Culture
Means of subsistence
Food
Substances Used for Food
The food of these people consists almost entirely of animal substances. The staple article of food is the flesh of the rough seal, of which they obtain more than of any other meat. Next in importance is the venison of the reindeer, though this is looked upon as a kind of dainty.98 Many well developed fœtal reindeer are brought home from the spring deer hunt and are said to be excellent eating, though we never saw them eaten. They also eat the flesh of the other three species of seal, the walrus, the polar bear, the “bowhead” whale, the white whale, and all the larger kinds of birds, geese, ducks, gulls, and grouse. All the different kinds of fish appear to be eaten, with the possible exception of the two species of Lycodes (only a few of these were caught, and all were purchased for our collection) and very little of a fish is wasted except the hardest parts. Walrus hide is sometimes cooked and eaten in times of scarcity. Mollusks of any kind are rarely eaten, as it is difficult to procure them. After a heavy gale in the autumn of 1881, when the beach was covered with marine animals, mostly lamellibranch mollusks with their shells and softer parts broken off by the violence of the surf, we saw one woman collect a lapful of these “clam-heads,” which she said she was going to eat. The “blackskin” (epidermis) of the whale is considered a great delicacy by them, as by all the other Eskimo who are able to procure it, and they are also very fond of the tough white skin or gum round the roots of the whalebone.99
We saw and heard nothing of the habit so generally noticed among other Eskimo and in Siberia of eating the half-digested contents of the stomach of the reindeer, but we found that they were fond of the fæces taken from the rectum of the deer. I find that this curious habit has been noticed among Eskimo only in two other places—Greenland in former times and Boothia Felix. The Greenlanders ate “the Dung of the Rein-deer, taken out of the Guts when they clean them; the Entrails of Partridges and the like Out-cast, pass for Dainties with them.”100 The dung of the musk ox and reindeer when fresh were considered a delicacy by the Boothians, according to J. C. Ross.101 The entrails of fowls are also considered a great delicacy and are carefully cooked as a separate dish.102
As far as our observations go these people eat little, if any, more fat than civilized man, and, as a rule, not by itself. Fat may occasionally be eaten (they are fond of the fat on the inside of duck skins), but they do not habitually eat the great quantities of blubber spoken of in some other places103 or drink oil, as the Hudson Bay Eskimo are said to do by Hall, or use it as a sauce for dry food, like the natives of Norton Sound. It is usually supposed and generally stated in the popular accounts of the Eskimo that it is a physiological necessity for them to eat enormous quantities of blubber in order to obtain a sufficient amount of carbon to enable them to maintain their animal heat in the cold climate which they inhabit. A careful comparison, however, of the reports of actual observers104 shows that an excessive eating of fat is not the rule, and is perhaps confined to the territory near Boothia Felix.
Eggs of all kinds, except, of course, the smallest, are eagerly sought for, but the smaller birds are seldom eaten, as it is a waste of time and ammunition to pursue them. We saw this people eat no vegetable substances, though they informed us that the buds of the willow were sometimes eaten. Of late years they have acquired a fondness for many kinds of civilized food, especially bread of any kind, flour, sugar, and molasses, and some of them are learning to like salt. They were very glad to purchase from us corn-meal “mush” and the broken victuals from the table. These were, however, considered as special dainties and eaten as luncheons or as a dessert after the regular meal. The children and even some of the women were always on the watch for the cook’s slop bucket to be brought out, and vied with the ubiquitous dogs in searching for scraps of food. Meat which epicures would call rather “high” is eaten with relish, but they seem to prefer fresh meat when they can get it.
Means of Preparing Food
Food is generally cooked, except, perhaps, whale-skin and whale gum, which usually seem to be eaten as soon as obtained, without waiting for a fire. Meat of all kinds is generally boiled in abundance of water over a fire of driftwood, and the broth thus made is drunk hot before eating the meat. Fowls are prepared for boiling by skinning them. Fish are also boiled, but are often eaten raw, especially in winter at the deer-hunting camps, when they are frozen hard. Meat is sometimes eaten raw or frozen. Lieut. Ray found one family in camp on Kulugrua who had no fire of any kind, and were eating everything raw. They had run out of oil some time before and did not like to spend time in going to the coast for more while deer were plentiful.
When traveling in winter, according to Lieut. Ray, they prefer frozen fish or a sort of pemmican made as follows: The marrow is extracted from reindeer bones by boiling, and to a quantity of this is added 2 or 3 pounds of crushed seal or whale blubber, and the whole beaten up with the hands in a large wooden bowl to the consistency of frozen cream. Into this they stir bits of boiled venison, generally the poorer portions of the meat scraped off the bone, and chewed up small by all the women and children of the family, “each using some cabalistic word as they cast in their mouthful.”105 The mass is made up into 2-pound balls and carried in little sealskin bags. Flour, when obtained, is made into a sort of porridge, of which they are very fond. Cooking is mostly done outside of the dwelling, in the open air in summer, or in kitchens opening out of the passageway in winter. Little messes only, like an occasional dish of soup or porridge, are cooked over the lamps in the house. This habit, of course, comes from the abundant supply of firewood, while the Eskimo most frequently described live in a country where wood is very scarce, and are obliged to depend on oil for fuel.
Time and Frequency of Eating
When these people are living in the winter houses they do not, as far as we could learn, have any regular time for meals, but eat whenever they are hungry and have leisure. The women seem to keep a supply of cooked food on hand ready for any one to eat. When the men are working in the kû´dyĭgi, or “club house,” or when a number of them are encamped together in tents, as at the whaling camp in 1883, or the regular summer camp at Pe´rnyû, the women at intervals through the day prepare dishes of meat, which the men eat by themselves. When in the deer-hunting camps, according to Lieut. Ray, they eat but little in the morning, and can really be said to take no more than one full meal a day, which is eaten at night when the day’s work is done.106 When on the march they usually take a few mouthfuls of the pemmican above described before they start out in the morning, and rarely touch food again till they go into camp at night.
When a family returns from the spring deer hunt with plenty of venison they usually keep open house for a day or two. The women of the household, with sometimes the assistance of a neighbor or two, keep the pot continually boiling, sending in dishes of meat at intervals, while the house is full of guests who stay for a short time, eating, smoking, and chatting, and then retire to make room for others. Messes are sometimes sent out to invalids who can not come to the feast. One household in the spring of 1883 consumed in this way two whole reindeer in 24 hours. They use only their hands and a knife in eating meat, usually filling the mouth and cutting or biting off the mouthful. They are large eaters, some of them, especially the women, eating all the time when they have plenty, but we never saw them gorge themselves in the manner described by Dr. Kane (2d Grinnell Exp., passim) and other writers.
Their habits of hospitality prevent their laying up any large supply of meat, though blubber is carefully saved for commercial use, and they depend for subsistence, almost from day to day, on their success in hunting. When encamped, however, in small parties in the summer they often take more seals than they can consume. The carcasses of these, stripped of their skins and blubber, are buried in the gravel close to the camp, and dug up and brought home when meat becomes scarce in the winter.
Drinks
The habitual drink is water, which these people consume in great quantities when they can obtain it, and like to have very cold. In the winter there is always a lump of clean snow on a rack close to the lamp, with a tub under it to catch the water that drips from it. This is replaced in the summer by a bucket of fresh water from some pond or lake. When the men are sitting in their open air clubs at the summer camps there is always a bucket of fresh water in the middle of the circle, with a dipper to drink from. Hardly a native ever passed the station without stopping for a drink of water, often drinking a quart of cold water at a time. When tramping about in the winter they eat large quantities of ice and snow, and on the march the women carry small canteens of sealskin, which they fill with snow and carry inside of their jackets, where the heat of the body melts the snow and keeps it liquid. This great fondness for plenty of cold water has been often noticed among the Eskimo elsewhere, and appears to be quite characteristic of the race.107 They have acquired a taste for liquor, and like to get enough to produce intoxication. As well as we could judge, they are easily affected by alcohol. Some of them during our stay learned to be very fond of coffee, “ka´fe,” but tea they are hardly acquainted with, though they will drink it. I have noticed that they sometimes drank the water produced by the melting of the sea ice along the beach, and pronounced it excellent when it was so brackish that I found it quite undrinkable.
The only narcotic in use among these people is tobacco, which they obtain directly or indirectly from the whites, and which has been in use among them from the earliest time when we have any knowledge of them. When Mr. Elson, in the Blossom’s barge, visited Point Barrow, in 1826, he found tobacco in general use and the most marketable article.108 This undoubtedly came from the Russians by way of Siberia and Bering Strait, as Kotzebue found the natives of the sound which bears his name, who were in communication with the Asiatic coast by way of the Diomedes, already addicted to the use of tobacco in 1816. It is not probable that tobacco was introduced on the Arctic coast by way of the Russian settlements in Alaska. There were no Russian posts north of Bristol Bay until 1833, when St. Michael’s Redoubt was built. When Capt. Cook visited Bristol Bay, in 1778, he found that tobacco was not used there,109 while in Norton Sound, the same year, the natives “had no dislike to tobacco.”110 Neither was it introduced from the English posts in the east, as Franklin found the “Kûñmû´dlĭñ” not in the habit of using it—“The western Esquimaux use tobacco, and some of our visitors had smoked it, but thought the flavor very disagreeable,”111—nor had they adopted the habit in 1837.112
When the Plover wintered at Point Barrow, according to Dr. Simpson’s account,113 all the tobacco, except a little obtained from the English discovery ships, came from Asia and was brought by the Nunatañmiun. At present the latter bring very little if any tobacco, and the supply is obtained directly from the ships, though a little occasionally finds its way up the coast from the southwest.
They use all kinds of tobacco, but readily distinguish and desire the sorts considered better by the whites. For instance, they were eager to get the excellent quality of “Navy” tobacco furnished by the Commissary Department, while one of our party who had a large quantity of exceedingly bad fine-cut tobacco could hardly give it away. A little of the strong yellow “Circassian” tobacco used by the Russians for trading is occasionally brought up from the southwest, and perhaps also by the Nunatañmiun, and is very highly prized, probably because it was in this form that they first saw tobacco. Snuff seems to be unknown; tobacco is used only for chewing and smoking. The habit of chewing tobacco is almost universal. Men, women, and even children, though the latter be but 2 or 3 years old and unweaned,114 when tobacco is to be obtained, keep a “chew,” often of enormous size, constantly in the mouth. The juice is not spit out, but swallowed with the saliva, without producing any signs of nausea. The tobacco is chewed by itself and not sweetened with sugar, as was observed by Hooper and Nordenskiöld among the “Chukches.”115 I knew but two adult Eskimo in Utkiavwĭñ who did not chew tobacco, and one of these adopted the habit to a certain extent while we were there.
Tobacco is smoked in pipes of a peculiar pattern called kui´nyɐ, of which the collection contains a series of ten specimens.
Of these, No. 89288 [705],116 figured in Ray’s Point Barrow Report, Ethnology, Pl. I, Fig. 1, will serve as a type. The bowl is of brass, neatly inlaid on the upper surface with a narrow ring of copper close to the edge, from which run four converging lines, 90° apart, nearly to the center. Round the under surface are also three concentric rings of copper. The wooden stem appears to be willow or birch, and is in two longitudinal sections, held together by the lashing of sealskin thong which serves to attach the bowl to the stem. This lashing was evidently put on wet and allowed to shrink on, and the ends are secured by tucking under the turns. The whipping at the mouthpiece is of fine sinew thread. A picker of steel for cleaning out the bowl is attached to the stem by a piece of seal thong, the end of which is wedged under the turns of the lashing. The remaining pipes are all of the same general pattern, but vary in the material of the bowl and in details of execution. The stems are always of the same material and put together in the same way, but are sometimes lozenge-shaped instead of elliptical in section. The lashing is sometimes of three-ply sinew braid. The bowl shows the greatest variation, both in form and material.
Fig. 6a (No. 56737 [10], from Utkiavwĭñ) has an iron bowl, noticeable for the ornamentation of the shank. The metal work has all been done with the file except the fitting of the saucer to the shank. This has evidently been heated and shrunk on. Three pipes have bowls of smoothly ground stone. No. 89289 [1582] (Fig. 6b from Utkiavwĭñ) is of rather soft greenish gray slate. No. 89290 [864] is of the same shape, but of hard greenish stone, while the third stone pipe (No. 89291 [834], from Utkiavwĭñ), of gray slate, is of quite a different pattern. Three of the series have bowls of reindeer antler, lined with thin sheet brass, and one a bowl of walrus ivory, lined with thin copper. (See Fig. 6c, Nos. 89285 [954], 89286 [915], and 89287 [1129].)
Fig. 6.—Pipes: a, pipe with metal bowl; b, pipe with stone bowl; c, pipe bowl of antler or ivory.
Antler and stone pipes of this pattern and rather small are usually carried by the men out of doors, while the more elaborate metal pipes, which are often very large and handsome (I have seen some with a saucer at least 3 inches in diameter) are more frequently used in the house and by the women. The stem is usually 1 foot or 13 inches long, though pipes at least 18 inches long were seen.
To most pipes are attached pickers, as in the type specimen. The picker is in all cases of metal, usually iron or steel, but sometimes of copper (see the pickers attached to pipes above). When not in use the point is tucked under the lashing on the stem. The pipes are readily taken apart for cleaning.
No. 89292 [1752] (Fig. 7) is an extemporized pipe made in a hurry by a man who wished to smoke, but had no pipe.
It is simply a rough willow stick, slightly whittled into shape, split and hollowed out like a pipestem. It is held together by a whipping of sinew thread and a lashing of deerskin thong, fastened by a slip-knot at one end, the other being tucked in as usual. A small funnel-shaped hole at one end serves for a bowl, and shows by its charred surface that it has been actually used. This pipe was bought from one of the “Nunatañmiun,” who were in camp at Pernyû in 1883, and shows its inland origin in the use of the deerskin thong. A coast native would have used seal thong.
The pipe is carried at the girdle, either with the stem thrust inside the breeches or in a bag attached to the belt. No. 56744 [55] (Utkiavwĭñ) is the only specimen of pipe bag in the collection. It is a long, narrow, cylindric bag, made of four white ermine skins, with two hind legs and two tails forming a fringe round the bottom, which is of dressed deerskin, in one piece, flesh side out. The band round the mouth is of gray deerskin, running only two-thirds of the way round. The piece which fills the remaining third runs out into the strap for fastening the bag to the belt. The ornamental strips on two of the longitudinal seams and round the bottom are of deerskin. The seams are all sewed “over and over” on the “wrong” side with sinew thread. This is an unusually handsome bag.
Tobacco is carried in a small pouch of fur attached to the girdle, and tucked inside of the breeches, or sometimes worn under the jacket, slung round the neck by a string or the necklace. The collection contains three of these, of which No. 89803 [889] (Fig. 8a) will serve as a typical specimen.
It is made by sewing together two pieces of wolverine fur, hair out, of the same shape and size, and round the mouth of this a band of short-haired light-colored deerskin, also hair out, with the ends meeting at one side in a seam corresponding to one of the seams of the wolverine fur. The mouth is ornamented with a narrow band of wolverine fur, the flesh side, which is colored red, turned out. It is closed by a piece of seal thong about 5 inches long, one end of which is sewed to the middle of the seam in the deerskin band and the other passed through a large blue glass bead and knotted. This string is wound two or three times round the neck of the bag, and the bight of it tucked under the turns. The seams are all sewed “over and over” on the “wrong” side with sinew thread.
These tobacco pouches are usually of a similar pattern, often slightly narrowed at the neck, and generally fringed round the mouth with a narrow strip of wolverine fur as above. They are often ornamented with tags of wolverine fur on the seams (as in No. 89804 [1341, Fig. 8b]), and borders of different colored skin. No. 89805 [1350] is very elaborately ornamented. It is made of brown deerskin, trimmed with white deerskin clipped close and bordered with narrow braids of blue and red worsted, and little tags of the latter. According to Dr. Simpson,117 these bags are called “del-la-mai´-yu.” We neglected to obtain the proper names for them, as we always made use of the lingua franca “tiba´ púksak,” bag for tiba´ (tobacco). No. 89903 [889] contains a specimen of tobacco as prepared for smoking by the Eskimo. This consists of common black Cavendish or “Navy” tobacco, cut up very fine, and mixed with finely chopped wood in the proportion of about two parts of tobacco to one of wood. We were informed that willow twigs were used for this purpose. Perhaps this may have some slight aromatic flavor, as well as serving to make the tobacco go further, though I did not recognize any such flavor in some tobacco from an Eskimo’s pouch that I once smoked and found exceedingly bad. The smell of an Eskimo’s pipe is different from any other tobacco smoke and is very disagreeable. It has some resemblance to the smell of some of the cheaper brands of North Carolina tobacco which are known to be adulterated with other vegetable substances. The method of smoking is as follows: After clearing out the bowl with the picker, a little wad of deer hair, plucked from the clothes in some inconspicuous place, generally the front skirt of the inner jacket, is rammed down to the bottom of the bowl. This is to prevent the fine tobacco from getting into the stem and clogging it up. The bowl is then filled with tobacco, of which it only holds a very small quantity. The mouthpiece is placed between the lips, the tobacco ignited, and all smoked out in two or three strong inhalations. The smoke is very deeply inhaled and allowed to pass out slowly from the mouth and nostrils, bringing tears to the eyes, often producing giddiness, and almost always a violent fit of coughing. I have seen a man almost prostrated from the effects of a single pipeful. This method of smoking has been in vogue since the time of our first acquaintance with these people.118
Though they smoke little at a time, they smoke frequently when tobacco is plentiful. Of late years, since tobacco has become plentiful, some have adopted white men’s pipes, which they smoke without inhaling, and they are glad to get cigars, and, since our visit, cigarettes. In conversation with us they usually called all means for smoking “pai´pa,” the children sometimes specifying “pai´pa-sigya´” (cigar) or “mûkparapai´pa,” paper-pipe (cigarette). The use of the kui´nyɐ, which name appears to be applied only to the native pipes, seems to be confined to the adults. We knew of no children owning them, though their parents made no objection to their chewing tobacco or owning or using clay or wooden pipes which they obtained from us. They carry their fondness for tobacco so far that they will even eat the foul oily refuse from the bottom of the bowl, the smallest portion of which would produce nausea in a white man. This habit has been observed at Plover Bay, Siberia.119 Tobacco ashes are also eaten, probably for the sake of the potash they contain, as one of the men at Utkiavwīñ was fond of carbonate of soda, which he told the doctor was just like what he got from his pipe. Pipes of this type, differing in details, but all agreeing in having very small bowls, frequently of metal, and some contrivance for opening the stem, are used by the Eskimo from at least as far south as the Yukon delta (as shown by the collections in the National Museum) to the Anderson River and Cape Bathurst,120 and have even been adopted by the Indians of the Yukon, who learned the use of tobacco from the Eskimo. They are undoubtedly of Siberian origin, as will be seen by comparing the figure of a “Chukch” pipe in Nordenskiöld’s Vega, vol. 2, p. 117, Fig. 7, and the figure of a Tunguse pipe in Seebohm’s “Siberia in Asia” (p. 149), with the pipes figured from our collection. Moreover, the method of smoking is precisely that practiced in Siberia, even to the proportion of wood mixed with the tobacco.121
The consideration of the question whence the Siberians acquired this peculiar method of smoking would lead me beyond the bounds of the present work, but I can not leave the subject of pipes without calling attention to the fact that Nordenskiöld122 has alluded to the resemblance of these to the Japanese pipes. A gentleman who has spent many years in China also informs me that the Chinese pipes are of a very similar type and smoked in much the same way.123 The Greenlanders and eastern Eskimo generally, who have learned the use of tobacco directly from the Europeans, use large-bowled pipes, which they smoke in the ordinary manner. In talking with us the people of Point Barrow call tobacco “tiba´” or “tibakĭ,” but among themselves it is still known as ta´wak, which is the word found in use among them by the earliest explorers.124 “Tiba” was evidently learned from the American whalers, as it was not in use in Dr. Simpson’s time. It is merely an attempt to pronounce the word tobacco, but has been adopted into the Eskimo language sufficiently to be used as the radical in compound words such as “tiba´xutikă´ktûñɐ,” “I have a supply of tobacco.” There is no evidence that anything else was smoked before the introduction of tobacco, and no pipes seen or collected appear older than the time when we know them to have had tobacco.125