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Show ESQUIMAUX [Eskimo] DUCK-SPEARING. The most novel and interesting method of bird-catching is practiced during the spring and early summer, as the ducks and geese are molting and unable to fly. The Esquimaux [Eskimo] puts his kyack [kayak]-that is his seal-skin canoe-on his head, like an immense hat, and repairs to the big lake, or the seaside, where he has seen the helpless birds swimming and feeding in the water. Here he launches his frail bark, and, when seated, which is not always accomplished without a ducking, takes his double bladed oar in his hands, and at once starts in pursuit of the game. Before him, on his kyack [kayak], where he can seize it at the proper moment, lies his duck-spear, together with other implements of the chase. Cautiously approaching the featherless flock, he sometimes gets quite near before his presence is observed, but even then, before he is within striking distance, there is a great spluttering in the water, as the band scatters in every direction, vainly beating the water with the curious looking stumps that soon will wear their plumage and once more do duty as wings. Some dive below the surface and come up a great way off, and always just where you are not looking for them; but as the flock takes alarm, the hunter dashes forward, feeling the necessity for speed rather than for caution. He is soon within fifteen or twenty feet of the struggling mass, and, seizing a curious looking spear, with three barbs of unequal length, he poises it for a moment in the air, and then hurls it with unerring aim at the devoted bird, impaling it with a sharpened iron or bone spike in the cent of the barbs. The handle of the spear is of wood and floats on the surface of the water, so that the hunter can recover his weapon and the game at his leisure.-Col. Gilder, in Scribner. |