Native Americans: 22 Books on History, Mythology, Culture & Linguistic Studies. James Mooney

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      Fig. 488. Sadniriaq or clasp. (National Museum, Washington.) ⅔

      Besides this form of sledge a great number of others are in use. Whenever whales are caught their bone is sawed or cut into large pieces, which are shod with the same material. If large bones are not to be had, a substitute is found in walrus skins or rolls of sealskins, which are wetted and sewed up in a bag. This bag is given the desired form and after being frozen to a solid mass is as serviceable as the best plank. In Boothia frozen salmon are used in the same way and after having served this purpose in winter are eaten in the spring. Other sledges are made of slabs of fresh water ice, which are cut and allowed to freeze together, or of a large ice block hollowed out in the center. All these are clumsy and heavy and much inferior to the large sledge just described.

      Parry (II, p. 515) states that at Igiulik the antlers are detached from the sledge in winter when the natives go sealing. The tribes of Davis Strait do not practice this custom, but use scarcely any sledge without a pair of antlers.

      As to the appearance of the dogs I would refer to Parry (II, p. 515) and other writers and confine my remarks to a description of their use by the Eskimo.

      As the traces are strung upon a thong, as just described, the dogs all pull at one point; for that reason they may seem, at first sight, to be harnessed together without order or regularity; but they are arranged with great care. The strongest and most spirited dog has the longest trace and is allowed to run a few feet in advance of the rest as a leader; its sex is indifferent, the choice being made chiefly with regard to strength. Next to the leader follow two or three strong dogs with traces of equal length, and the weaker and less manageable the dogs the nearer they run to the sledge. A team is almost unmanageable if the dogs are not accustomed to one another. They must know their leader, who brings them to terms whenever there is a quarrel. In a good team the leader must be the acknowledged chief, else the rest will fall into disorder and refuse to follow him. His authority is almost unlimited. When the dogs are fed, he takes the choice morsels; when two of them quarrel, he bites both and thus brings them to terms.

      Generally there is a second dog which is inferior only to the leader, but is feared by all the others. Though the authority of the leader is not disputed by his own team, dogs of another team will not submit to him. But when two teams are accustomed to travel in company the dogs in each will have some regard for the leader of the other, though continuous rivalry and quarrels go on between the two leaders. Almost any dog which is harnessed into a strange team will at first be unwilling to draw, and it is only when he is thoroughly accustomed to all his neighbors and has found out his friends and his enemies that he will do his work satisfactorily. Some dogs when put into a strange team will throw themselves down and struggle and howl. They will endure the severest lashing and allow themselves to be dragged along over rough ice without being induced to rise and run along with the others. Particularly if their own team is in sight will they turn back and try to get to it. Others, again, are quite willing to work with strange dogs.

      Partly on this account and partly from attachment to their masters, dogs sold out of one team frequently return to their old homes, and I know of instances in which they even ran from thirty to sixty miles to reach it. Sometimes they do so when a sledge is traveling for a few days from one settlement to another, the dogs not having left home for a long time before. In such cases when the Eskimo go to harness their team in the morning they find that some of them have run away, particularly those which were lent from another team for the journey. In order to prevent this the left fore leg is sometimes tied up by a loop which passes over the neck. When one is on a journey it is well to do so every night, as some of the dogs are rather unwilling to be harnessed in the morning, thus causing a great loss of time before they are caught. In fact such animals are customarily tied up at night, while the others are allowed to run loose.

      Sometimes the harnesses are not taken off at night. As some dogs are in the habit of stripping off their harness, it is fastened by tying the trace around the body. Though all these peculiarities of the dogs give a great deal of trouble to the driver, he must take care not to punish them too severely, as they will then become frightened and for fear of the whip will not work at all.

      Before putting the dogs to the sledge it must be prepared and loaded. In winter the shoes of the runners are covered with a thick coat of ice, which diminishes the friction on the snow. If the shoes are of good bone, ivory, or whalebone, the icing is done with water only, the driver taking a mouthful and carefully letting it run over the shoe until a smooth cover of about one third of an inch in thickness is produced. СКАЧАТЬ