It is not only the action of the grinders that brings them to
the proper state, but the warm breath and saliva play an effectual part
in the process. This is usually their visiting work. When they go to
each other's tupics or igloos to make calls, instead of taking their
knitting, the belles of the polar circle take their chewing. It does
not add much to the charms of female society to see them sitting before
you gnawing and sucking a pair of ookjook soles, or twisting an entire
seal-skin into a roll, one end of which is thrust into a capacious
mouth to undergo the masticating and lubricating process. But it does
increase your respect for them to see with what cheerfulness these
women apply themselves to their exceedingly disagreeable labor.
Seal-skins for making coats and trousers are dressed with the hair on,
the fleshy membranes, or "mum'-me," being cut off with an oodloo before
they are washed, stretched, and dried. One good warm spring day is
sufficient to dry a seal-skin, which for this purpose is stretched over
the ground or snow by means of long wooden pins, which keep it elevated
two or three inches, thus allowing the air to circulate underneath it.
Sometimes in the early spring, before the sun attains sufficient power,
a few skins for immediate use are dried over the lamps in the igloos.
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