Part 40
We did bring home one small sled of this kind (No. 89875 [772], Fig. 359, from Utkiavwĭñ), which from its size was probably a child’s toy, though from its greasy condition it seems to have been used for dragging pieces of blubber. It is made of the tips of 6 small “slabs” of black whalebone, each about 2 inches wide at the broad end, and put together side by side so as to form a triangle 19¼ inches long and 9¾ wide, the apex being the front of the sled, and the left-hand edge of each slab slightly overlapping the edge of the preceding. They are fastened together by three transverse bands, passing through loops in the upper surface of each slot, made by cutting two parallel longitudinal slits about one-half inch long and one-fourth inch apart part way through, and raising up the surface between them. The hindmost band is a strip of whalebone nearly one-half inch wide, passing through these loops, and wound closely in a spiral around a straight rod of whalebone, 0.4 inch wide and 0.1 inch thick, as long as the band. The ends of the band are knotted into rings or beckets about 2¼ inches in diameter. The other two bands are simple, narrow strips of whalebone, running straight across through the loops and knotted at the ends into similar beckets. These beckets were obviously for tying on the load.
The sled with side rails does not appear to be used east of the Mackenzie region, but is found only slightly modified at least as far south as Norton Sound.[N472] The sledge used on the Asiatic coast, however, as shown in Nordenskiöld’s figure,[N473] belongs to a totally different family, being undoubtedly borrowed from the reindeer Chukches.[N474] The sleds of the eastern Eskimo vary somewhat in pattern and material, but may be described in general terms as essentially the same as the unía, but usually provided with what is called an “upstander,” namely, two upright posts at each side of the back of the sled, often connected by a cross rail, which serve to guide the sled from behind. Many descriptions and figures of these sleds will be found in the various descriptions of the eastern Eskimo.
[Footnote N472: See Dall’s figure, Alaska, p. 165.]
[Footnote N473: Vega, vol. 1, p. 498.]
[Footnote N474: Compare also the various illustrations in Hooper’s “Tents of the Tuski.”·]
_Dogs and harness._--These sledges are drawn by dogs, which, as far as I am able to judge, are of the same breed as those used by the eastern Eskimo. They are, as a rule, rather large and stout. A number of the dogs at Utkiavwĭñ would compare favorably in size with the average Newfoundland dogs, and they appear to be capable of well sustained exertion. The commonest color is the regular “brindle” of the wolf, though white, brindle-and-white, and black-and-white dogs are not uncommon. There was, however, but one wholly black dog in the two villages. This was a very handsome animal known by the name of Allúa (“coal”).
Every dog has his name and knows it. Their disposition is rather quarrelsome, especially among themselves, but they are not particularly ferocious, seldom doing more than howl and yelp at a stranger, and it is not difficult usually to make friends with them. There was very little difficulty in petting the half dozen dogs which we had at the station, and they grew to be very much attached to the laborer who used to feed them. The natives treat their dogs well as a rule, seldom beating them wantonly or severely. Though they do not allow them to come into the houses, the dogs seem to have considerable attachment to their masters. Considerable care is bestowed on the puppies. Those born in winter are frequently reared in the iglu, and the women often carry a young puppy around in the jacket as they would a child.
We saw no traces of the disease resembling hydrophobia, which has wrought such havoc in Greenland and Baffin Land. I once, however, saw a puppy apparently suffering from fits of some kind, running wildly round and round, yelping furiously, and occasionally rolling over and kicking. The natives said, “Mûlukû´lĭrua, asi´rua”, (“He is howling[?];[N475] he is bad”), and some of the boys finally took it out on the tundra and knocked it on the head.
[Footnote N475: I failed to get the translation of this word, but it seems to be connected with the Greenlandic mâlavok, he howls (a dog--).]
The dog harness, ánun (Gr. anut), consists of a broad strip of stout rawhide (from the bearded seal or walrus), with three parallel loops at one end, frequently made by simply cutting long slits side by side in the thong and bending it into shape. The head is passed through the middle loop and a foreleg through each of the side-loops, bringing the main part of the thong over the back. This serves as a trace, and is furnished at the end with a toggle of bone or wood, by which it is fastened to beckets in a long line of thong, the end of which is usually made fast to the middle of the first slat of the sledge. The dogs are attached in a long line, alternately on opposite sides of this trace, just so far apart that one dog can not reach his leader when both are pulling.
The most spirited dog is usually put at the head of the line as leader, and the natives sometimes select a bitch in heat for this position, as the dogs are sure to follow her. The same custom has been observed by Kumlien at Cumberland Gulf.[N476] Ten dogs are considered a large team, and few of the natives can muster so many. When the sledge is heavily loaded men and women frequently help to drag it. The dogs are never _driven_, and except over a well known trail, like that between Utkiavwĭñ and the whaling camp in 1883, will not travel unless a woman trots along in front, encouraging them with cries of “Añ! añ! tû´lla! tû´lla!” (Come! come on!), while the man or woman who runs behind the sled to guide it and keep it from capsizing, urges them on with cries of “Kŭ! kŭ!” (Get on! get on!), occasionally reproving an individual dog by name. After they are well started, they go on without much urging if nothing distracts their attention. It is not easy to stop a dog team when the destination is reached. Commands and shouts of “Lie down!” are seldom sufficient, and the people generally have to pull back on the sled and drag back on the harness till the team comes to a halt.
[Footnote N476: Contributions, p. 51.]
The leader, who is usually a woman or child sometimes guides the team by a line attached to the trace, and Lieut. Ray says he has seen them, when traveling in the interior, tie a piece of blubber or meat on the end of a string and drag it on the snow just ahead of the leader. The natives seldom ride on the sledge except with a light load on a smooth road. A few old and decrepit people like Yû´ksĭña always traveled on sledges between the villages, and the people who came down with empty sledges for provisions from the whaling camp, always rode on the well beaten trail where the dogs would run without leading.[N477] The dog whip so universally employed by the eastern Eskimo, is not used at Point Barrow, but when Lieut. Ray made a whip for driving his team, the natives called it ĭpirau´ta, a name essentially identical with that used in the east. They especially distinguished ĭpirau´ta, a whip with a lash, from a cudgel, anau´ta. The latter word has also the same meaning in the eastern dialects.
[Footnote N477: Compare Dall, Alaska, p. 25.]
We saw nothing of the custom of protecting the dogs’ feet with sealskin shoes, so prevalent on the Siberian coast.[N478] Curiously enough the only other localities in which the use of this contrivance is mentioned are in the extreme east.[N479] During the first warm weather in the spring, before the dogs have shed their heavy winter coats, they suffer a great deal from the heat and can go only a short distance without lying down to rest.
[Footnote N478: See Hooper, Tents, etc., p. 195, and Nordenskiöld, Vega, vol. 2, p. 96, where one of these shoes is figured.]
[Footnote N479: See Kumlien, Contributions, p. 42.]
The method of harnessing and driving the dogs varies considerably in different localities. Among the eastern natives the dogs are usually harnessed abreast, each with a separate trace running to the sledge, and the driver generally rides, guiding the dogs with a whip. The leader usually has a longer trace than the rest. The harness used at Fury and Hecla Straits is precisely the same as that at Point Barrow, but in Greenland, according to Dr. Kane, it consists of a “simple breast-strap,” with a single trace. The illustration, however, in Rink’s Tales and Traditions, opposite p. 232, which was drawn by a native Greenlander, shows a pattern of harness similar to that used in Siberia and described by Nordenskiöld[N480] as “made of inch-wide straps of skin, forming a neck or shoulder band, united on both sides by a strap to a girth, to one side of which the draft strap is fastened.” It is a curious fact that the two extremes of the Eskimo race (for even if the people of Pitlekaj be Chukchi in blood, they are Eskimo in culture) should use the same pattern of harness, while a different form prevails between them. The Siberians also habitually ride upon the sledges, and use a whip, and on some parts of the coast, at least, harness the dogs abreast. In the region about Pitlekaj, however, the dogs are harnessed “tandem” in pairs, as is the case at Norton Sound, where a more efficient harness is also used, which is probably not Eskimo, but learned from the whites.[N481] Nordenskiöld[N482] expresses the opinion that the Eskimo method of harnessing the dogs abreast indicates that the Eskimos have lived longer than the Chukchis north of the limit of trees; in other words, that the method of harnessing the dogs tandem is the older one, and that the Eskimo have learned to harness them abreast since they left the woodland regions. I can hardly agree with these conclusions, for it seems to me that the easiest and most natural method of attaching the dogs would be to fasten each directly to the sled by its own trace. Now, when many dogs are attached to the sled in this way, the outer dogs can not apply their strength in a direct line but must pull obliquely, and, moreover, as we know to be the case, so many long traces are constantly becoming entangled, and each individual dog has to be kept straight by the driver. If, however, the dogs be made fast to a long line, one behind the other, not only does each pull straight ahead, but if the leader be kept to the track he pulls the other dogs after him, relieving the driver of the greater part of the care of them.
[Footnote N480: Vega, vol. 2; p. 95.]
[Footnote N481: See Dall, Alaska, pp. 163 and 166.]
[Footnote N482: Vega, vol. 2, p. 95, foot note.]
It seems to me therefore, that the tandem method is an improvement in dog harnessing, which has been adopted only by the natives of northeastern Siberia, and northwestern America, and has no connection with the wooded or unwooded state of the country.[N483]
[Footnote N483: For descriptions of the sledges and methods of harnessing used by the eastern Eskimo, see Bessel’s Naturalist, vol. 18, pt. 9, p. 868, figs. 4 and 5 (Smith Sound); Kane, 2d Grinnell Exp., vol. 1, p. 205 (Smith Sound) and first Grinnell Exp., p. 443 (Greenland); Kumlien, Contributions, p. 42, and Boas, “Central Eskimo,” pp. 529-538 (Cumberland Gulf); Parry, 2d voyage, p. 514, and Lyon, Journal, p. 235 (Iglulik); Gilder, Schwatka’s Search, pp. 50, 52, and 66, and Schwatka’s “Nimrod in the North,” pp. 152, 153 (NW. shore of Hudson Bay and King Williams Land).]
HUNTING SCORES.
The only thing that we saw of the nature of numerical records were the series of animals engraved upon ivory, already alluded to. In most cases we were unable to learn whether the figures really represented an actual record or not, though the bag handle, No. 89424 [890] already figured, was said to contain the actual score of whales killed by old Yú´ksĭña. The custom does not appear to be so prevalent as at Norton Sound (see above, p. 117). Many of these possible scores being engraved on ivory implements have already been described. With one exception they only record the capture of whales or reindeer. The exception (No. 89425 [1732], Fig. 153_b_) presents a series of ten bearded seals. The reindeer are usually depicted in a natural attitude, and some of the circumstances of the hunt are usually represented. For instance, a man is figured aiming with a bow and arrow toward a line of reindeer, indicating that such a number were taken by shooting, while a string of deer, represented without legs as they would appear swimming, followed by a rude figure of a man in a kaiak, means that so many were lanced in the water. Other incidents of the excursion are also sometimes represented. On these records the whale is always represented by a rude figure of the tail cut off at the “small,” and often represented as hanging from a horizontal line.
We also brought home four engraved pieces of ivory, which are nothing else than records of real or imaginary scenes. I have figured all of these. Fig. 360 (No. 89487 [1026] from Nuwŭk) is a narrow flat tablet of ivory, 4.8 inches long and 1 inch wide, with a string at one end to hang it up by. On each face is an ornamental border inclosing a number of incised figures, which probably represent actual scenes, as the tablet is not new.
The figures on the obverse face are colored with red ocher. At the upper end, standing on a cross line, with his head toward the end, is a rudely drawn man, holding his right hand up and his left down, with the fingers outspread. At his left stands a boy with both hands down. These figures probably represent the hunter and his son. Just below the cross line is a man raising a spear to strike an animal which is perhaps meant for a reindeer without horns. Three deer, also without horns, stand with their feet on one border with their heads toward the upper end, and on the other border near the other end are two bucks with large antlers heading the other way, and behind them a man in a kaiak. Between him and the animal which the first man is spearing is an object which may represent the crescent moon. The story may perhaps be freely translated as follows: “When the moon was young the man and his son killed six reindeer, two of them bucks with large antlers. One they speared on land, the rest they chased with the kaiak.”
On the reverse the figures and border are colored black with soot. In the left-hand lower corner is a she bear and her cub heading to the left, followed by a man who is about to shoot an arrow at them. Then come two more bears heading toward the right, and in the right-hand lower corner is a whale with two floats attached to him by a harpoon line. Above this is an umiak with four men in it approaching another whale which has already received one harpoon with its two floats. The harpoon which is to be thrust at him may be seen sticking out over the bow of the boat. Then come two whales in a line, one heading to the left and one to the right. In the left-hand upper corner is a figure which may represent a boat, bottom up, on the staging of four posts. We did not learn the actual history of this tablet, which was brought down for sale with a number of other things.
Fig. 361 (No. 89473 [1349] from Utkiavwĭñ) is a piece of an old snow-shovel edge with freshly incised figures on both faces, which the artist said represented his own record. The figures are all colored with red ocher. On the obverse the figures all stand on a roughly drawn ground line. At the left is a man pointing his rifle at a bear, which stands on its hind legs facing him. Then comes a she bear walking toward the left followed by a cub, then two large bears also walking to the left, and a she bear in the same attitude, followed by two cubs, one behind the other. This was explained by the artist as follows: “These are all the bears I have killed. This one alone (pointing to the ‘rampant’ one) was bad. All the others were good.” We heard at the time of his giving the death shot to the last bear as it was charging his comrade, who had wounded it with his muzzle-loader. On the reverse, the figures are in the same position. The same man points his rifle at a string of three wolves. His explanation was: “These are the wolves I have killed.”
Fig. 362 (No. 89474 [1334] from Utkiavwĭñ) is newly made, but was said to be the record of a man of our acquaintance named Mûñĭñolu. It is a flat piece of the outside of a walrus tusk 9.7 inches long and 1.8 wide at the broader end. The figures are incised on one face only, and colored with red ocher. The face is divided lengthwise into two panels by a horizontal line. In the upper panel, at the left, is a man facing to the right and pointing a gun at a line of three standing deer, facing toward the left. Two are bucks and one a doe. Then come two bucks, represented without legs, as if swimming in the water, followed by a rude figure of a man in a kaiak. Below the line at the left is an umiak with five men, and then a row of twelve conventionalized whales’ tails, of which all but the first, second, and fifth are joined to the horizontal line by a short straight line. The record may be freely translated as follows: “I went out with my gun and killed three large reindeer, two bucks and a doe. I also speared two large bucks in the water. My whaling crew have taken twelve whales.” The number of whales is open to suspicion, as they just fill up the board.
Fig. 363 (No. 56517 [121] from Utkiavwĭñ) is a piece of an old snow-shovel edge 4.2 inches long, with a loop of thong at the upper side to hang it up by. It is covered on both faces with freshly incised figures, colored with red ocher, representing some real or imaginary occurrence.
The obverse is bordered with a single narrow line. At the left is a man standing with arms outstretched supporting himself by two slender staffs as long as he is. In the middle are three rude figures of tents, very high and slender. At the right is a hornless reindeer heading to the left, with a man standing on its back with his legs straddled apart and his arms uplifted. On the reverse, there is no border, but a single dog and a man who supports himself with a long staff are dragging an empty rail sledge toward the left.
I find no mention of the use of any such scores among the eastern Eskimo, but they are very common among those of the west, as shown by the Museum collections. They record in this way, not only hunting exploits but all sorts of trivial occurrences.
GAMES AND PASTIMES.
_Gambling._--These people have only one game which appears to be of the nature of gambling. It is played with the twisters and marline spikes used for backing the bow, and already described, though Lieut. Ray says he has seen it played with any bits of stick or bone. I never had an opportunity of watching a game of this sort played, as it is not often played at the village. It is a very popular amusement at the deer-hunting camps, where Lieut. Ray often saw it played. According to him the players are divided into sides, who sit on the ground about 3 yards apart, each side sticking up one of the marline spikes for a mark to throw the twisters at. Six of the latter, he believes, make a full set. One side tosses the whole set one at a time at the opposite stake, and the points which they make are counted up by their opponents from the position of the twisters as they fall. He did not learn how the points were reckoned, except that twisters with a mark on them counted differently from the plain ones, or how long the game lasted, each side taking its turn of casting at the opposite stake. He, however, got the impression that the winning side kept the twisters belonging to their opponents. Mr. Nelson informs me in a letter that a similar game is played with the same implements at Norton Sound.
No. 56532 [9], from Utkiavwĭñ, is a bag full of these tools as used for playing this game. It contains 18 twisters, of different patterns, and 7 marline spikes. The bag is of membrane, perhaps a bladder. It is ovoid in shape, all in one piece, with a long opening in one side, which is closed by a piece of sinew braid about 40 inches long. This is knotted by one end round a fold of membrane at one end of the mouth, and when the bag is shut up is wrapped round the middle of it.
Some of these people have learned what cards are from the Nunatañmiun, though they do not know how to use them. They described how they were used by the “Nunatañmiun,” however, going through the motions of dealing cards. They told us that the latter played a great deal, and “gave much.” This “giving much” evidently referred to gambling, for they told Capt. Herendeen how two of the “Nunatañmiun” would sit down to play, one with a big pile of furs and one without any, and when they got up the furs would all belong to the other man.
Fig. 364 (No. 56531 [21]) represents some of a bunch of 25 little ivory images which were strung on a bit of seal thong. One is a neatly carved fox, 2.7 inches long, and the rest are ducks or geese, rather roughly carved, with flat bellies. The largest of these is 1.3 inches long and the smallest 0.8 inch. These were purchased at Plover Bay, eastern Siberia, during our brief visit in August, 1881, and were supposed to be merely works of art. I was, however, very much interested on my return to Washington to find that Dr. Franz Boas had brought from Cumberland Gulf a number of precisely similar images, which are there used for playing a game of the nature of “jackstones.” The player tosses up a handful of these images, and scores points for the number that sit upright when they fall.[N484] It is therefore quite likely that they are used for a similar purpose at Plover Bay. If this be so, it is a remarkable point of similarity between these widely separated Eskimo, for I can learn nothing of a similar custom at any intermediate point.
[Footnote N484: This game is briefly referred to by Hall, Arctic Researches, p. 570.]
_Festivals._--The most important festivals are apparently semireligious in character and partake strongly of the nature of dramatic representations. At these festivals they make use of many articles of dress and adornment, not worn on other occasions, and even some “properties” and mechanical contrivances to add to the dramatic effect. All festivals are accompanied by singing, drumming, and dancing.
At the formal festivals, in the early winter, the performers are dressed in new deerskin clothing, with the snow-white flesh side outward, and in certain parts of the performance wear on their heads tall conical caps covered with rows of mountain sheep teeth which rattle as the wearer dances.