The treaty, says Dr. Kane, was not solemnized by an oath; but it was never broken.
The Eskimo settlement at Anatoak, lat. 73° N, on the shore of Smith Strait, near Cape Inglefield, seems to merit description.
The hut or igloë was a single rude elliptical apartment, built not unskilfully of stone, the outside lined with sods. At its further end, a rude platform, also of stone, was raised about a foot above the entering floor. The roof was irregularly curved. It was composed of flat stones, remarkably large and heavy, arranged so as to overlap each other, but apparently without any intelligent application of the principle of the arch. The height of this cave-like abode barely permitted one to sit upright. Its length was eight feet, its breadth seven feet, and an expansion of the tunnelled entrance made an appendage of perhaps two feet more.
The true winter-entrance is called the tossut. It is a walled tunnel, ten feet long, and so narrow that a man can hardly crawl along it. It opens outside below the level of the igloë, into which it leads by a gradual ascent.
Thus the reader will see that the hut at Anatoak was constructed on the same principles as the huts discovered by Dr. Scoresby.
Time had done its work, says Dr. Kane, on the igloë of Anatoak, as among the palatial structures of more southern deserts. The entire front of the dome had fallen in, closing up the tossut, or tunnel, and forcing visitors and residents to enter at the solitary window above it. The breach was wide enough to admit a sledge-team; but the Eskimos showed no anxiety to close it up. Their clothes saturated with the freezing water of the floes, these men of iron gathered round a fire of hissing and flaring whale’s blubber, and steamed away in apparent comfort. The only departure from their usual routine was suggested probably by the open roof and the bleakness of the night; and therefore they refrained from stripping themselves naked before coming into the hut, and hanging up their dripping vestments to dry, like a votive offering to the god of the sea.
Their kitchen implements were remarkable for simplicity. “A rude saucer-shaped cup of seal-skin, to gather and hold water in, was the solitary utensil that could be dignified as table-furniture. A flat stone, a fixture of the hut, supported by other stones just above the shoulder-blade of a walrus,—the stone slightly inclined, the cavity of the bone large enough to hold a moss-wick and some blubber; a square block of snow was placed on the stone, and, as the hot smoke circled round it, the seal-skin saucer caught the water that dripped from the edge. They had no vessel for boiling; what they did not eat raw they baked upon a hot stone. A solitary coil of walrus-line, fastened to a movable lance-head (noon-ghak), with the well-worn and well-soaked clothes on their backs, completed the inventory of their effects.”
The Eskimos entertained Dr. Kane and his companions with a choral performance, singing their rude, monotonous song of “Amna Ayah” till the unfortunate white men were almost maddened by the discord. They improvised, moreover, a special chant in their honour, which they repeated with great gravity of utterance, invariably concluding with the sonorous and complimentary refrain of “Nalegak! nalegak! nalegak-soak!”—“Captain! captain! great captain!” The chant ran as follows:—
Am-na-yah! Am-na-yah! Am-na-yah! Am-na-yah!