[Traps.]—
Foxes are caught in the winter by deadfalls or steel traps (nänori´a), set generally along the beach, where the foxes are wandering about in search of carrion thrown up by the sea. In setting the deadfalls a little house about 2 feet high is built, in which is placed the bait of meat or blubber. A heavy log of driftwood is placed across the entrance, with one end raised high enough to allow a fox to pass under it, and supported by a regular “figure of four” of sticks. The fox can not get at the bait without passing under the log, and in doing so he must touch the trigger of the “figure of four” (4), which brings down the log across his back. When a steel trap is used it is not baited itself, but buried in the snow at the entrance of a similar little house, so that the fox can not reach the bait without stepping on the plate of the trap and thus springing it. Many foxes are taken with such traps in the course of the winter.
The boys use a sort of snare for catching setting birds. This is simply a strip of whalebone made into a slip-noose, which is set over the eggs, with the end fastened to the ground, so that the bird is caught by the leg. Once or twice, when there was a light snow on the beach, we saw a native catching the large gulls as follows: He had a stick of hard wood, pointed at each end, to the middle of which was fastened one end of a stout string about 6 feet long. The other end was secured to a stake driven into the frozen gravel, and the stick wrapped with blubber and laid on the beach, with the string carefully hidden in the snow. The gull came along, swallowed the lump of blubber, and as soon as he tried to fly away the string made the sharp stick turn like a toggle across his gullet, the points forcing their way through, so that he was held fast. A similar contrivance, but somewhat smaller and made of bone, is used at Norton Sound for catching gulls and murres, a number of them being attached to a trawl line and baited with fish. Mr. Nelson collected a large number of these.[360] In regard to the use of this contrivance in Greenland, see above under “wolf-killers.”
[Snow-goggles.]—
The wooden goggles worn to protect the eyes from snow-blindness may be considered as accessories to hunting, as they are worn chiefly by those engaged in hunting or fishing, especially when deer-hunting in the spring on the snow-covered tundra or when in the whaleboats among the ice. They are simply a wooden cover for the eyes, admitting the light by a narrow horizontal slit, which allows only a small amount of light to reach the eye and at the same time gives sufficient range of vision. Such goggles are universally employed by the Eskimos everywhere[361] except in Siberia, where they use a simple shade for the eyes.[362]
We brought home four pairs of these goggles (í´dyĭgûñ), of which No. 89894 [1708], Fig. 259, represents the common form. These are of pine wood, 5.8 inches long and 1.1 inches broad, and deeply excavated on the inside, with a narrow horizontal slit with thin edges on each side of the middle. In the middle are two notches to fit the nose, the one in the lower edge deep and rounded, the upper very shallow. The two holes in each end are for strings of sinew braid to pass round the head. They are neatly made and the outside is scraped smooth and shows traces of a coat of red ocher.
Fig. 259.—Wooden snow goggles.
The history of this particular pair of goggles is peculiarly interesting. Though differing in no important respect from those used at the present day, they were found on the site of the ancient village of Isû´tkwa, where our station stood, buried at a depth of 27 feet in undisturbed frozen ground, and were uncovered in digging the shaft sunk by Lieut. Ray for obtaining earth temperatures.[363] The layer in which they were found was evidently an old sea beach, consisting of sand and gravel mixed with broken shells, among which Mya truncata was recognized. The amount of the superincumbent gravel and similar material above this object does not necessarily indicate any very great length of time since they were first buried, as will be readily understood from what I have said above ([p. 28]) about the rapidity with which high hummocks of gravel are pushed up by the ice. The unbroken layer of turf, however, nearly a foot thick, with which the ground was covered at this point, shows that a considerable period must have elapsed since the gravel had reached nearly to its present level.