The clothing for the men must be made first, for they are the lords,
and then they need them first as they must go out hunting, and should
be made as comfortable as possible. The two skins that are to become
his inside coat, and the one for his inner trousers--his dress suit,
as it were--are selected, and the women dampen the fleshy side with
water that is warmed in their mouths and squirted on the skin, to be
spread evenly over the surface with their hands. They are then folded
over, with the damp side in, and put aside where they will not freeze
until the next day. After arising in the morning, and a breakfast of
raw meat, followed by a pipe, he removes his coat, and, with nothing on
from his waist up but the usual dirt, he sits upon his bed, and with a
bone scraper, called a suk-koo, goes over every particle of the skin
upon the fleshy side, breaking it thoroughly and stretching it. Then
comes the woman's first part of the work. It is not considered best to
dry the skin over a lamp, because it has a tendency to harden it
somewhat. It should be dried gradually, and by the heat of the body, so
the woman wraps it around the upper part of her body, next to her skin,
and sits at work until it is thoroughly dried. One who has never had
the experience of exhausting his caloric for the purpose of drying a
wet blanket can have but a vague idea of the exquisite torture of
sitting in a temperature far below zero with no covering upon his
shoulders but a damp reindeer skin.
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