When a hunter kills a reindeer, the first thing he does is to skin it;
then he eats some of the warm, quivering flesh. This is a very
important part of his task. He cuts it open and removes the entrails,
and, making a sack of the reticulated stomach, fills it with the blood
that is found in the cavity of the body. He then regales himself with
some of the spinach-like contents of the paunch, and, by way of filling
in the time and the little crinkles in his stomach, cuts off and eats
such little portions of fat as are exposed in the process of
butchering. He then looks around for a stony place and deposits the
carcass conveniently near it, together with the entrails and the bag of
blood. Before cutting the body open it is turned back up, and the strip
of muscles along each side of the backbone is removed, together with
the sinew that covers it. Over this also lies the layer of tallow
(tood-noo) when the animal is fat, as is usually the case in the summer
and fall. The head is then severed from the body and placed on top of
the rest of the meat, so that when the entire mass is covered with
about a ton weight of large stones it is considered secure from the
ravages of foxes and wolves. Not so, however, from the wolverine and
bear--they can open any newly made cache; but after the snows have
fallen, and the stones and meat are frozen in one compact mass, it
requires the ingenuity of man to remove it.
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