The Central Eskimo Part 16

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 522. Figures used in playing tingmiujang, a game similar to dice. (Museum fur Volkerkunde, Berlin. IV A 6823.) 1/1]

A game similar to dice, called tingmiujang, i.e., images of birds, is frequently played. A set of about fifteen figures like those represented in Fig. 522 belong to this game, some representing birds, others men or women. The players sit around a board or a piece of leather and the figures are shaken in the hand and thrown upward. On falling, some stand upright, others lie flat on the back or on the side. Those standing upright belong to that player whom they face; sometimes they are so thrown that they all belong to the one who tossed them up. The players throw by turns until the last figure is taken up, the one getting the greatest number of the figures being the winner.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 523. Game of nuglutang. (Museum fur Volkerkunde, Berlin. IV A 6821.)]

A favorite game is the nuglutang (Fig. 523). A small, rhomboidal plate of ivory with a hole in the center is hung from the roof and steadied by a heavy stone or a piece of ivory hanging from its lower end. The Eskimo stand around it and when the winner of the last game gives a signal every one tries to hit the hole with a stick. The one who succeeds has won. This game is always played amid great excitement.

The saketan resembles a roulette. A leather cup with a rounded bottom and a nozzle is placed on a board and turned round. When it stops the nozzle points to the winner. At present a tin cup fastened with a nail to a board is used for the same purpose (Fig. 524).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 524. The saketan or roulette. (Museum fur Volkerkunde, Berlin. IV A 6854.)]

Their way of managing the gain and loss is very curious. The first winner in the game must go to his hut and fetch anything he likes as a stake for the next winner, who in turn receives it, but has to bring a new stake, in place of this, from his hut. Thus the only one who loses anything is the first winner of the game, while the only one who wins anything is the last winner.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 525. The ajarorpoq or cat's cradle. _a_ representing deer; _b_, hare; _c_, hill and ponds.]

The women are particularly fond of making figures out of a loop, a game similar to our cat's cradle (ajarorpoq). They are, however, much more clever than we in handling the thong and have a great variety of forms, some of which are represented in Fig. 525.

As an example I shall describe the method of making the device representing a deer (Fig. 525 _a_): Wind the loop over both hands, pa.s.sing it over the back of the thumbs inside the palms and outside the fourth fingers. Take the string from the palm of the right hand with the first finger of the left and vice versa. The first finger of the right hand moves over all the parts of the thong lying on the first and fourth fingers of the right hand and pa.s.ses through the loop formed by the thongs on the thumb of the right hand; then it moves back over the foremost thong and takes it up, while the thumb lets go the loop. The first finger moves downward before the thongs lying on the fourth finger and comes up in front of all the thongs. The thumb is placed into the loops hanging on the first finger and the loop hanging on the first finger of the left hand is drawn through both and hung again over the same finger. The thumb and first finger of the right and the thumb of the left hand let go their loops. The whole is then drawn tight. A few other devices from Hudson Bay are represented by Klutschak (p. 139).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 526. Ball. (Museum fur Volkerkunde, Berlin. IV A 6822.)]

The ball (Fig. 526) is most frequently used in summer. It is made of sealskin stuffed with moss and neatly trimmed with skin straps. One man throws the ball among the players, whose object it is to keep it always in motion without allowing it to touch the ground. Another game of ball I have seen played by men only. A leather ball filled with hard clay is propelled with a whip, the lash of which is tied up in a coil. Every man has his whip and is to hit the ball and so prevent his fellow players from getting at it.

A third game at ball called igdlukitaqtung is played with small b.a.l.l.s tossed up alternately from the right to the left, one always being in the air. Songs used in the game will be found in the last pages of this paper.

An amus.e.m.e.nt of women and children is to point successively on the forehead, the cheek, and the chin and to p.r.o.nounce as rapidly as possible sulubauti?u'tika, tudli?u'tika, tadli?u'tika, tudli?u'tika, i.e., the forehead, the cheek, the chin, the cheek.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 527. Dolls in dress of the Oqomiut. (Museum fur Volkerkunde, Berlin. IV A 6702.) 1/1]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 528. Dolls in dress of the Akudnirmiut. (Museum fur Volkerkunde, Berlin. IV A 6702.) 1/1]

Young children play with toy sledges, kayaks, boats, bows and arrows, and dolls. The last are made in the same way by all the tribes, a wooden body being clothed with sc.r.a.ps of deerskin cut in the same way as the clothing of men. Fig. 527 shows dolls in the dress of the Oqomiut; Fig.

528, in that of the Akudnirmiut.

In summer children and grown up people exercise by sitting down on their knees in a large circle and simultaneously jumping up and down, by kneeling and holding their toes in their hands and trying to outdo one another in running in this position, &c.

A favorite amus.e.m.e.nt during the long winter nights is telling tales and composing songs. Old traditions are always related in a highly ceremonious manner. The narrator takes off his outer jacket, pulls the hood over his head, and sits down in the rear part of the hut, turning his face toward the wall, and then tells the story slowly and solemnly.

All the stories are related in a very abridged form, the substance being supposed to be known. The form is always the same, and should the narrator happen to say one word otherwise than is customary he will be corrected by the listeners.

Children tell one another fables and sing short songs. Comic songs making fun of any person are great favorites. Details on the poetry and music of the Eskimo will be found further on.

Parry's description of the games and sports practiced by the Iglulirmiut is so interesting that I insert it here (II, p. 538):

On an occasion when most of the men were absent from the huts on a sealing excursion, the women joined in playing, one of them being the chief performer. Being requested to amuse the rest, she suddenly unbound her hair, platted it, tied both ends together to keep it out of her way, and then stepping out into the middle of the hut, began to make the most hideous faces that can be conceived, by drawing both lips into her mouth, poking forward her chin, squinting frightfully, occasionally shutting one eye, and moving her head from side to side as if her neck had been dislocated. This exhibition, which they call ajokitarpoq, and which is evidently considered an accomplishment that few of them possess in perfection, distorts every feature in the most horrible manner imaginable, and would, I think, put our most skillful horse-collar grinners quite out of countenance.

This performance is identical with one described later (p. 578) as practiced during the meals in summer.

The next performance consists in looking steadfastly and gravely forward and repeating the words taba'-taba'; kjaibo, kjaibo; kebang inutovik, kebang inutovik; amatama, amatama, in the order in which they are here placed, but each at least four times, and always by a peculiar modulation of the voice speaking them in pairs as they are coupled above. The sound is made to proceed from the throat in a way much resembling ventriloquism, to which art it is indeed an approach. After the last amatama she always pointed with her finger toward her body, and p.r.o.nounced the word angakoq, steadily retaining her gravity for five or six seconds, and then bursting into a loud laugh, in which she was joined by all the rest. The women sometimes produce a much more guttural and unnatural sound, repeating princ.i.p.ally the word ikeri-ikeri, coupling them as before, and staring in such a manner as to make their eyes appear ready to burst out of their sockets with the exertion. Two or more of them will sometimes stand up face to face, and with great quickness and regularity respond to each other, keeping such exact time that the sound appears to come from one throat instead of several. Very few of the females are possessed of this accomplishment, which is called pitkusiraqpoq, and it is not uncommon to see several of the younger females practising it. A third part of the game, distinguished by the word kaitikpoq, consists only in falling on each knee alternately, a piece of agility which they perform with tolerable quickness, considering the bulky and awkward nature of their dress. * * *

Then the same woman came forward, and letting her arms hang down loosely and bending her body very much forward, shook herself with extreme violence, as if her whole frame had been strongly convulsed, uttering at the same time, in a wild tone of voice, some of the unnatural sounds before mentioned.

This being at an end, a new exhibition was commenced in which ten or twelve women took a part, and which our gentlemen compared to blind man's buff. A circle being formed, and a boy dispatched to look out at the door of the hut, a woman placed herself in the center, and, after making a variety of guttural noises for about half a minute, shut her eyes, and ran about till she had taken hold of one of the others, whose business it then became to take her station in the center, so that almost every woman in her turn occupied this post, and in her own peculiar way, either by distortion of countenance or other gestures, performed her part in the game. This continued three-quarters of an hour, and, from the precaution of placing a lookout who was withdrawn when it was over, as well as from some very expressive signs which need not here be mentioned, there is reason to believe that it is usually followed by certain indecencies, with which their husbands are not to be acquainted. * * *

The most common amus.e.m.e.nt however, and to which their husbands made no objection, they performed at Winter Island expressly for our gratification. The females, being collected to the number of ten or twelve, stood in as large a circle as the hut would admit, with a man in the center. He began by a sort of half howling, half singing noise, which appeared as if designed to call the attention of the women, the latter soon commencing the Amna Aya song. This they continued without variety, remaining quite still while the man walked round within the circle; his body was rather bent forward, his eyes sometimes closed, his arms constantly moving up and down, and now and then hoa.r.s.ely vociferating a word or two as if to increase the animation of the singers, who, whenever he did this, quitted the chorus and rose into the words of the song. At the end of ten minutes they all left off at once, and after one minute's interval commenced a second act precisely similar and of equal duration, the man continuing to invoke their muse as before.

A third act which followed this, varied frequently towards the close only in his throwing his feet up before and clapping his hands together, by which exertion he was thrown into a violent perspiration. He then retired, desiring a young man (who as we were informed was the only individual of several then present thus qualified) to take his place in the center as master of the ceremonies, when the same antics as before were again gone through. After this description it will scarcely be necessary to remark that nothing can be poorer in its way than this tedious singing recreation, which, as well as in everything in which dancing is concerned, they express by the word mumipoq. They seem, however, to take great delight in it; and even a number of the men as well as all the children crept into the hut by degrees to peep at the performance.

The Eskimo women and children often amuse themselves with a game not unlike our "skip-rope." This is performed by two women holding the ends of a line and whirling it regularly round and round, while a third jumps over it in the middle according to the following order. She commences by jumping twice on both feet, then alternately with the right and left, and next four times with the feet slipped one behind the other, the rope pa.s.sing once round at each jump. After this she performs a circle on the ground, jumping about half a dozen times in the course of it, which bringing her to her original position, the same thing is repeated as often as it can be done without entangling the line. One or two of the women performed this with considerable agility and adroitness, considering the clumsiness of their boots and jackets, and seemed to pride themselves in some degree on the qualification. A second kind of this game consists in two women holding a long rope by its ends and whirling it round in such a manner over the heads of two others standing close together near the middle of the bight, that each of these shall jump over it alternately. The art therefore, which is indeed considerable, depends more on those whirling the rope than on the jumpers, who are, however, obliged to keep exact time in order to be ready for the rope pa.s.sing under their feet.

Of all these games I observed only the one called pitkusiraqpoq by Parry, which I saw played several times at c.u.mberland Sound. (See Appendix, Note 3.)

While in times of plenty the home life is quite cheerful, the house presents a sad and gloomy appearance if stormy weather prevents the men from hunting. The stores are quickly consumed, one lamp after another is extinguished, and everybody sits motionless in the dark hut.

Nevertheless the women and men do not stop humming their monotonous amna aya and their stoicism in enduring the pangs of hunger is really wonderful. At last, when starvation is menacing the sufferers, the most daring of the men resolves to try his luck. Though the storm may rage over the icy plain he sets out to go sealing. For hours he braves the cold and stands waiting and watching at the breathing hole until he hears the blowing of the seal and succeeds in killing it.

When those who have remained at home hear the sound of the returning sledge, they rush out of the houses to meet it. Quickly they help the bold hunter to get on sh.o.r.e. The sledge is unloaded, the seal dragged into the house, and every one joyfully awaits his share. The animal is cut up, every household receiving a piece of meat and blubber. The gloomy huts are again lighted up and the pots, which had been out of use for some days, are again hung up over the lamps.

If the hunter, however, has tried in vain to procure food, if the storm does not subside, the terrors of famine visit the settlement. The dogs are the first to fall victims to the pressing hunger, and if the worst comes cannibalism is resorted to. But all these occurrences are spoken of with the utmost horror. In such cases children particularly are killed and eaten. Fortunately, however, such occurrences are very rare.

VISITING.

As soon as the ice has consolidated in winter a lively intercourse springs up between the settlements. Friends visit one another, trading excursions are undertaken, and almost every few days visitors arrive at the village. They are welcomed with great hospitality. The sledge is unloaded and the dogs are fed by the host. The visitor is led into the hut, served with the choicest pieces of meat, and the hostess puts his clothing in order. In the winter these visits are generally short, rarely lasting more than a few days.

Longer journeys are postponed until spring, when food can be procured more easily. These journeys are planned a long time before they are made. While the families generally leave what they can spare of their household goods in winter at their summer settlement, they bring away everything they possess to the winter village if they intend to visit a neighboring tribe in the spring. In April or May they leave their snow houses; the tent poles and the whole of their goods are loaded upon the sledge, only the boats being left behind in charge of some friend, and then they start upon their long, lonely journey. On the first day they do not travel far, but make the first halt after about a twelve-mile journey. As the load is heavy the men and women sit on the top of the sledges only to rest. The driver walks alongside and the women lead the way, the dogs pulling more willingly if they see somebody ahead of the sledge. At night it is not unloaded, only those things being taken out which are necessary for building a small tent and for cooking. In order to protect the sledge from the attacks of the dogs, the pitu (see p.

530) is taken out and fastened to an eye cut into the ice with the end of the spear. After having traveled about three days a longer halt is made; the sledge is unloaded, the dogs are unharnessed, and the men go out hunting in order to procure food for the dogs and for themselves.

Thus they slowly proceed until they at last reach the end of their journey. Here they settle down with the friends whom they have come to visit, establish a hut of their own, and spend a whole year with them.

In the following spring they retrace their journey to their own homes.

Journeys of four to five hundred miles in one spring are not of rare occurrence; longer journeys, however, frequently last for years.

A journey of two hundred miles, going and coming, is sometimes accomplished in one season. For such a journey they would set out in March or April, leaving all their goods behind, and live with the friends whom they visit for a month or two, returning about June. While on the visit the visitors help their friends to provide for their families.

In traveling in the spring the Eskimo always use snow goggles to protect themselves from snow blindness. The modern ones (Fig. 529), which are made of wood and have a shade and a narrow slit for each eye, are very effective. The old design is represented in Fig. 530, the specimen being made of ivory.

Long journeys are sometimes made in summer, several families traveling together in their boats. As, however, the open season is very short in many parts of Northeastern America, spring journeys are more frequently made.

When traveling by boat the tent poles, skin covers, and all the household goods are stowed away in the bottom. The women do the pulling, three or four working at each oar, while a man sits on the stern board steering with a paddle. They move on at their leisure, stopping whenever they are tired or when a seal is seen blowing near the boat. The kayaks are tied to the stern and towed along. Children and dogs lie about in the bottom of the boat. In the center there is a tub containing all kinds of provisions, and every now and then they take some refreshment from it. During the nights the tents are erected at suitable points. The natives are well acquainted with these, and, if they are not compelled by severe weather to seek shelter at the nearest point, always visit the same places. These have a smooth, sloping beach, fresh water, and dry, gravelly places in which the tents are built.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 529. Modern snow goggles, of wood. (National Museum, Washington. 29978.) ]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 530. Old form of snow goggles, of ivory, found in Idjorituaqtuin, c.u.mberland Sound. (Museum fur Volkerkunde, Berlin. IV A 6833.)]

SOCIAL CUSTOMS IN SUMMER.

When the rays of the sun begin to be warmer and the roofs of the snow houses tumble down the natives live in a very uncomfortable way until a sufficient number of sealskins are procured to build a tent. Sometimes a family live under a roof too small to cover them all, though they sit as close as possible, and too low to permit them to sit upright; but, as seals are basking everywhere on the ice, this state of affairs does not last long. The women split a number of large skins and dry them on the snow, and by the middle of May they can build a pretty large tent; but it is not until they settle permanently at the place of the summer village that the large tent is sewed and put up.

At this season salmon and venison form the staple food of the Eskimo.

The old men, women, and children, who stay at the lakes or at the salmon rivers, depend almost entirely upon this food. They fish and eat the salmon in a raw as well as in a cooked state. Birds are caught and eaten raw. The surplus salmon are split and dried on poles erected for the purpose. Deer shoulders, legs, and backs are also cut into thin pieces and dried. Sometimes the dried fish and venison are deposited in stone caches for later use, but most of it is eaten in summer, especially when the Eskimo go traveling. When the men go deer hunting they take a supply of dried salmon with them, and thus can stay out for a week or even longer. When a deer is killed it is skinned at once, the legs being slit and the belly opened. The paunch is carefully tied up, as the contents are a favorite dish of the Eskimo. The head, the legs, and the ribs are cut off and after being piled up the whole is covered with heavy stones, only the horns protruding from the top of the depot. The hams and the skin are generally carried to the hut at once, and, if the distance is not too great or the carca.s.s can be reached with sledges or boats, the whole animal is brought home. Large depots are only made in the fall, when there is no danger of the meat spoiling.