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Updated: June 3, 2025
After quitting this scene of filth, I found, on returning to Kaoongut's hut, that Toolooak had been no less successful than his brother, and that the same operation was also performing here. Having, therefore, explained to Iligliuk that none of them were to come to the ships the following day, I had no inclination to see the process repeated, and was glad to take my leave.
During the dissection of their seals, they have a curious custom of sticking a thin filament of skin, or of some part of the intestines, upon the foreheads of the boys, who are themselves extremely fond of it, it being intended, as Iligliuk afterward informed me, to make them fortunate seal-catchers.
The mistake was thus instantly explained, and I thanked Iligliuk for her canoe; but it is impossible for me to describe the quiet, yet proud satisfaction displayed in her countenance at having thus cleared herself from the imputation of a breach of promise.
A circle being formed, and a boy despatched to look out at the door of the hut, Iligliuk, still the principal actress, placed herself in the centre, and after making a variety of guttural noises for about half a minute, shut her eyes, and ran about till she had taken hold of one of the others, whose business it then became to take her station in the centre, so that almost every woman in her turn occupied this post, and in her own peculiar way, either by distortion of countenance or other gestures, performed her part in the game.
The people of the huts being much in want of food, we again distributed some bread-dust among them; taking care to send a portion to the infirm old man, Hik-k~ei-~er= a, by Ok~otook, the husband of Iligliuk, a fine, active, manly fellow of about two-and-thirty, who, as we were pleased to find the next day, had punctually executed his commission.
I purchased from Iligliuk a semicircular ornament of brass, serrated at the upper edge and brightly polished, which she wore over her hair in front and which was very becoming. The handsomest thing of this kind, however, was understood to be worn on the head by men, though we did not learn on what occasions.
Some time before, Iligliuk, who, from the superior neatness and cleanliness with which she performed her work, was by this time in great request as a seamstress, had promised to cover for me a little model of a canoe, and had, in fact, sent it to me by the sergeant of marines, though I had not rightly understood from the latter from which of the women it came.
The last kind of individual exhibition was still performed by Iligliuk, to whom in this, as in almost every thing else, the other women tacitly acknowledged their inferiority, by quietly giving place to her on every occasion.
Whenever any explanation was necessary between the Esquimaux and us, Iligliuk was sent for as an interpreter; information was chiefly obtained through her, and she thus found herself rising into a degree of consequence to which, but for us, she could never have attained.
I have related this anecdote just as it occurred, with the hope of showing the true disposition of these people, and not with a view of unduly depreciating the character of our friend Iligliuk.
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