Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage

by Sir William Edward Parry

Of their mode of killing seals in the winter I have already spoken in the course of the foregoing narrative, as far as we were enabled to make ourselves acquainted with it. In their summer exploits on the water, the killing of the whale is the most arduous undertaking which they have to perform; and one cannot sufficiently admire the courage and activity which, with gear apparently so inadequate, it must require to accomplish this business. Okotook, who was at the killing of two whales in the course of a single summer, and who described the whole of it quite con amore, mentioned the names of thirteen men who, each in his canoe, had assisted on one of these occasions. When a fish is seen lying on the water, they 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 man to drive the katteelik into the animal with all the force of both arms. This having the siatko, a long allek, and the inflated seal-skin attached to it, the whale immediately dives, taking the whole apparatus with him except the katteelik which, being disengaged in the manner before described, floats to the surface and is picked up by its owner. The animal re-appearing 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 blows as often as they find opportunity, till perhaps every line has been thus employed. After pursuing 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, when, by frequent wounds with their spears, they succeed in killing him, and tow their prize in triumph to the shore. It is probable that with the whale, as with the smaller sea-animals, some privilege or perquisite is given to the first striker; and, like our own fishermen, they take a pride in having it known that their spear has been the first to inflict a wound. They meet with the most whales on the coast of Einwīllik.

In attacking the walrus in the water they use the same gear, but with much more caution than with the whale, always throwing the katteelik from some distance, lest the animal should attack the canoe and demolish it with his tusks. The walrus is in fact the only animal with which they use any caution of this kind. They like the flesh better than that of the seal; but venison is preferred by them to either of these, and indeed to any other kind of meat.

At Winter Island they carefully preserved the heads of all the animals killed during the winter, except two or three of the walrus, which we obtained with great difficulty. There is probably some superstition attached to this, but they told us that they were to be thrown into the sea in the summer, which a Greenlander studiously avoids doing; and, indeed, at Igloolik, they had no objection to part with them before the summer arrived. As the blood of the animals which they kill is all used as

food of the most luxurious kind, they are careful to avoid losing any portion of it; for this purpose they carry with them on their excursions a little instrument of ivory called tŏopōōtă, in form and size exactly resembling a “twenty-penny” nail, with which they stop up the orifice made by the spear, by thrusting it through the skin by the sides of the wound, and securing it with a twist. I must here also mention a simple little instrument called keipkūttuk, being a slender rod of bone nicely rounded, and having a point at one end and a knob or else a laniard at the other. The use of this is to thrust through the ice where they have reason to believe a seal is at work underneath. This little instrument is sometimes made as delicate as a fine wire, that the seal may not see it; and a part still remaining above the surface informs the fishermen by its motion whether the animal is employed in making his hole: if not, it remains undisturbed, and the attempt is given up in that place.

One of the best of their bows was made of a single piece of fir, four feet eight inches in length, flat on the inner side and rounded on the outer, being five inches in girth about the middle, where, however, it is strengthened on the concave side, when strung, by a piece of bone ten inches long, firmly secured by tree-nails of the same material. At each end of the bow is a knob of bone, or sometimes of wood covered with leather, with a deep notch for the reception of the string. The only wood which they can procure not possessing sufficient elasticity combined with strength, they ingeniously remedy the defect by securing to the back of the bow, and to the knobs at each end, a quantity of small lines, each composed of a plait or “sinnet” of three sinews. The number of lines thus reaching from end to end is generally about

thirty; but besides these, several others are fastened with hitches round the bow, in pairs, commencing eight inches from one end, and again united at the same distance from the other, making the whole number of strings, in the middle of the bow sometimes amount to sixty. These being put on with the bow somewhat bent the contrary way, produce a spring so strong as to require considerable force as well as knack in stringing it and giving the requisite velocity to the arrow. The bow is completed by a woolding round the middle and a wedge or two, here and there, driven in to tighten it. A bow in one piece is, however, very rare; they generally consist of from two to five pieces of bone of unequal lengths, secured together by rivets and tree-nails.

The arrows vary in length from twenty to thirty inches, according to the materials that can be commanded. About two-thirds of the whole length is of fir rounded, and the rest of bone let by a socket into the wood, and having a head of thin iron, or more commonly of slate, secured into a slit by two tree-nails. Towards the opposite end of the arrow are two feathers, generally of the spotted oval, not very neatly lashed on. The bow-string consists of from twelve to eighteen small lines of three-sinew sinnet, having a loose twist, and with a separate becket of the same size for going over the knobs at the end of the bow.

We tried their skill in archery by getting them to shoot at a mark for a prize, though with bows in extremely bad order, on account of the frost, and their hands very cold. The mark was two of their spears stuck upright in the snow, their breadth being three inches and a half. At twenty yards they struck this every time; at thirty, sent the arrows always within an inch or two of it; and at forty or fifty yards, I should think, would generally hit

a fawn if the animal stood still. These weapons are perhaps sufficient to inflict a mortal wound at something more than that distance, for which, however, a strong arm would be required. The animals which they kill with the bow and arrow for their subsistence are principally the musk-ox and deer, and less frequently the bear, wolf, fox, hare, and some of the smaller animals.