Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Narrative of an Attempt to Reach the North Pole, Volume 1

by Sir William Edward Parry

The two Esquimaux tents which we were now going to visit were situated just within a low point of land, forming the eastern side of the entrance to a considerable branch of the inlet, extending some distance to the northward. The situation is warm and pleasant, having a southwesterly aspect, and being in every respect well adapted for the convenient residence of these poor people. We landed outside the point, and walked over to the tents, sending our boats, accompanied by the two canoes, round the point to meet us. As soon as we came in sight of the tents, every living animal there, men, women, children, and dogs, were in motion; the latter to the top of the hill out of our way, and the rest to meet as with loud and continued shouting; the word pilletay (give me) being the only articulate sound we could distinguish amid the general uproar. Besides the four men whom we had already seen, there were four women, one of whom, being about the same age as the old man, was probably his wife; the others were about thirty, twenty-two, and eighteen years of age. The first two of these, whom we supposed to be married to the two oldest of the young men, had infants slung in a kind of bag at their backs, much in the same way as gipsies are accustomed to carry their children. There were also seven children, from twelve to three years of age, besides the two infants in arms, or, rather, behind their mothers' backs; and the woman of thirty was with child.

We began, as before, by buying whatever they had to dispose of, giving in exchange knives, axes, brass kettles, needles, and other useful articles, and then added such presents as might be farther serviceable to them. From the first moment of our arrival until we left them, or, rather, till we had nothing left to give, the females were particularly importunate with us, and "pilletay" resounded from the whole troop, wherever we went; they were extremely anxious to obtain our buttons, apparently more on account of the ornament of the crown and anchor which they observed upon them than from any value they set upon their use; and several of these were cut off our jackets to please their fancy. When I first endeavoured to bargain for a sledge, the persons I addressed gave me distinctly to understand by signs that it was not their property, and pointed towards the woman who owned it; though my ignorance in this respect offered a good opportunity of defrauding me, had they been so inclined, by receiving an equivalent for that which did not belong to them: on the owner's coming forward, the bargain was quickly concluded. The pikes which I gave in exchange underwent the usual ceremony of licking, and the sledge was carried to our boat with the most perfect understanding on both sides. In another instance, an axe was offered by some of the Griper's gentlemen as the price of a dog, to which the woman who owned the animal consented. To show that we placed full confidence in them, the axe was given to her before the dog was caught, and she immediately went away with a kind of halter or harness of thongs, which, they use for this purpose, and honestly brought one of the finest among them, though nothing would have been easier than to evade the performance of the contract. The readiness, however, with which they generally parted with their commodities, was by no means the effect of fear, nor did it always depend on the value of the articles offered in exchange; for having, as I thought, concluded a bargain for a second canoe belonging to the old woman, I desired the men to hand it down to the boat; but I soon perceived that I had misunderstood her, for she clung fast to the canoe, and cried most piteously till it was set down; I then offered a larger price than before, but she could not be induced to part with it.

The stature of these people, like that of Esquimaux in general, is much below the usual standard. The height of the old man, who was rather bent by age, was four feet eleven inches; and that of the other men, from five feet four and a half to five feet six inches. Their faces are round and plump in the younger individuals; skin smooth; complexion not very dark, except that of the old man; teeth very white; eyes small; nose broad, but not very flat; hair black, straight, and glossy; and their hands and feet extremely diminutive. The old man had a gray beard, in which the black hairs predominated, and wore the hair rather long upon his upper lip, which was also the case with the eldest of the three others.

The grown-up females measured from four feet ten to four feet eleven inches. The features of the two youngest were regular; their complexions clear, and by no means dark; their eyes small, black, and piercing; teeth beautifully white and perfect; and, although the form of their faces is round and chubby, and their noses rather flat than otherwise, their countenances might, perhaps, be considered pleasing, even according to the ideas of beauty which habit has taught us to entertain. Their hair, which is jet-black, hangs down long and loose about their shoulders, a part of it on each side being carelessly platted, and sometimes rolled up into an awkward lump, instead of being neatly tied on the top of the head, as the Esquimaux women in most other parts are accustomed to wear it. The youngest female had much natural bashfulness and timidity, and we considered her to be the only unmarried one, as she differed from the other three in not being tattooed upon the face. Two of them had their hands tattooed also, and the old woman had a few marks of the same kind about each wrist. None of the men or children were thus distinguished.

The children were generally good-looking, and the eldest boy, about twelve years of age, was a remarkably fine and even handsome lad. They were rather scared at us at first; but kind treatment and a few trifling presents soon removed their fears, and made them almost as importunate as the rest.

The dress of the men consists of a sealskin jacket, with a hood, which is occasionally drawn over the head, of which it forms the only covering. The breeches are also generally of sealskin, and are made to reach below the knee; and their boots, which meet the breeches, are made of the same material. In this dress we perceived no difference from that of the other Esquimaux, except that the jacket, instead of having a pointed flap before and behind, as usual, was quite straight behind, and had a sort of scallop before in the centre. In the dress of the women there was not so much regard to decency as in that of the men. The jacket is of sealskin, with a short, pointed flap before, and a long one behind, reaching almost to the ground. They had on a kind of drawers, similar to those described by Crantz as the summer dress of the Greenland women, and no breeches. The drawers cover the middle part of the body, from the hips to one third down the thigh, the rest of which is entirely naked as far as the knee. The boots are like those of the men; and, besides these, they have a pair of very loose leggins, as they may be called, which hang down carelessly upon the top of the boots, suffering their thighs to be exposed in the manner before described, but which may be intended occasionally to fasten up, so as to complete the covering of the whole body. The children are all remarkably well clothed; their dress, both in male and female, being in every respect the same as that of the men, and composed entirely of sealskin very neatly sewed.

The tents which compose their summer habitations are principally supported by a long pole of whalebone, fourteen feet high, standing perpendicularly, with four or five feet of it projecting above the skins which form the roof and sides. The length of the tent is seventeen, and its breadth from seven to nine feet, the narrowest part being next the door, and widening towards the inner part, where the bed, composed of a quantity of the small shrubby plant, the Andromeda Tetragona, occupies about one third of the whole apartment. The pole of the tent is fixed where the bed commences, and the latter is kept separate by some pieces of bone laid across the tent from side to side. The door, which faces the southwest, is also formed of two pieces of bone, with the upper ends fastened together, and the skins are made to overlap in that part of the tent, which is much lower than the inner end. The covering is fastened to the ground by curved pieces of bone, being generally parts of the whale; the tents were ten or fifteen yards apart, and about the same distance from the beach.

The canoe which I purchased, and which was one of the best of the five that we saw, is sixteen feet eleven inches in length, and its extreme breadth two feet one inch and a half; two feet of its fore end are out of the water when floating. It differs from the canoe of Greenland in being somewhat lower at each end, and also in having a higher rim or gunwale, as it may be termed, round the circular hole where the man sits, which may make them somewhat safer at sea. Their construction is, in other respects, much the same; the timbers or ribs, which are five or six inches apart, as well as the fore and aft connecting pieces, being of whalebone or drift-wood, and the skins with which they were covered, those of the seal and walrus. When the canoes are taken on the shore, they are carefully placed upon two upright piles or pillars of stones, four feet high from the ground, in order to allow the air to pass under to dry them, and prevent their rotting. The paddle is double and made of fir, the edges of the blade being covered with hard bone to secure them from wearing.

The spears or darts which they use in killing seals and other sea animals, consist, like the harpoons of our fishermen, of two parts, a staff, and the spear itself; the former is usually of wood, when so scarce and valuable a commodity can be obtained, from three and a half to five feet in length, and the latter of bone, about eighteen inches long, sometimes tipped with iron, but more commonly ground to a blunt point at one end, while the other fits into a socket in the staff, to which it is firmly secured by thongs. The lines which they attach to their spears are very neatly cut out of sealskins, and, when in a state of preparation, are left to stretch till dry between the tents, and then made up into coils for use. They make use of a bladder fastened to the end of the line, in the same manner as the other Esquimaux. Besides the spears, we purchased an instrument having a rude hook of iron let into a piece of bone, and secured by thongs to a staff, the hook being sharply pointed, but not barbed. While we were on the island (to which I had applied the name of Observation Island), it happened that a small bird flew near us, when one of the Esquimaux made a sign of shooting it with a bow and arrow in a manner which could not be misunderstood. It is remarkable, therefore, that we could not find about their tents any of these weapons, except a little one of five or six inches long, the bow being made of whalebone and the arrow of fir, with a feather at one end and a blunt point of bone at the other, evidently appearing to be a child's toy, and intended, perhaps, to teach the use of it at an early age.

The runners of the only sledge we saw were composed of the right and left jawbones of a young whale, being nine feet nine inches long, and one foot seven inches apart, and seven inches high from the ground. They are connected by a number of parallel pieces, made out of the ribs of the whale, and secured transversely with seizings of whalebone, so as to form the bottom of the sledge, and the back is made of two deers' horns placed in an upright position. The lower part of the runners is shod with a harder kind of bone, to resist the friction against the ground. The whole vehicle is rudely executed, and, being nearly twice the weight of the sledges we saw among the northern Esquimaux, is probably intended for carrying heavy burdens. The dogs were not less than fifty or sixty in number, and had nothing about them different from those on the eastern coast of Baffin's Bay, except they do not stand near so high as those of the latitude of 76°. They are very shy and wild, and the natives had great difficulty in catching them while we were by, as well as holding them in when caught. Some of them have much more of the wolf in their appearance than others, having very long heads and sharp noses, with a brushy tail, almost always carried between the legs; while the bodies of others are less lank, as well as their noses less sharp, and they carry their tails handsomely curled over their backs: their colour varied from quite dark to brindled. The ravenous manner in which they devour their food is almost incredible. Both the old and young ones, when a bird is given them, generally swallow feathers and all; and an old dog that I purchased, though regularly fed while on board by a person appointed for that purpose, ate up, with great avidity, a large piece of canvass, a cotton handkerchief, which one of the men had just washed and laid down by his side, and a part of a check shirt. The young dogs will at any time kill themselves by over-eating if permitted. The children appeared to have some right of property in the smaller puppies, or else their parents are very indulgent to them, for several bargains of this kind were made with them, without any objection or interference on the part of the parents, who were standing by at the time.