V
INNUIT LIFE AND LAND.87
dine with their families; but the women and children invariably eat at home, and when they wait upon the males in the town hall they always turn their backs to them while the men are dining, it being considered a gross breach of good manners for a woman to look at a man when he is eating.
After breakfast the male Innuits start out, if the weather permits, to hunt or fish, as the case may be. If a driving storm prevents them, then in-door work is resumed or recourse to sleep again assumed. At some time in the afternoon the fire is usually drawn from the hot stoves on the hearth, the water and a kantag of chamber-lye poured over them, which, arising in dense clouds of vapor, gives notice (by its presence and its horrible ammoniacal odor) to the delighted inmates that the bath is on. The kashga is heated to suffocation, it is full of smoke, and the outside men run in from their huts, with wisps of dry grass for towels, and bunches of aldertwigs to flog their naked bodies. They throw off their garments; they shout and dance and whip themselves into profuse perspiration as they caper in the hot vapor. More of their disgusting substitute for soap is rubbed on, and produces a lather which they rinse off with cold water; and, to cap the full enjoyment of this satanic bath, these naked actors rush out and roll in a snow-bank or plunge into the icy flood of some lake or river adjoining, as the season warrants. This is the most enjoyable occasion of an Innuit's existence, so he solemnly affirms. Nothing else affords him. a tithe of the infinite pleasure which this orgie gives him. To us, however, there is nothing so offensive about him as that stench which such a performance arouses.
When a bath is over, the smoke-hole is reopened (it was closed during the process !), and fresh air descends upon those men who sit around upon the platforms stupefied by that smoke and weak from their profuse perspiration. Slowly these terrible odors leave the kashga, and only the minor ones remain, rendering it quite habitable once more. Night comes on: the huge stone lamps are filled'with seal-oil and lighted; the men soon lop down for sleep in their reindeer-skins or parkas, removing their trousers only, which they roll up and use as pillows, tucking the parka snugly over and around their bended knees, which are drawn up tightly to the abdomen. In the morning whoever happens to awake first relights the lamp, if any of the fluid remains over; if not, he goes to his own cache and gets a supply. If he is a bachelor, he attends then
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