly means sealskins, as they are more plentiful than deerskins among the Greenlanders, and were used for this purpose in Egede’a time--Greenland, p. 117; and Kumlien, op. cit., p. 33.). In east Greenland, according to Holm, “Om Sommeren bo Angsmagsalikerne i Telte, der ere betrukne med dobbelte Skind og have Tarmskinds Forhæng.” Geogr. Tids., vol. 8, p. 89. In Frobisher’s description of Meta Incognita (in 1577), he says: “Their houses are tents made of seale skins, pitched up with 4 Firre quarters, foure square, meeting at the toppe, and the skinnes sewed together with sinewes, and layd thereupon.” Hakluyt’s Voyages, etc. (1589), p. 628. See also Boas, “Central Eskimo.”]

[Footnote N165: Petroff, op. cit., p. 128.]

[Footnote N166: Dall, Alaska, p. 13.]

The tents at Point Barrow are still constructed in a manner very similar to that described by Dr. Simpson (see reference above). Four or five poles about 12 feet long are fastened together at the top and spread out so as to form a cone, with a base about 12 feet in diameter. Inside of these about 6 feet from the ground is lashed a large hoop, upon which are laid shorter poles (sometimes spears, umiak oars, etc.). The canvas cover, which is now made in one piece, is wrapped spirally round this frame, so that the edges do not meet in front except at the top, leaving a triangular space or doorway, filled in with a curtain of which part is a translucent membrane, which can be covered at night with a piece of cloth. A string runs from the upper corner of the cloth round the apex of the tent and comes obliquely down the front to about the middle of the edge of the other end of the cloth. The two edges are also held together by a string across the entrance. Heavy articles, stones, gravel, etc., are laid on the flap of the tent to keep it down, and spears, paddles, etc., are laid up against the outside. (See Fig. 15, from a photograph by Lieut. Ray.)

Inside of the tent there is much less furniture than in the iglu, as the lamp is not needed for heating and lighting, and the cooking is done outdoors on tripods erected over fires. The sleeping place is at the back of the tent, and is usually marked off by laying a log across the floor, and spreading boards on the ground. Not more than one family usually occupy a tent. The tents at the whaling camp mentioned above were, at first, fitted out with snow passages and fireplaces like a snow hut, and many had a low wall of snow around them, but these had all melted before the camp was abandoned.

These tents differ considerably in model from those in use in the east, though all are made by stretching a cover over radiating poles. For example, the tents in Greenland have the front nearly vertical,[N167] while at Cumberland Gulf two sets of poles connected by a ridgepole are used, those for the front being the shorter.[N168] The fashion at Iglulik is somewhat similar.[N169] Small rude tents only large enough to hold one or two people are used as habitations for women during confinement, and for sewing rooms when they are working on deerskins in the autumn. Tents for the latter purpose are called “su´dliwĭñ,” the place for working.

[Footnote N167: Egede, Greenland, p. 117; Crantz, vol. 1, p. 141; Rink, Tales, etc., p. 7.]

[Footnote N168: Kumlien, op. cit., p. 33.]

[Footnote N169: See Parry’s 2nd Voyage, p. 271 and plate opposite. Compare also Chappell, “Hudson Bay,” pp. 75-77, figure on p. 75.]

HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS.

FOR HOLDING AND CARRYING FOOD, WATER, ETC.

_Canteens_ (_i´mutĭn_).--None of the canteens, the use of which has been described above (under “Drinks”), were obtained for the collection. They were seen only by Lieut. Ray and Capt. Herendeen, who made winter journeys with the natives. They describe them as made of sealskins and of small size. I find no published mention of the use of such canteens among the Eskimo elsewhere, except in Baffin Land.[N170]

[Footnote N170: “When out traveling, they mostly carry their water supply in a seal’s stomach, prepared for the purpose.” Kumlien, op. cit., p. 41. Compare also Hall, Arctic Researches, p. 584.]

_Wallets, etc._--Food and such things are carried in roughly made bags of skin or cloth, or sometimes merely wrapped up in a piece of skin or entrail, or whatever is convenient. Special bags, however, are used for bringing in the small fish which are caught through the ice. These are flat, about 18 inches or 2 feet square, and made of an oblong piece of sealskin, part of an old kaiak cover, doubled at the bottom and sewed up each side, with a thong to sling it over the shoulders.

_Buckets and tubs._--Buckets and tubs of various sizes are used for holding water and other fluids, blubber, flesh, entrails, etc., in the house, and are made by bending a thin plank of wood (spruce or fir) round a nearly circular bottom and sewing the ends together. These are probably all obtained from the Nunatañmiun, as it would be almost impossible to procure suitable wood at Point Barrow. The collection contains four specimens--two tubs and two buckets.

No. 56764 [370] (Fig. 16) will serve as a type of the water bucket (kûtau´ɐ). A thin strip of spruce 8 inches wide is bent round a circular bottom of the same wood 10¼ inches in diameter. The edge of the latter is slightly rounded and fits into a shallow croze one-fourth inch from the lower edge of the strip. The ends of the strip overlap 3½ inches and are sewed together with narrow strips of whalebone in two vertical seams of short stitches, one seam close to the outer end, which is steeply chamfered off and painted red, and the other 1.6 inches from this. Both seams are countersunk in shallow grooves on the outer part. The bucket is ornamented with a shallow groove running round the top, and a vertical groove between the seams. These grooves and the seam grooves are painted red. The bail is of stout iron wire fastened on by two ears of white walrus ivory cut into a rude outline of a whale, and secured by neat lashings of whalebone passing through corresponding holes in the ear and the bucket. The bucket has been some time in use.

No. 56763 [369] is a bucket with a bail, and very nearly of the same shape and dimensions. It has, however, a bail made of rope yarns braided together, and the ears are plain flat pieces of ivory. Buckets of this size, with bails, are especially used for water, particularly for bringing it from the ponds and streams. The name “kûtauɐ” corresponds to the Greenlandic kátauaĸ, “a water-pail with which water is brought to the house.”[N171]

[Footnote N171: Grønl. Ordbog., p. 135.]

No. 89891 [1735] (Fig. 17), which is nearly new, is a very large tub (ilulĭ´kpûñ, which appears to mean “a capacious thing”) without a bail, and is 11 inches high and 20 in diameter. The sides are made of two pieces of plank of equal length, whose ends overlap alternately and are sewed together as before. The bottom is in two pieces, one large and one small, neatly fastened together with two dowels, and is not only held in by having its edge chamfered to fit the croze, but is pegged in with fourteen small treenails. The seams, edges, and two ornamental grooves around the top are painted red as before.

No. 89890 [1753] is smaller, 9.7 inches high and 14.5 in diameter. It has no bail, and is ornamented with two grooves, of which the lower is painted with black lead. The bottom is in two equal pieces, fastened together with three dowels. This is a new tub and has the knotholes neatly plugged with wood. There are a number of these tubs in every house. They are known by the generic name of imusiáru (which is applied also to a barrel, and which means literally “an unusual cup or dipper,” small cups of the same shape being called i´musyû), but have special names signifying their use. For instance, the little tub about 6 inches in diameter, used by the males as a urinal, is called kúvwĭñ (“the place for urine.”) One of these large tubs always stands to catch the drip from the lump of snow in the house, and those of the largest size, like No. 89891 [1735], are the kind used as chamber pots.

Vessels of this sort are in use throughout Alaska, and have been observed among the eastern Eskimo where they have wood enough to make them. For instance, the Eskimo of the Coppermine River “form very neat dishes of fir, the sides being made of thin deal, bent into an oval form, secured at the ends by sewing, and fitted so nicely to the bottom as to be perfectly water-tight.”[N172] There are specimens in the Museum from the Mackenzie and Anderson Rivers, described in the MacFarlane MS. as “pots for drinking with, pails for carrying and keeping water, and also as chamber pots. Oil is also sometimes carried in them in winter.”

[Footnote N172: Franklin, 1st Exp., vol. 2, p. 181.]

In some places where wood is scarce vessels of a similar pattern are made of whalebone. Vessels “made of whalebone, in a circular form, one piece being bent into the proper shape for the sides,” are mentioned by Capt. Parry on the west shore of Baffins Bay,[N173] and “circular and oval vessels of whalebone” were in use at Iglulik.[N174] This is the same as the Greenlandic vessel called pertaĸ (a name which appears to have been transferred in the form pĭ´túño to the wooden meat bowl at Point Barrow), “a dish made of a piece of whalebone bent into a hoop, which makes the sides, with a wooden bottom inserted.”[N175] Nordenskiöld speaks of vessels of whalebone at Pitlekaj, but does not specify the pattern.[N176] Whalebone dishes were used at Point Barrow, but at the present day only small ones for drinking-cups are in general service. One large dish was collected. (Fig. 18. No. 89850 [1199]).

A strip of whalebone 4¼ inches wide is bent round a nearly circular bottom of cottonwood so as to form a small tub. The edges of the bottom are chamfered to fit a shallow croze in the whalebone. The overlapping ends of the whalebone are sewed together with a strip of whalebone in long stitches. This dish is quite old and impregnated with grease. Vessels of this kind are uncommon, and it is probable that none have been made since whalebone acquired its present commercial value. They were very likely in much more general use formerly, as when there was no such market for whalebone as at present it would be cheaper to make tubs of this material than to buy wooden ones. In corroboration of this view it may be noted that Dr. Simpson does not mention woodenware among the articles brought for sale by the Nunatañmiun.[N177] The small whalebone vessels will be described under drinking cups, which see.

[Footnote N173: First Voy., p. 286.]

[Footnote N174: Second Voy., p. 503.]

[Footnote N175: Grønl. Ordbog., p. 293.]

[Footnote N176: Vega, vol. 2, p. 124.]

[Footnote N177: Op. cit., p. 266.]

_Meat bowls._--(Pĭ´tûño, see remarks on p. 88.) Large wooden bowls are used to hold meat, fat, etc., both raw and cooked, which are generally served on trays. These are of local manufacture and carved from blocks of soft driftwood. The four specimens collected are all made of cottonwood, and, excepting No. 73570 [408], have been long in use and are thoroughly impregnated with grease and blood.

No. 89864 [1322] (Fig. 19) will serve as the type. This is deep and nearly circular, with flat bottom and rounded sides. The brim is ornamented with seven large sky-blue glass beads imbedded in it at equal intervals, except on one side, where there is a broken notch in the place of a bead.

Another, No. 89863 [1320], is larger and not flattened on the bottom, and the brim is thinner. It is also provided with a bail of seal thong, very neatly made, as follows: One end of the thong is knotted with a single knot into one of the holes so as to leave one long part and one short part (about 3 inches). The long part is then carried across and through the other hole from the outside, back again through the first hole and again across, so that there are three parts of thong stretched across the bowl. The end is then tightly wrapped in a close spiral round all the other parts, including the short end, and the wrapping is finished off by tucking the end under the last turn. The specimen shows the method of mending wooden dishes, boxes, etc., which have split. A hole is bored on each side of the crack, and through the two is worked a neat lashing of narrow strips of whalebone, which draws the parts together.

In No. 89865 [1321], which has been split wholly across, there are six such stitches, nearly equidistant, holding the two parts together. This bowl is strengthened by neatly riveting a thin flat “strap” of walrus ivory along the edge across the end of the crack. These three bowls are of nearly the same shape, which is the common one. The new bowl (No. 73570 [408]) is of a less common shape, being not so nearly hemispherical as the others, but shaped more like a common milk pan. It is ornamented with straight lines drawn in black lead, dividing the surface into quadrants. These were probably put on to catch the white man’s eye, as the bowl was made for the market. Dishes of this description are common throughout Alaska (see the National Museum collections) and have been noted at Plover Bay.[N178]

[Footnote N178: Hooper, Tents, etc., p. 147.]

FOR PREPARING FOOD.

_Pots of stone and other materials (u´tkuzĭñ)._--In former times, pots of soapstone resembling those employed by the eastern Eskimo, and probably obtained from the same region as the lamps, were used for cooking food at Point Barrow, but the natives have so long been able to procure metal kettles directly or indirectly from the whites (Elson found copper kettles at Point Barrow in 1826)[N179] that the former have gone wholly out of use, and at the present day fragments only are to be found. There are four such fragments in the collection, of which three are of the same model and one quite different.

No. 89885-6 [1559] (Fig. 20) is sufficiently whole to show the pattern of the first type. It is of soft gray soapstone. A large angular gap is broken from the middle of one side, taking out about half of this side, and a small angular piece from the bottom. From the corner of this gap the pot has been broken obliquely across the bottom, and mended in three places with stitches of whalebone made as described under No. 89865 [1321]. One end is cut down for about half its height, and the edge carried round in a straight line till it meets the gap in the broken side. This end appears to have been pieced with a fresh piece of stone, as there are holes for stitches in the edge of the whole side and in the upper edge of the broken side. There are also two “stitch holes” at the other side of the gap, showing how it was originally mended. A low transverse ridge across the middle of the whole end was probably an ornament. Holes for strings by which the pot was hung up are bored one-fourth to one-half inch from the brim. Two of these are bored obliquely through the corners, which are now broken off. The holes in the sides close to the corners were probably made to take the place of these. The pot is neatly and smoothly made, and the brim is slightly rounded. It shows signs of great age, and is blackened with soot and crusted with oil and dirt.[N180]

[Footnote N179: Beechey’s Voyage, p. 572.]

[Footnote N180: This specimen was broken in transportation, and the pieces received different Museum numbers. It is now mended with glue.]

Nos. 89886 [680] and 89868 [1096] are much less complete. They are the broken ends of pots slightly smaller than the above, but of precisely the same pattern, even to the ornamental transverse ridge across the end.[N181] The string holes are bored through the corners as before, and in both pots are holes showing where they have been mended by whalebone stitches, fragments of which are still sticking in one pot. This method of mending soapstone vessels by sewing is mentioned by Capt. Parry as practiced at Iglulik.[N182]

[Footnote N181: Compare these pots with the two figured in Parry’s 2d Voyage (plate opposite p. 160). The smaller of these has a ridge only on the end, but on the larger the ridge runs all the way round. The plate also shows how the pots were hung up. See also Fig. 1, plate opposite p. 548.]

[Footnote N182: 2d Voyage, p. 502.]

No. 89883 [1097] (Fig. 21) is a small pot of a quite different shape, best understood from the figure. Round the edge are eight holes for strings nearly equidistant. The outside is rough, especially on the bottom. One of the sides is much gapped, and the acute tip has been broken off obliquely and mended with a stitch of whalebone. The care used in mending these vessels shows that they were valuable and not easily replaced. I can find no previous mention of the use of stone vessels for cooking on the western coast, and there are no specimens in the National Museum collections. The only Eskimo stone vessels are a couple of small stone bowls from Bristol Bay. These are very much the shape of the wooden bowls above described, and appear to have been used as oil dishes and not for cooking, as the inside is crusted with grease, while the outside is not blackened. On the other hand, stone cooking pots are very generally employed even now by the eastern Eskimos, and have been frequently described.[N183] The close resemblance of the pots from Point Barrow to those described by Capt. Parry, taken in connection with Dr. Simpson’s statement[N184] that the stone lamps were brought from the east, renders it very probable that the kettles were obtained in the same way. The absence of this utensil among the southern Eskimo of Alaska is probably due to the fact that being inhabitants of a well wooded district they would have no need of contrivances for cooking over a lamp.

[Footnote N183: I need only refer to Crantz, who describes the “bastard-marble kettle,” hanging “by four strings fastened to the roof, which kettle is a foot long and half a foot broad, and shaped like a longish box” (vol. 1, p. 140); the passage from Parry’s 2d Voyage, referred to above; Kumlien, op. cit., p. 20 (Cumberland Gulf); Boas, “Central Eskimo,” p. 545; and Gilder, Schwatka’s Search, p. 260 (West Shore of Hudson Bay).]

[Footnote N184: Op. cit., pp. 267-269.]

I obtained three fragments of pottery, which had every appearance of great age and were said to be pieces of a kind of cooking-pot which they used to make “long ago, when there were no iron kettles.” The material was said to be earth (nu´na), bear’s blood, and feathers,[N185] and appears to have been baked. They are irregular fragments (No. 89697 [1589], Fig. 22) of perhaps more than one vessel, which appears to have been tall and cylindrical, perhaps shaped like a bean-pot, pretty smooth inside, and coated with dried oil or blood, black from age. The outside is rather rough, and marked with faint rounded transverse ridges, as if a large cord had been wound round the vessel while still soft. The largest shard has been broken obliquely across and mended with two stitches of sinew, and all are very old and black.

[Footnote N185: Compare the cement for joining pieces of soapstone vessels mentioned by Boas (“Central Eskimo,” p. 526) consisting of “seal’s blood, a kind of clay, and dog’s hair.”]

Beechey (Voyage, p. 295) speaks of “earthen jars for cooking” at Hotham Inlet in 1826 and 1827, and Mr. E. W. Nelson has collected a few jars from the Norton Sound region, very like what those used at Point Barrow must have been. Choris figures a similar vessel in his Voyage Pittoresque, Pl. III (2d), Fig. 2, from Kotzebue Sound. Metal kettles of various sorts are now exclusively used for cooking, and are called by the same name as the old soapstone vessels, which it will be observed corresponds to the name used by the eastern Eskimo. Light sheet-iron camp-kettles are eagerly purchased and they are very glad to get any kind of small tin cans, such as preserved meat tins, which they use for holding water, etc., and sometimes fit with bails of string or wire, so as to use them for cooking porridge, etc., over the lamp. They had learned the value of these as early as Maguire’s time,[N186] as had the people of Plover Bay in 1849.[N187]

[Footnote N186: See Further Papers, etc., p. 909.]

[Footnote N187: Hooper, Tents, etc., p. 57.]

_Bone crushers._--In preparing food it is often desirable to break the large bones of the meat, both to obtain the marrow and to facilitate the trying out of the fat for making the pemmican already described. Deer bones are crushed into a sort of coarse bone-meal for feeding the dogs when traveling. For this purpose heavy short-handled stone mauls are used. These tools may have been formerly serviceable as hammers for driving treenails, etc., as the first specimen obtained was described as “savik-pidjûk-nunamisinĭ´ktuɐ-kau´teɐ” (literally “iron-not-dead-hammer”), or the hammer used by those now dead, who had no iron. For this purpose, however, they are wholly superseded by iron hammers, and are now only used for bone crushers. The collection contains a large series of these implements, namely, 13 complete mauls and 13 unhafted heads. All are constructed on the same general plan, consisting of an oblong roughly cylindrical mass of stone, with flat ends, mounted on the expanded end of a short haft, which is applied to the middle of one side of the cylinder and is slightly curved, like the handle of an adz. Such a haft is frequently made of the “branch” of a reindeer antler, and the expanded end is made by cutting off a portion of the “beam” where the branch joins it. A haft so made is naturally elliptical and slightly curved at right angles to the longer diameter of the ellipse, and is applied to the head so that the greatest thickness and therefore the greatest strength comes in the line of the blow, as in a civilized ax or hammer. The head and haft are held together by a lashing of thong or three-ply braid of sinew, passing through a large hole in the large end of the haft and round the head. This lashing is put on wet and dries hard and tight.[N188] It follows the same general plan in all the specimens, though no two are exactly alike. The material of the heads, with three exceptions (No. 56631 [222], gray porphyry; No. 89654 [906], black quartzite, and No. 89655 [1241], coarse-grained gray syenite), is massive pectolite (see above, p. 60), generally of a pale greenish or bluish gray color and slightly translucent, sometimes dark and opaque. No. 56635 [243] will serve as the type of these implements.[N189]

[Footnote N188: We saw this done on No. 56634 [83], the head and haft of which were brought in separate and put together by an Eskimo at the station.]

[Footnote N189: Figured in Ray’s Point Barrow Report, Ethnology, Pl. II, Fig. 6.]

The head is of light bluish gray pectolite, and is lashed with a three-ply braid of reindeer sinew to a haft of some soft coniferous wood, probably spruce, rather smoothly whittled out and soiled by handling. The transverse ridge on the under side of the butt is to keep the hand from slipping off the grip. The whole is dirty and shows signs of considerable age.