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.
Only a small proportion of the hides of the locally killed Caribou are preserved. A hide that would fetch only a dollar at Reindeer Lake would not be worth transporting more than 250 miles from Nueltin Lake. Hearne long ago (1795: 84) remarked on the remoteness of the hunting grounds from the trading posts as a barrier to trade in the skins; and this condition prevails to a large extent to the present day. Thus only such hides as are required for domestic use are kept. Tanning, while done by the Eskimos of the upper Kazan, is not undertaken by the residents on Windy River. Here the task of drying the hides is left mainly to the children of the camp. Most of them are pegged out on the summit of a gravelly ridge, wooden pegs being driven with a rock through slits in the edges of the skin ([fig. 6]). Now and then one is nailed to the outer wall of a log cabin ([fig. 18]).
One of the main uses of the hides is for winter clothing. The Windy River residents have their garments made by Eskimo women of the upper Kazan, whose tanning process leaves the fur intact. Early autumn hides, with new, comparatively short fur, are the ones in demand. The season for securing such hides is said to extend to mid-September. At that season the larvae of the warble fly have not developed far enough to have injured the hide appreciably. The long winter fur is much less suitable for clothing. In moderately cold weather a single coat (attigi), with the fur inside ([fig. 16]), is worn by the Eskimos. This coat, when made for a man, extends very little farther downward at the rear than at the front; but a woman’s coat is considerably longer at the rear. The bottom is generally provided with a fringe consisting of small strips of caribou skin, perhaps 4 inches long and 1/16 inch wide. In mid-winter another coat, with the fur outside ([fig. 15]), is slipped on over the other. Both are provided with hoods. Trousers, with the fur outside, are cut rather short at the bottom; some such material as rope is passed around the waist, without belt loops, to hold the trousers up. Boots (komik) of tanned caribou skin ([fig. 16]), reaching nearly to the knees, with the fur inside, make exceptionally warm footgear in winter. An extra piece is sewed on the sole, with the fur outside, but the hairs soon wear off. The seams are sewed with sinew. Another sort of boot, for summer use, is made of untanned skin, without the fur, and is more or less waterproof. Mittens (pahloot) have the fur outside; the thumb piece, of a length suitable for a short Eskimo thumb, does not properly fit a white man.
In the autumn of 1947 the migrating Caribou did not reach the territory of the Chipewyans about the south end of Nueltin Lake till about November 1—by which time the fur had grown so long that it was not suitable for clothing. When I inquired of Charles Schweder how these natives managed under such circumstances, he replied that nowadays they use very little skin clothing—just manufactured clothing. Certainly the latter type was being worn by three men of this tribe that visited the Windy River post in late October. In this connection it is interesting to note that in November Charles brought to Windy River a bundle of fawn skins that he had secured from an Eskimo on the upper Kazan. Presently he traded them to a Cree halfbreed from the Putahow River, who was to have them made into a coat for himself. In years gone by the above-mentioned Chipewyans must have found some means of securing caribou skins for themselves in August or September; they could have accomplished this by moving to the northern part of Nueltin Lake, provided the animals had not reached the southern part at the proper season.
From Charles Schweder I learned that the Hudson’s Bay Company acquires caribou skins (apparently tanned) from the Duck Lake Chipewyans at about a dollar apiece, puts them up in bales of perhaps 10 to 20 skins, and ships them by steamer from Churchill to Baffin Island or thereabouts, for use by the Eskimos. He had seen about 25 or 30 such bales being loaded on a steamer in September, 1947. This trade evidently results from the present scarcity of Caribou on Baffin Island (cf. Manning, 1943a: 47-50; Soper, 1944: 247-250; Banfield, 1949: 481). Moccasins of caribou skin, made by the Duck Lake Chipewyans, were on sale at Churchill.
The three Caribou-eater Chipewyans from the south end of Nueltin Lake brought mittens, gloves, and moccasins of caribou skin to trade at Windy River. Similar gloves were brought by a Cree halfbreed from the Putahow River.
At the Windy River post furred caribou skins served in upholstering the seat, back, and arms of a couple of home-made chairs. They were used also as mattresses or blankets, in the making of sleeping bags, and even as insulating material on the outside of the cabin (Harper, 1949: 226, 228, figs.). The Schweder boys also maintain tents of caribou skin at various points on their long trap-lines; they are much warmer than canvas tents, and require no outlay of cash. The skins are nailed on poles arranged in tepee form; the height of such a tent is about 10 feet, and the diameter 9 or 10 feet. There is a home-made stove inside, with the smoke-pipe projecting outside about halfway to the top of the tent.
The Eskimos of the Kazan River have large summer tents of caribou skin, and smaller ones of canvas. The former are the ones in which the drum dances are held. These Eskimos never make their winter houses wholly of snow, according to Charles Schweder, but use caribou skins for the roof.
In illustration of the primary importance of the Caribou to both primitive and civilized man in the Arctic and the sub-Arctic, the numerous cases of partial or complete starvation in the absence of Caribou may be cited. The chronicles of northern explorers are replete with them. A notable case is that of John Hornby and his two companions on the Thelon River in the winter of 1926-27 (Hoare, 1930: 25; Christian, 1937). In the autumn of 1946 only a small fraction of the normal caribou migration passed by the Eskimo camps on the upper Kazan River. These happy-go-lucky, utterly improvident people did not take steps to secure an alternative winter’s supply of fish, and by the following spring eight out of the band of 27 persons had succumbed directly or indirectly to starvation. (It is suspected that several were accounted for by anthropophagy.) Women, children, and dogs were the victims; no adult male succumbed. The casualties would doubtless have been more numerous if Charles Schweder had not reported the plight of the band when he made a trip to Reindeer Lake in March. Thereupon the government shipped emergency rations by plane as far as Nueltin Lake, and Charles transported them from that point by sleigh to the Kazan. Meanwhile he rescued two of the orphan children, took them to the Windy River post, and in a few more months formally adopted them.