M’gipsu Sewing.
We have been busy working on the fur outfits. I have succeeded in getting satisfactory patterns for Mr. Peary; Mané and M’gipsu are sewing. The former is a poor sewer, but M’gipsu is very neat as well as rapid, and I have suggested to Mr. Peary that he offer her an inducement if she will stay and sew until all the garments are completed. She understands us and we understand her better than any of the other natives, including Ikwa and Mané, although they have been with us fully ten weeks longer. I hope it is not a case of new broom, and that she will wear well. The little girl Tookymingwah, whom we all call “Tooky,” is a neat little seamstress, but is not very rapid. A few days ago her mother, named Klayuh, but always called by us the “Widow,” arrived with her two younger daughters, the youngest about five years old. I asked her if she had only the three children, and she burst into tears and left the house without answering me. Turning to M’gipsu, I asked her what it meant, and she said it was “peuk nahmee” (not well) for me to ask Klayuh about other children. When I insisted upon knowing why, she took me aside and whispered that Klayuh had just killed her youngest child, about two years of age, by strangling it. She went on to explain that it was perfectly right for Klayuh to do this, as the father of the child had been killed, and she could not support the children herself, and no man would take her as a wife so long as she had a child small enough to be carried in the hood. I asked her if this was always done, and she said: “Oh, yes, the women are compelled to do it.”
Mr. Peary has spoken to M’gipsu about staying at Redcliffe as seamstress, and she is delighted at the opportunity. When Ikwa heard of this arrangement he rushed in and wanted to know why he was “no good” for Peary, and why Mané could not do the sewing, and said that if Peary preferred Annowkah and M’gipsu he would pull down his igloo and take his family back to Keati. It was some little time before we could quiet him and make him understand that we needed more than one woman to sew all of the clothing.
The last three days have been particularly busy ones for me, as Matt has been sick in bed with something like the grippe, and I have had the cooking to do in addition to the sewing. The poor fellow has had an uncomfortable time, but the doctor says he will be all right in a day or two.
Our house looks like a huge snow-drift from a little distance, so completely is it covered with snow. The whole village presents the appearance of a series of snow-mounds of various sizes. We have five snow-igloos inhabited by the natives, besides a storehouse, an experimental snow-house, and some dog-houses, all built of blocks of snow. Just at present we are getting quite a little amusement out of two young natives from Cape York, who express the same surprise at us and our mode of living as the country boy does the first time he comes to a city. They are dressed in new suits throughout,—kamiks, bearskin nanookies, foxskin kapetahs, and birdskin shirts,—and so the boys have nicknamed them the “Cape York dudes.” The younger one, Keshu, is a stepbrother of Klayuh, and he has brought her the sad tidings that their father is very sick and will probably never get well again. I should not be surprised if she would return to Cape York with them.
Monday, December 21. The dark night is just half over; to-day is the shortest day. So far the time has not seemed very long, but I am afraid before we have had many more dark days we shall all think it long enough. I have done nothing as yet toward celebrating Christmas, but I want to make some little thing for Mr. Peary. As far as the boys are concerned, I think an exceptionally good dinner will please them more than anything else I could give them. M’gipsu has made a pair of deerskin trousers for one of the boys, and has also completed a deerskin coat. She is now at work on a deerskin sleeping-bag, which is to be fastened about the neck of the occupant, over a fur hood with a shoulder cape, which I am endeavoring to fashion.
She is sitting on the floor in my room (an unusual honor), and her husband, Annowkah, comes in as often as he can find an excuse for doing so. He frequently rubs his face against hers, and they sniffle at each other; this takes the place of kissing. I should think they could smell each other without doing this, but they are probably so accustomed to the (to me) terrible odor that they fail to notice it.
I dislike very much to have the natives in my room, on account of their dirty condition, and especially as they are alive with parasites, of which I am in deadly fear, much to the amusement of our party. But it is impossible for the women to sew in the other room, where the boys are at work on their sledges and ski, so I allow two at a time to come into my room, taking good care that they do not get near the bed. At the end of their day’s work, I take my little broom, which is an ordinary whisk lashed to a hoe-handle, and sweep the room carefully. The boys have made brooms out of the wings of ducks and gulls, which are very satisfactory, there being only the bare floor to sweep; but I have a carpet on my floor, and the feather brooms make no impression on it, so I am compelled to use my little whisk. It answers the purpose admirably, but it takes me twice as long as it would otherwise have done. After the room has been thoroughly swept, I sprinkle it with a solution of corrosive sublimate, given to me by the doctor, and in this way manage to keep entirely free from the pests. Both Mr. Peary and myself rub down with alcohol every night before retiring as a further protection against these horrible “koomakshuey,” and we are amply repaid for our trouble. Matt has entirely recovered from his sick spell, and has again taken charge of the cooking.
I was right in my surmise about the widow; she accompanied the “dudes” to Cape York, taking her three children with her. Kyo also left at the same time for his home at Omanooy. He says he will return in ten days with a load of deerskins which he has at his igloo. Mr. Peary loaned him two of his dogs, and has promised him ammunition in exchange for the deerskins. We are anxious to see what kind of a gun he has; he says he got it from an old man who had received it from a white man long ago.