Ethnological results of the Point Barrow expedition: Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1887-1888, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1892, pages 3-442Murdoch, John
History
Ethnological results of the Point Barrow expedition: Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1887-1888, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1892, pages 3-442
Murdoch, John
Eskimos -- Alaska -- Barrow, Point, Region
[Footnote N366: 2d Exped., p. 137.]
[Footnote N367: Narrative, p. 114.]
[Footnote N368: Ibid., p. 138.]
[Footnote N369: Science, vol. 4, 9, pp. 543-544.]
The most important deer hunt takes place in the late fall and early
spring, when the natives go inland 50 or 75 miles to the upper waters
of Kuaru and Kulugrua, where the deer are exceedingly plentiful at
this season. Capt. Herendeen, who went inland with the deer hunters in
the autumn of 1882, reports that the bottom lands of Kulugrua “looked
like a cattle yard,” from the tracks of the reindeer. They start as
soon as it is possible to travel across the country with sledges,
usually about the first of October, taking guns, ammunition, fishing
tackle, and the necessary household utensils for themselves and their
families, and stay till the daylight gets too short for hunting. In
1882, many parties got home about October 27 or 28. At this season
there is seldom snow enough to build snow huts, so they generally live
in tents, always close to the rivers from which they procure water for
household use. The men spend their time hunting the deer, while the
women bring in the game, attend to drying the skins and the household
work, and catch whitefish and burbot through the ice of the rivers,
which are now frozen hard enough for this purpose. Some of the old men
and those who have not a supply of ammunition engage in the same
pursuit.
A comparatively small number of the people go out to this fall deer
hunt, which appears to be a new custom, adopted since Dr. Simpson’s
time. It was probably not worth while to go out after deer at seasons
when there was not enough snow for digging pitfalls, since they
depended chiefly on these for the capture of the reindeer before the
introduction of firearms. Fully half of each village go out on the
spring deer hunt, as they did in Maguire’s time, the first parties
starting out with the return of the sun, about January 23, and the
others following in the course of two or three weeks, and remain out
till about the middle of April, when it is time to come back for the
whale fishery. The people of Utkiavwĭñ always travel to the hunting
grounds by a regular road, which is the same as that followed by
Lieut. Ray in his exploring trips. They travel along the coast on the
ice wherever it is smooth enough till they reach Sĭ´ñaru, and then
strike across country, crossing Kuaru and reaching Kulugrua near the
hill Nuasu´knan. (See map, Pl. II.)
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