Part 11 (1/2)

[36] 'On trouva plusieurs huttes construites en bois, moitie dans la terre, moitie en dehors.' _Choris_, _Voy. Pitt._, pt. ii., p. 6. At Beaufort Bay are wooden huts. _Simpson's Nar._, p. 177. At Toker Point, 'built of drift-wood and sods of turf or mud.' _Hooper's Tuski_, p. 343.

At Cape Krusenstern the houses 'appeared like little round hills, with fences of whale-bone.' _Kotzebue's Voy._, vol. i., p. 237. 'They construct yourts or winter residences upon those parts of the sh.o.r.e which are adapted to their convenience, such as the mouths of rivers, the entrances of inlets, or jutting points of land, but always upon low ground.' _Beechey's Voy._, vol. ii., p. 300.

[37] 'I was surprised at the vast quant.i.ty of driftwood acc.u.mulated on its sh.o.r.e, several acres being thickly covered with it, and many pieces at least sixty feet in length.' _Armstrong's Nar._, p. 104.

[38] 'Eastern Esquimaux never seem to think of fire as a means of imparting warmth.' _Simpson's Nar._, p. 346.

[39] Their houses are 'moveable tents, constructed of poles and skins.'

_Brownell's Ind. Races_, p. 469. 'Neither wind nor watertight.'

_Beechey's Voy._, vol. i., p. 361. At Cape Smythe, Hooper saw seven Eskimo tents of seal skin. _Tuski_, p. 216. 'We entered a small tent of morse-skins, made in the form of a canoe.' _Kotzebue's Voy._, vol. i., p. 226. At Coppermine River their tents in summer are of deer-skin with the hair on, and circular. _Hearne's Travels_, p. 167. At St Lawrence Island, Kotzebue saw no settled dwellings, 'only several small tents built of the ribs of whales, and covered with the skin of the morse.'

_Voyage_, vol. i., pp. 190-191.

[40] 'In parallelograms, and so adjusted as to form a rotunda, with an arched roof.' _Silliman's Jour._, vol. xvi., p. 146. _Parry's Voy._, vol. v., p. 200. _Franklin's Nar._, vol. ii., p. 44.

[41] 'These houses are durable, the wind has little effect on them, and they resist the thaw until the sun acquires very considerable power.'

_Richardson's Nar._, vol. i., p. 350.

[42] The snow houses are called by the natives _igloo_, and the underground huts _yourts_, or _yurts_, and their tents _topeks_. Winter residence, 'iglut.' _Richardson's Pol. Reg._, p. 310. Beechey, describing the same kind of buildings, calls them 'yourts.' _Voy._, vol.

i., p. 366. Tent of skins, tie-poo-eet; topak; toopek. Tent, too-pote.

_Ibid._, vol. ii., p. 381. 'Yourts.' _Seemann's Voy. Herald_, vol. ii., p. 59. Tent, topek. Dall says Richardson is wrong, and that igloo or iglu is the name of ice houses. _Alaska_, p. 532. House, iglo. Tent, tuppek. _Richardson's Jour._, vol. ii., p. 378. Snow house, eegloo.

_Franklin's Nar._, vol. ii., p. 47.

[43] They are so fond of the warm blood of dying animals that they invented an instrument to secure it. See _Beechey's Voy._, vol. i., p.

344. 'Whale-blubber, their great delicacy, is sickening and dangerous to a European stomach.' _Kotzebue's Voy._, vol. i., p. 192.

[44] Hearne says that the natives on the Arctic coast of British America are so disgustingly filthy that when they have bleeding at the nose they lick up their own blood. _Travels_, p. 161. 'Salt always appeared an abomination.' 'They seldom cook their food, the frost apparently acting as a subst.i.tute for fire.' _Collinson_, in _Lond. Geog. Soc., Jour._, vol. xxv., p. 201. At Kotzebue Sound they 'seem to subsist entirely on the flesh of marine animals, which they, for the most part, eat raw.'

_Kotzebue's Voy._, vol. i., p. 239.

[45] 'During the two summer months they hunt and live on swans, geese, and ducks.' _Richardson's Nar._, vol. i., p. 346.

[46] 'Secures winter feasts and abundance of oil for the lamps of a whole village, and there is great rejoicing.' _Richardson's Pol. Reg._, p. 313. 'The capture of the seal and walrus is effected in the same manner. Salmon and other fish are caught in nets.' _Seemann's Voy.

Herald_, vol. ii., p. 61. 'Six small perforated ivory b.a.l.l.s attached separately to cords of sinew three feet long.' _Dease & Simpson_, in _Lond. Geog. Soc., Jour._, vol. viii., 222.

[47] Near Smith River, a low piece of ground, two miles broad at the beach, was found enclosed by double rows of turf set up to represent men, narrowing towards a lake, into which reindeer were driven and killed. _Simpson's Nar._, p. 135.

[48] 'Ce qu'il y a encore de frappant dans la complexion de ces barbares, c'est l'extreme chaleur de leur estomac et de leur sang; ils echauffent tellement, par leur haleine ardente, les huttes ou ils a.s.semblent en hiver, que les Europeans, s'y sentent etouffes, comme dans une etuve dont la chaleur est trop graduee: aussi ne font-ils jamais de feu dans leur habitation en aucune saison, et ils ignorent l'usage des cheminees, sous le climat le plus froid du globe.' _De Pauw_, _Recherches Phil._, tom. i., p. 261.

[49] 'The voluptuousness and Polygamy of the North American Indians, under a temperature of almost perpetual winter, is far greater than that of the most sensual tropical nations.' _Martin's British Colonies_, vol.

iii., p. 524.

[50] 'The seal is perhaps their most useful animal, not merely furnis.h.i.+ng oil and blubber, but the skin used for their canoes, thongs, nets, la.s.soes, and boot soles.' _Whymper's Alaska_, p. 161.

[51] They have 'two sorts of bows; arrows pointed with iron, flint, and bone, or blunt for birds; a dart with throwing-board for seals; a spear headed with iron or copper, the handle about six feet long; and formidable iron knives, equally adapted for throwing, cutting, or stabbing.' _Simpson's Nar._, p. 123. They ascended the Mackenzie in former times as far as the Ramparts, to obtain flinty slate for lance and arrow points. _Richardson's Jour._, vol. i., p. 213. At St. Lawrence Island, they are armed with a knife two feet long. _Kotzebue's Voy._, vol. i., pp. 193, 211. One weapon was 'a walrus tooth fixed to the end of a wooden staff.' _Beechey's Voy._, vol. i., p. 343.

[52] At the Coppermine River, arrows are pointed with slate or copper; hatchets also are made of a thick lump of copper. _Hearne's Travels_, pp. 161-9.

[53] 'The old ivory knives and flint axes are now superseded, the Russians having introduced the common European sheath-knife and hatchet.

The board for throwing darts is in use, and is similar to that of the Polynesians.' _Seemann's Voy. Herald_, vol. ii., p. 53.

[54] The 'baydare is a large open boat, quite flat, made of sea-lions'

skins,' and is used also for a tent. At Lantscheff Island it was 'a large and probably leathern boat, with black sails.' _Kotzebue's Voy._, vol. i., pp. 202, 216. 'The kaiyaks are impelled by a double-bladed paddle, used with or without a central rest, and the umiaks with oars.'

Can 'propel their kaiyaks at the rate of seven miles an hour.'

_Richardson's Jour._, vol. i., pp. 238, 358. At Hudson Strait they have canoes of seal-skin, like those of Greenland. _Franklin's Nar._, vol.

i., p. 29. Not a drop of water can penetrate the opening into the canoe.