The harpoons and lances used in killing whales or seals have long shafts of wood or of the narwhal’s tooth, and the barbed point is so constructed that, when the blow takes effect, it is left sticking in the body of the animal, while the shaft attached to it by a string is disengaged from the socket, and becomes a buoy of wood. Seal-skins, blown up like bladders, are likewise used as buoys for the whale-spears, being adroitly stripped from the animal so that all the natural apertures are easily made air-tight.
With equal industry and skill the Esquimaux put to use almost every part of the land and marine animals which they chase. Knives, spear-points, and fish-hooks are made of the horns and bones of the deer. The ribs of the whale are used in roofing huts or in the construction of sledges, where drift-timber is scarce. Strong cord is made from strips of seal-skin hide, and the sinews of musk-oxen and deer furnish bow-strings, or cord to make nets or snares. In default of drift-wood, the bones of the whale are employed for the construction of their sledges, in pieces fitted to each other with neatness, and firmly sewed together.
During the long confinement to their huts or “igloos” in the dark winter months, the men execute some very fair figures in bone, and in walrus or fossil ivory, besides making fish-hooks, knife-handles, and other instruments neatly of these materials, or of metal or wood.
Thus in all these respects the Esquimaux are as superior to the Red Indians as they are in strength and personal courage; and yet no Norwegian can more utterly despise the filthy Lapp, and no orthodox Mussulman look down with greater contempt upon a “giaour,” than the Loucheux or Cheppewayan upon the Esquimaux, who in his eyes is no better than a brute, and whom he approaches only to kill.
In his “Voyage to the Coppermine River” Hearne relates a dreadful instance of this bloodthirsty hatred. The Indians who accompanied him having heard that some Esquimaux had erected their summer huts near the mouth of that river, were at once seized with a tiger-like fury. Hearne, the only European of the party, had not the power to restrain them, and he might as well have attempted to touch the heart of an ice-bear as to move the murderous band to pity. As craftily and noiselessly as serpents they drew nigh, and, when the midnight sun verged on the horizon, with a dreadful yell they burst on the huts of their unsuspecting victims. Not one of them escaped, and the monsters delighted to prolong the misery of their death-struggle by repeated wounds. An old woman had both her eyes torn out before she received the mortal blow. A young girl fled to Hearne for protection, who used every effort to save her, but in vain. In 1821 some human skulls lying on the spot still bore testimony to this cruel slaughter, and the name of the “Bloody Falls,” given by Hearne to the scene of the massacre, will convey its memory to distant ages. No wonder that the hate of the Esquimaux is no less intense, and that they also pursue the Indians, wherever they can, with their spears and arrows, like wild beasts.
“Year after year,” says Sir John Richardson, “sees the Esquimaux on the Polar coast of America occupied in a uniform circle of pursuits. When the rivers open in spring, they proceed to the rapids and falls to spear the salmon, which at that season come swimming stream upward. At the same time, or earlier in more southern localities, they hunt the reindeer, which drop their young on the coasts and islands while the snow is only partially melted. Where the open country affords the huntsman no opportunity of approaching his game unperceived, deep pits are dug in the snowy ravines, and superficially covered with snow-tablets. The wind soon effaces the traces of the human hand, and thus many reindeer are snared.”
In summer the reindeer are killed partly by driving them from islands or narrow necks of land into the sea, and then spearing them from their kayaks, and partly by shooting them from behind heaps of stones raised for the purpose of watching them, and imitating their peculiar bellow or grunt. Among the various artifices which they employ for this purpose, one of the most ingenious consists in two men walking directly from the deer they wish to kill, when the animal almost always follows them. As soon as they arrive at a large stone, one of the men hides behind it with his bow, while the other, continuing to walk on, soon leads the deer within range of his companion’s arrows.
The multitudes of swans, ducks, and geese resorting to the morasses of the northern coasts to breed, likewise aid in supplying the Esquimaux with food during their short but busy summer of two months. For their destruction a very ingenious instrument has been invented. Six or eight small balls made of walrus-tooth and pierced in the middle are separately attached to as many thongs of animal sinew, which are tied together at the opposite end. When cast into the air the diverging balls describe circles—like the spokes of a wheel—and woe to the unfortunate bird that comes within their reach.
On the coasts frequented by whales, the month of August is devoted to the pursuit of these animals; a successful chase insuring a comfortable winter to a whole community. Their capture requires an association of labor; hence along the coasts of the Polar Sea the Esquimaux unite their huts into villages, for whose site a bold point of coast is generally chosen, where the water is deep enough to float a whale.
When one of these huge creatures is seen lying on the water, a dozen kayaks or more cautiously paddle up astern of him, till a single canoe, preceding the rest, comes close to him on one quarter, so as to enable the men to drive the spear into the animal with all the force of both arms. This spear has a long line of thong and an inflated seal-skin attached to it. The stricken whale immediately dives; but when he re-appears after some time, all the canoes again paddle towards him, some warning being given by the seal-skin buoy floating on the surface. Each man being furnished like the first, they repeat the blow as often as they find an opportunity, till perhaps every line has been thus employed. After chasing him in this manner sometimes for half a day, he is at length so wearied by the resistance of the buoys and exhausted by loss of blood as to be obliged to rise more and more often to the surface, and is finally killed and towed ashore.