Eskimo Bow-Drill for Fire Making.
Oil lamps are kept burning day and night in winter, but should the Eskimo require a light he can quickly produce it by means of the bow-drill. A peg of hard wood rests in a hole in a soft board, and near to the point of contact is a small pile of tinder; that is very finely powdered wood, which is kept quite dry. The peg of hard wood can be made to spin round rapidly by twisting it in a bow string, which is made tight, then released suddenly. Boys at school adopt a similar method for spinning a disc of cardboard, or setting a toy aeroplane in flight. The rapid twirling of the hard peg sets up a great deal of heat, which causes the tinder to smoulder, then to burst into flame when gently blown.
Presently the work is put on one side, and after a hearty meal has been made from the flesh and warm blood of a young seal, stories of great age are told concerning the perils of the hunter, and the wanderings of the Eskimo people over the great ice-fields of Hudson Bay or Davis Strait. Eagerly we listen, and although the names are very long and strange to our ears, we may judge that the favourite stories are not unlike our own tales of love and valour, with this exception, that the Eskimo has no knowledge of writing, so stories are handed down from one generation to another by word of mouth, while, to amuse the children, the story-teller will make little sketches of the chief characters in his narrative.
A long, long time ago a young man, whose name was Itit, went timidly to the hut of a young orphan girl, in order to ask whether she would become his wife. However, as he was very shy, and afraid to speak to the young girl for himself, he called her little brother, who was playing before the hut, and said: “Go to your sister, and ask her if she will marry me.” Away ran the little fellow, but almost immediately he was back again in order to ask the name of the suitor. When the Eskimo maiden heard that the name “Itit” was the short pet name for “Ititaujang,” she said: “Oh, go away! I will not marry a man with such an ugly name.” Three times the young brother carried a message of love from the poor Itit, who was becoming very cold and angry, for he had been standing in deep snow for a long time. When the maiden refused for the third time, Itit turned away from the hut, left his own country, where there was no other maiden whom he could love, and for many days and nights he wandered, sad and lonely, over great hills and valleys covered with snow.
At last he arrived in the land of birds, and saw a lake on which geese were swimming. On the shore he noticed a great many boots, so cautiously he crept near and stole as many as he could carry. The birds returned, and greatly alarmed at this theft, they flew away, with the exception of one bird which remained behind, crying, “I want my boots! I want my boots!” “You shall have your boots,” said Itit, “if you will become my wife.” Then, returning the magic boots, he had the pleasure of seeing the beautiful bird transformed into a handsome young Eskimo maiden, who wandered with him to the seaside, where they settled in a large village. Itit became the best whaler and seal catcher, so was very much respected by all the Eskimo of that country; and what was more pleasing still, he had a young son who was rapidly becoming a brave and clever hunter.
It so happened that the Eskimo, led by Itit, had killed a whale, and all except the wife of Itit were busy carrying the meat and blubber to their huts. When the lazy wife was called, she answered: “I do not like food from the sea, I want all my food from the land. I will not eat the meat of a whale, and I will not help.” She came down to the beach leading her young son by the hand, and after finding some feathers, she placed them between her fingers and those of her son, both twirled their hands quickly, and on whispering some magic words were changed into geese, which flew away, leaving Itit to carry out a sorrowful search for his wife and child.
After many weary months of travel he came to the bank of a swiftly flowing river, where an old man was striking off chips of wood, which, when polished between his hands, turned into little salmon, that leaped into the water and began to swim towards a large lake. Itit at once asked questions concerning his wife and child, and to his great surprise learned that they were dwelling on a small island in the lake. He was furious on hearing that his wife had taken another husband, and now he loved her no more, but sought only for revenge. There was no canoe, but the clever old man, who could make salmon from chips of wood, took the backbone of a fish, and after vigorously polishing this for a time, it turned into a small boat which the Eskimo calls a “kayak.” This the old man presented to Itit, who immediately pushed off from the shore in the direction of the island where his wife was hiding.
Very soon a small hut came into view, and there was his son, playing in the garden. The little boy ran into the house, crying, “Mother! Father is here, and is coming to our hut!” to which the mother replied, “Go on with your play; your father is far off, and cannot find us.” No sooner were the words spoken than Itit entered and glared fiercely round the room, while the frightened woman quickly opened a box from which there flew a cloud of feathers. These stuck to the woman, her son, and the new husband, and before Itit could carry out his revenge, the hut suddenly disappeared, and his enemies, immediately transformed into geese, flew rapidly away until they became mere specks in the distance.
Among our own boys and girls, stories of Father Neptune, who lives on the bed of the ocean and rules the waves, are very common. The Eskimo, too, have traditions of “Kalopaling,” who seems to be very much like the “Old Man of the Sea,” mentioned in stories of Sinbad the Sailor. To the Eskimo, Kalopaling is a dreadful monster of human form, covered with feathers of the eider duck, and so large is the hood of his cloak that it will easily contain a kayak and the fisherman who sculls it. This hood is said to be filled with Eskimo fishermen who have either been drowned by accident or captured by the dreaded Kalopaling, who, although unable to speak, can make a long wailing cry of “bee-bee-bee.” The feet of this creature are very large, and appear like sealskin floats, or the water wings which boys use when learning to swim.