Eskimo Bill of Fare

1905

Salmon the "Staff of Life" of the People in Far North

You are indebted to recently returned explorers from Eskimo land north of Kotzebue Sound, Alaska, for information in this article.

A whole winter spent near the villages of these curious people afforded an intimacy in regard to their regular bill of fare which in some respects is new to us. It is hardly consistent with the truth, however, to mention "table fare" in this connection, since tables there are none. Each person eats from his hands, nor are finger bowls to be mentioned, for use either before or after meals. There are circumstances incident to meal time in an Eskimo igloo which, to a refined stranger, are surprising. The process of mastication is carried on with faithful observance to gastric demands, and in utter oblivion to the presence of others than the performer. The teeth of the men and children are good, while those of the women are notably poor. This last is on account of the constant chewing of skins and sinew which is necessary for the proper softness of clothing. "The chewing mill" must operate all day long, and all the long years of an Eskimo woman's life.

Salmon is the staff of life to the Eskimo. In the absence of cereals of any sort, it is corn and wheat. During the three or four months of summer time the fish are caught in nets and harvested. Long lines of rawhide are stretched between trees or poles, upon which the fish are hung to cure. When dried, this harvest is placed on a high scaffold by the side of the igloo, or native house, out of reach of dogs and other animals. This scaffold, always to be seen with its accompanying igloo, is the cellar, pantry, kitchen cupboard and preserve closet of the family. It is also the refrigerator. Perfectly cured salmon is not a food to be despised by anyone. The natives strip off a piece, as salted codfish is stripped by any Yankee, and hold it over the lamp or fire. When the skin begins to crack and writhe, the fish is "done." This heating liberates the oil and improves the taste. It is then bitten off in small pieces and chewed for a long time.

When Food Supply Is Short

The Eskimo are sometimes neglectful in harvest, and their supply of food runs short. They then resort to decayed fish, which has died on the river banks after spawning in the fall. During the winter they go to these wholesale slaughter houses and sled the provisions back to their igloos. This food, eaten often with rancid seal oil, so infests with its offensive odors the persons and houses and vicinities of these people that association with them at this season is almost impossible.

Little cooking is ever done, much of the flesh of beast or bird being taken raw. When on a journey up or down the water's edge, it is no great trouble to row ashore, draw the kayak up on the beach, invert it for a roof, and under its cover prepare dinner or supper.

One of the white men whom I know spent a night in a native igloo and was waited upon by the "lady of the house" in true hospitable fashion. After the dried salmon had been divided and handed around among a half dozen Eskimo and the one white man stranger, this "lady of the house" dropped down on her knees, crawled through the low, long entrance to the igloo, and returned with a birch-bark basket. Glancing at the stranger with an assurance that "the best on the scaffold was at his pleasure," she proceeded to break in pieces the contents of the basket. It was frozen huckleberries in chunks, for even seal oil cannot resist a temperature of 70 below. She reached into a corner and brought out a true white man's frying pan, which she put over the fire and into it dropped the chunks of preserves. As it melted, she stirred the mass with her fingers, now and then putting them, dripping with the purple oily juice, into her month, and sucking them with a peculiar sound of satisfaction, again passing looks of assurance to the stranger for whom she was taking all this trouble. When the mass was melted she poured it into a dirty can and passed it to her guest. Not one of the family was offered so much as a mouthful. It was a "company dainty."

Every sort of bird is trapped or shot by the native Eskimo. Little birds, like the chickadees and red poles, are given to the grandparents of the family. Whether this is on account of superstition, or the idea that these little things are really the proper diet of old age, no one knows. It may be simple courtesy. The main supply of bird food is obtained from the flocks of ptarmigan, a bird closely allied to the prairie chicken of the Western states. These birds do not fly, but walk long distances. They may be easily tracked after a light snow. They subsist, during the winter, on willow buds along the ravines and watercourses. The natives lay snares for them in the same way in which they catch the fish under the ice.

Snaring the Ptarmigan

Branches are woven together and laid along the margin of a willow thicket, here and there being left an opening about which a noose is placed. The ptarmigan have a method of pushing their way through any obstruction, and so, when they come to these little openings apparently among the willows, they push, and are caught in the nooses. One reason why these birds do not fly is from the fact that they are so gorged by their food that they are too heavy. They eat as many as they can hold of the willow buds, which expand in the crop to immense dimensions, giving an almost deformed appearance to the bird. Only the tiny center of the bud is edible, the husks being of no service, and so large quantities must be taken to make a square meal. These soften by reason of the snow taken with them melting in the crop of the bird.

Another bird which the native Eskimo eats is the spruce grouse. It subsists upon the spruce buds and the flesh is highly flavored with this, to the white man, objectionable feature. During the winter prospectors drink freely of spruce tea, believing it to be preventive of scurvy, though they could be induced to partake of spruce grouse only with difficulty, it may be that the bird does possess some remediable agency to the natives. Hawks and owls are eaten with the rest of the birds. One exception, however, exists in favor of the Alaskan jay, which may not be so much as touched by the natives. These birds are never hunted, and are so fearless that they would come in at the door of the white man's cabin, and help themselves to anything in the line of cheese or pie or cake. One daring and curious fellow went so far as to snatch a piece of laundry soap and carry it away to his home in the pines. Whether this was for common family use or for food no one knew; probably the latter, since the native Eskimo are said to eat soap when they can obtain it. Little marvel when they are so fond of decayed fish and rancid seal oil.

Birds that are caught are simply stripped of their feathers before being eaten, unless the skin is needed for wearing apparel, when it is stripped off and hung away to dry before being chewed by the women tanners.

The greatest delicacy of any bird is the eye. This is always given to the babies or little children of the family. It is plucked out and eaten at once with great relish, while the older members look on with pleasure, very much as civilized parents look on when their children partake of gumdrops or gooseberries.