Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/145

124 crowded with about thirty good-humoured natives of all ages and sizes, and of both sexes.

It was not long, however, before the female portion were put to work in skinning some of the ducks. While doing so I sat beside them, and eagerly watched their operations. They asked me for my knife, and were delighted with the excellent one I lent them. Taking a duck, and drawing the knife once round the outer joint of each wing and the head, they seized the cut part with their teeth, and stripped the fowl entire! The ducks were very fat, and most of it adhered to the skin. This caused these daughters of the North to rejoice with each other on the feast of fat skins that awaited them on completing their work! After all the ducks had been skinned, they were delivered to the cook as fresh provision for the ship's company. It was understood that for preparing these ducks the native women were to have the skins as pay, and this was considered ample. A short time afterward I saw mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters in bed on deck, with their duck-skins in hand, peeling off the "luxurious" fat with their teeth, each now and then giving a peculiar kind of grunt in great satisfaction! "In bed" among the Esquimaux is to repose in puris naturalibus between reindeer skins with the hair on. Being well enveloped in these heat-retaining skins, they proceeded to eat themselves to sleep! Most of the female portion of those on board had each a really beautiful ornament upon their head, bent like a bow, and extending from points just forward and below the ears up over the top of the head. At the apex it was one inch wide, tapering down to half an inch at the extremities, and it looked and glistened in the bright sun like burnished gold. There were two fastenings to this ornament—a string of variously-coloured beads going under the chin as a bonnet-tie, also one passing down behind the ears at the back of the neck and head. It struck me that this was not only a beautiful ornament to the Esquimaux women, but would also be to ladies at home.

Before Artarkparu came on board he was very anxious to make well secure some drift timber he had found. One piece