[DOMESTIC OCCUPATIONS AND AMUSEMENTS.]
It is winter and the natives are established in their warm snow houses. At this time of the year it is necessary to make use of the short daylight and twilight for hunting. Long before the day begins to dawn the Eskimo prepares for hunting. He rouses his housemates; his wife supplies the lamp with a new wick and fresh blubber and the dim light which has been kept burning during the night quickly brightens up and warms the hut. While the woman is busy preparing breakfast the man fits up his sledge for hunting. He takes the snow block which closes the entrance of the dwelling room during the night out of the doorway and passes through the low passages. Within the passage the dogs are sleeping, tired by the fatigues of the day before. Though their long, heavy hair protects them from the severe cold of the Arctic winter, they like to seek shelter from the piercing winds in the entrance of the hut.
The sledge is iced, the harnesses are taken out of the storeroom by the door, and the dogs are harnessed to the sledge. Breakfast is now ready and after having taken a hearty meal of seal soup and frozen and cooked seal meat the hunter lashes the spear that stands outside of the hut upon the sledge, hangs the harpoon line, some toggles, and his knife over the antlers, and starts for the hunting ground. Here he waits patiently for the blowing seal, sometimes until late in the evening.
Meanwhile the women, who stay at home, are engaged in their domestic occupations, mending boots and making new clothing, or they visit one another, taking some work with them, or pass their time with games or in playing with the children. While sitting at their sewing and at the same time watching their lamps and cooking the meat, they incessantly hum their favorite tunes. About noon they cook their dinner and usually prepare at the same time the meal for the returning hunters. As soon as the first sledge is heard approaching, the pots, which have been pushed back during the afternoon, are placed over the fire, and when the hungry men enter the hut their dinner is ready. While hunting they usually open the seals caught early in the morning, to take out a piece of the flesh or liver, which they eat raw, for lunch. The cut is then temporarily fastened until the final dressing of the animal at home.
In the western regions particularly the hunters frequently visit the depots of venison made in the fall, and the return is always followed by a great feast.
After the hunters reach home they first unharness their dogs and unstring the traces, which are carefully arranged, coiled up, and put away in the storeroom. Then the sledge is unloaded and the spoils are dragged through the entrance into the hut. A religious custom commands the women to leave off working, and not until the seal is cut up are they allowed to resume their sewing and the preparing of skins. This custom is founded on the tradition that all kinds of sea animals have risen from the fingers of their supreme goddess, who must be propitiated after being offended by the murder of her offspring (see [p. 583]). The spear is stuck into the snow at the entrance of the house, the sledge is turned upside down, and the ice coating is removed from the runners. Then it is leaned against the wall of the house, and at last the hunter is ready to enter. He strips off his deerskin jacket and slips into his sealskin coat. The former is carefully cleaned of the adhering ice and snow with the snowbeater and put into the storeroom outside the house.
This done, the men are ready for their dinner, of which the women do not partake. In winter the staple food of the Eskimo is boiled seal and walrus meat, though in some parts of the western districts it is musk ox and venison, a rich and nourishing soup being obtained by cooking the meat. The natives are particularly fond of seal and walrus soup, which is made by mixing and boiling water, blood, and blubber with large pieces of meat.
The food is not always salted, but sometimes melted sea water ice, which contains a sufficient quantity of salt, is used for cooking. Liver is generally eaten raw and is considered a tidbit. I have seen the intestines eaten only when there was no meat.
