Part 5 (2/2)
In some cases, when a local Caribou is being dressed, a part of the stomach is utilized as a receptacle into which the blood is dipped from the body cavity with the hands, in Eskimo style. The blood goes into the making of soup. The tripe also is relished. Once I found the children of our camp boiling up a section of the aorta as a delicacy. The ribs are commonly impaled on a stick thrust into the ground and roasted in front of an open fire. Leg bones may be cracked to render the raw marrow accessible; if they are cooked, the marrow may be blown out of the open ends with the mouth. The Padleimiut consume much of the meat in the raw state, and frequently wash it down with hot tea.
Much needless wounding and suffering of the Caribou, as well as waste of valuable resources, result from extensive use of such a small-calibred rifle as the .22. It may seem remarkable that such a large animal should succ.u.mb at all to such a slight weapon; but it does happen, usually after a number of shots. For example, an Eskimo boy secured 13 Caribou in a single day with a .22. On the other hand, many of the animals must get away from the hunter, only to die, after much suffering, at a considerable distance, where they are not likely to be recovered and utilized. The absolute outlawing of the use of the .22 on such large game would seem to be in order.
Once Charles Schweder shot a doe whose jaw had been broken by a bullet.
A piece of the bone had ”grown into the tongue” but the jaw was healed.
At the Windy River post, in the latter part of summer, portions of the caribou bodies are placed in the river not merely for refrigeration, but for protection from blowflies. Such meat is used mainly for the dogs.
The Eskimos are said not to engage in this practice. Consequently, some of the caribou bodies lying about their camps become ma.s.ses of maggots.
On the last day of September I observed how Charles Schweder prepared a fresh caribou body in the field and endeavored to protect it from beasts and birds. First he cut off the head with his hunting-knife; then the hind legs, which were severed very readily at the hip joint. Next he opened the body cavity and pulled out the viscera, setting aside a ma.s.s of fat (apparently the omentum). The hind legs were placed beneath the body, and the head was thrust into the opening of the abdominal cavity, as an obstacle to such scavengers as Herring Gulls, Rough-legged Hawks, Canada Jays, Ravens, and Foxes (_cf._ Downes, 1943: 227, 228). The skin was left on the body, and the whole was covered with small spruce tops.
An interesting device in the hunting of Caribou consists of ”stone men”
(Harper, 1949: 231, fig.). They are made of rocks, piled one upon another in such a manner as to faintly suggest a human figure. ”Moss”
(either moss or lichens) is added to some of them to enhance the human appearance. A considerable number may be seen in the Windy River area, where they are generally placed along the summits of the ridges.
Construction was probably begun many years ago by natives, and has been continued by the present residents. When Caribou, in fleeing from a hunter, catch sight of these ”stone men,” they are likely to pause in suspicion of the figures, and to be deflected from their chosen course.
This may give the hunter a chance to come within range of the animals.
The Kazan River Eskimos are said to use converging lines of such rock piles to direct migrating Caribou to certain river-crossings, where the hunters lie in wait for them. Occasionally a single pile is erected merely to mark the spot where a caribou body is left until the hunter can return with a dogteam to fetch the meat.
[Transcriber's Note: ”... stone men”: Inuksuit (sing. inuksuk).]
On first securing one of the animals, the hunter makes a practice of cutting out the tongue and carrying it to camp in a pocket or a game-bag. On a subsequent trip, if there is sufficient snow on the ground, the meat is generally transported by dog sleigh or toboggan (_cf._ Harper, 1949: 231, fig.). Occasionally a hunter will carry it on his shoulder (fig. 4) or in a pack.
In all the Canadian North, as far as I am aware, the Windy River post is virtually the only place where summer transportation is accomplished by dog-drawn travois (fig. 5). This device, consisting of two trailing poles, with a small platform midway, is recognizable immediately by readers of Parkman's _Oregon Trail_ (1849), where its use by Indians of our Western Plains is mentioned again and again. The travois was introduced into this region by the late Charles Planchek?, a Czech?
trapper of somewhat sinister repute, whose headquarters were at Putahow Lake. He was the ”Eskimo Charlie” of Downes (1943: 160-161, pl.). In years gone by he took a travois with him on a visit to the Windy River area, and it was thereupon copied and subsequently used regularly by the Schweder family. Their Eskimo friends of the upper Kazan will occasionally borrow one, but I am not aware that they have made any travois of their own. During the summer the two younger boys of the Windy River post made a practice of hauling in caribou meat from the surrounding Barrens by means of travois.
In the latter part of summer some small pieces of caribou meat were occasionally laid on a stone for drying, in front of the door at the post. Other pieces were said to have been hung up in the air for the same purpose, without fire or smoke, out in the field where the animals were killed. Apparently blowflies did not pay much attention to this meat. No considerable quant.i.ty seemed to be preserved locally in this way. Three Caribou-eater Chipewyans from the south end of Nueltin Lake, who visited our camp in late October, were carrying dried meat with them as travel rations and eating it without cooking.
The larvae of the warble fly (_Oedemagena tarandi_), found beneath the skin of the Caribou, are relished by the Eskimos, being eaten apparently while alive and raw. The Eskimo boy of our camp continued this practice after his little sister had given it up. Hearne (1795: 197) reported the Indians as eating the warbles in his day.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 9. A band of Caribou swimming across Little River at its mouth and landing on the western sh.o.r.e. Toward the left, a doe standing broadside and enveloped in a cloud of spray being shaken off. August 28, 1947. (From a 16-mm. motion picture.)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 10. Two Caribou bucks standing in the edge of Little River at its mouth after swimming across. August 28, 1947.
(From a 16-mm. motion picture.)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 11. A one-horned doe, a hornless doe, a fawn, and a two-horned doe among a band of Caribou approaching the camera within a rod after swimming across Little River. August 28, 1947. (From a 16-mm. motion picture.)]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 12. A band of Caribou (chiefly big bucks) swimming across Little River at its mouth. August 28, 1947.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 13. Camp Slough, with trails showing the recent pa.s.sage of Caribou through the sedge growth (predominantly _Carex chordorrhiza_). Black spruce in the foreground and distance. August 29, 1947.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 14. A Caribou _Elysium_: a hornless doe approaching within 15 feet of the photographer at the mouth of Little River. August 30, 1947.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 15. Anoteelik in caribou-skin clothing, holding a caribou spear. A buck on the skyline. Mouth of Windy River, September 7, 1947.]
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