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 2Parry, William Edward, Sir
History
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 2
Parry, William Edward, Sir
Arctic regions; Northwest Passage; Parry, William Edward, Sir, 1790-1855
Besides the ivory knives, the men were well supplied with a much more
serviceable kind, made of iron, and called _panna_. The form of this
knife is very peculiar, being seven inches long, two and a quarter
broad, quite straight and flat, pointed at the end, and ground equally
sharp at both edges; this is firmly secured into a handle of bone or
wood about a foot long, by two or three iron rivets, and has all the
appearance of a most destructive spearhead, but is nevertheless put to
no other purpose than that of a very useful knife, which the men are
scarcely ever without, especially on their sealing excursions. For
these, and several knives of European form, they are probably indebted
to an indirect communication with our factories in Hudson's Bay. The
same may be observed of the best of their women's knives (_ooloo_), on
one of which, of a larger size than usual, were the names of "Wild and
Sorby." When of their own manufacture, the only iron part was a little
narrow slip let into the bone and secured by rivets.
Of the horn of the musk-ox they make also very good spoons, much like
ours in shape; and I must not omit to mention their marrow spoons
(_patt=ekniuk_, from _p=att~ek_, marrow), made out of long,
narrow, hollowed pieces of bone, of which every housewife has a bunch of
half a dozen or more tied together, and generally attached to her
needle-case.
For the purpose of obtaining fire, the Esquimaux use two lumps of common
iron pyrites, from which sparks are struck into a little leathern case
containing moss well dried and rubbed between the hands. If this tinder
does not readily catch, a small quantity of the white floss of the seed
of the ground-willow is laid above the moss. As soon as a spark has
caught, it is gently blown till the fire has spread an inch around,
when, the pointed end of a piece of oiled wick being applied, it soon
bursts into a flame--the whole process having occupied perhaps two or
three minutes.
In enumerating the articles of their food, we might, perhaps, give a
list of every animal inhabiting these regions, as they certainly will,
at times, eat any one of them. Their principal dependance, however, is
on the reindeer (_t=o=okto~o_); musk-ox (_=o=om~ingm~uk_),
in the parts where this animal is found; whale (_=agg~aw~ek_);
walrus (_=ei-~u-~ek_); the large and small seal (_=og~uke_ and
_n~eitiek_); and two sorts of salmon, the _=ew~ee-t=ar~oke_
(_salmo alpinus?_) and _ichl=u~ow~oke_. The latter is taken by
hooks in fresh-water lakes, and the former by spearing in the shoal
water of certain inlets of the sea. Of all these animals, they can only
procure in the winter the walrus and small seal upon this part of the
coast; and these at times, as we have seen, in scarcely sufficient
quantity for their subsistence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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