In the early spring the Eskimos resume their hunting expeditions, and their snow-covered huts are transformed into scenes of the liveliest activity. Stacks of jointed meat, chiefly walrus, are piled upon the ice-foot; the women stretch the hide for sole-leather, and the men collect a store of harpoon-lines for the winter. Tusky walrus heads stare at the spectacle from the snowbank, where they are stowed for their ivory; the dogs are tethered to the ice; and the children, each one armed with the curved rib of some big walrus or seal, play ball and bat among the snow-drifts.
The quantity of walrus meat which the Eskimos accumulate during a season of plenty should certainly raise them above all risk of winter want; but other causes than improvidence render their supplies scanty. They are never idle; they hunt incessantly without the loss of a day. When the storms prevent the use of the sledge, they occupy themselves in stowing away the spoils of previous hunts. For this purpose they dig a pit either on the mainland, or, which is preferred, on an island inaccessible to foxes, and the jointed meat is stacked inside, and covered with heavy stones.
The true explanation of the scarcity from which these people so frequently suffer is the excessive consumption in which they indulge during the summer season. By their ancient laws all share in common; and since they migrate in numbers when their necessities press them, the tax on each separate settlement is excessive. The quantity which the members of a family consume seems excessive to a stranger; yet it is not the result of inconsiderate gluttony, but due to their peculiarities of life and organization. In active exercise, and under the influence of exposure to a severe temperature, the waste of carbon must be enormous.
When in-doors, and at rest, engaged upon their ivory harness-rings, fowl-nets, or other household gear, they eat, as many eat in more civilized lands, for mere animal enjoyment, and to pass away the time. But when engaged in the chase, they take but one meal a day, and that not until the day’s labour is ended. They go out upon the ice without breakfast, and seldom eat anything until their return. Dr. Kane estimates the average ration of an Eskimo in a season of plenty at eight to ten pounds of meat a day, with soup and water to the extent of half a gallon. Such an allowance might almost have satisfied the appetite of Gargantua!
Dr. Hayes, in the course of his adventurous Arctic boat-journey, held much intercourse with the Eskimos, and his impressions, on the whole, would seem to have been highly favourable.
His sketch of a couple whom he met in the neighbourhood of the Eskimo colony of Netlik is very amusing.
He describes them as a most unhuman-looking pair. Everything on and about them told of the battle they fought so gallantly and patiently with the elements. From head to foot they were invested in a coat of ice and snow. Shapeless lumps of whiteness, they resembled the snow-kings or statues which boys delight in making, except that they possessed the faculty of motion. Their long, heavy fox-skin coats, reaching nearly to the knees, and surmounted by a hood, covering, like a round lump, all of the head but the face, the bear-skin pantaloons and boots and mittens were saturated with snow. Their long, black hair, which fell from beneath their hoods over their eyes and cheeks, their eyelashes, the few hairs growing upon their chins, the rim of fur around their faces, all glittered with white frost—the frozen moisture of their breath. Each carried in his right hand a whip, and in his left a lump of frozen meat and blubber. The meat they flung down on the floor of Dr. Hayes’ hut; then, without pausing for an invitation, they thrust their whipstocks under the rafters, and divesting themselves of their mittens and outer garments, hung them thereon. Underneath their frosty coats they wore a warm, close shirt of bird-skins.
In the same bold explorer’s narrative of his voyage of discovery in 1860, two other Eskimos figure very conspicuously; and one of these, named Hans, would seem to have been a very fair type of the Eskimo character. Hans, we may observe, had originally served in Dr. Kane’s expedition, and had then gained the confidence of Dr. Hayes; so that when the latter undertook his own memorable voyage, he became anxious to secure the Eskimo’s services.