With the soup I served a cocktail made by Mr. Peary after a recipe of his own, and henceforth known by our little party as “Redcliffe House cocktail”; with the stew, two bottles of “Liebfrauenmilch”; and with the rest of the dinner, “Sauterne.” About five o’clock we heard the shouts of the boys, and on going out I saw them coming down the cliffs heavily laden with some bulky objects. I rushed in and reported the facts in the case to Mr. Peary, who immediately said, “They are bringing in a deer. Oh, I must get out!” So out he hobbled, and to the corner of the house, where he had a good view of the returning hunters. As soon as he saw them he said, “Get me my kodak. Quick!” and before the boys had recovered from their surprise at seeing Mr. Peary, whom they had left confined to his bed, standing on three legs at the corner of the house, the first hunting-party sent out from Redcliffe had been immortalized by the ever-present camera. The boys were jubilant over their success, and brought back appetites that did justice to the dinner which was now nearly ready. At six o’clock we all sat down at the rude table, constructed by the boys out of the rough boards left from the house, and just large enough to accommodate our party of seven. We had not yet had time to make chairs, so boxes were substituted, and we managed very nicely. We had no table-cloth, and all our dishes were of tin, yet a merrier party never sat down to a table anywhere. Three days afterward we repeated the feasting part of the day, with a variation in the bill of fare, in honor of the third anniversary of our marriage, and this time we sampled the venison, which we found so delicious that the boys were more eager than ever to lay in a stock for the winter.
The next day, August 12, Mr. Peary sent all the boys, except Matt, in one of our whale-boats, the “Faith,” to search Herbert and Northumberland Islands for an Eskimo settlement, and if possible to induce a family to move over and settle down near Redcliffe House. The man could show us the best hunting-grounds, and assist in bagging all kinds of game, while the woman could attend to making our skin boots, or kamiks, and keeping them in order. They were also instructed to visit the loomeries, as the breeding places of the birds are called, and bring back as many birds as possible.
During their absence Matt was at work on our protection wall of stone and turf around Redcliffe, and Mr. Peary busied himself as best he could in making observations for time, taking photographs, and pressing flowers and other botanical specimens which I gathered for him. He even ventured part of the way up the cliffs at the back of the house, but this was slow and laborious work. The ground was so soft that his crutches would sink into it sometimes as much as two feet. The weather continued bright and balmy, and I did not feel the necessity of even a light wrap while rambling over the hills. What I did long for was an old-fashioned sunbonnet made of some bright-colored calico, and stiffened with strips of pasteboard, for the sun was burning my face and neck very badly. The boys returned at the end of a week, bringing with them a native man named Ikwa; his wife, Mané; and two children, both little girls—Anadore, aged two years and six months, and a baby of six months, whom we called Noyah (short for Nowyahrtlik).
CHAPTER IV
HUNTS AND EXPLORATIONS
Ikwa and his Family—Present of a Mirror—August Walrus Hunt—Preparations for Sending out the Depot Party—Departure for Head of McCormick Bay—First Herd of Reindeer—Exciting Experiences in Tooktoo Valley—Packing the Things up the Bluffs—The Inland Ice Party Off—Return to Redcliffe—A Foretaste of Winter.
These Eskimos were the queerest, dirtiest-looking individuals I had ever seen. Clad entirely in furs, they reminded me more of monkeys than of human beings. Ikwa, the man, was about five feet two or three inches in height, round as a dumpling, with a large, smooth, fat face, in which two little black eyes, a flat nose, and a large expansive mouth were almost lost. His coarse black hair was allowed to straggle in tangles over his face, ears, and neck, to his shoulders, without any attempt at arrangement or order. His body was covered with a garment made of birdskins, called by the natives “ahtee,” the feathers worn next the body, and outside of this a garment made of sealskin with the fur on the outside, called “netcheh.” These garments, patterned exactly alike, were made to fit to the figure, cut short at the hips, and coming to a point back and front; a close-fitting hood was sewed to the neck of each garment, and invariably pulled over his head when he was out of doors. His legs were covered with sealskin trousers, or “nanookies,” reaching just below the knee, where they were met by the tanned sealskin boots, called by the natives “kamiks.” We learned later that sealskin trousers were worn only by those men who were not fortunate enough or able to kill a bear. In winter these men wear dogskin trousers, which are as warm as those made of bearskin, but not nearly so stylish. Winter and summer the men wear stockings reaching to the knee, made of the fur of the Arctic hare.
Mané and Anadore
At first I thought the woman’s dress was identical with that of the man, and it puzzled me to tell one from the other; but in a day or two I had made out the many little differences in the costumes. The woman, like the man, wore the ahtee and netcheh made respectively of the birdskins and sealskin. They differed in pattern from those of the man only in the back, where an extra width is sewed in, which forms a pouch extending the entire length of the back of the wearer, and fitting tight around the hips. In this pouch or hood the baby is carried: its little body, covered only by a shirt reaching to the waist, made of the skin of a young blue fox, is placed against the bare back of the mother; and the head, covered by a tight-fitting skull-cap made of sealskin, is allowed to rest against the mother’s shoulder. In this way the Eskimo child is carried constantly, whether awake or asleep, and without clothing except the shirt and cap, until it can walk, which is usually at the age of two years; then it is clothed in skins, exactly as the father if it is a boy, or like the mother if a girl, and allowed to toddle about. If it is the youngest member of the family, after it has learned to walk it still takes its place in the mother’s hood whenever it is sleepy or tired, just as American mothers pick up their little toddlers and rock them.
The woman’s trousers, or nanookies, are made of foxskin, and are hardly anything more than “trunks”; these are met by the long-legged boots, or kamiks, made of tanned sealskin, and the long stockings, or “allahsy,” of reindeer fur. Altogether this family appeared fully as strange to us as we did to them. They had never before seen woven material, and could not seem to understand the texture, insisting that it was the skin of some animal in America.