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102 THE CINEMA
was watching a little hole not much bigger than a large button, below him in the ice. It was the breathing hole of a seal. Now the seal has several breathing holes. The hunter has to wait until his quarry comes to the hole he watches over. While he watches for the tell-tale bubbles to arise which will tell him the seal is there, he has to be absolutely still. The slightest sound will frighten the seal away. We tried to be as quiet as possible, swung off our course and went on and left him there, whelmed in the snow, as Godforsaken and forlorn a figure as I've ever seen. But the next day we returned, he was still there, still immovable, still waiting.
Somewhere on the coast a few miles away I thought of his family in their igloo. They, too, were waiting. I've seen a whole encampment of women and children wait day after day for their hunters to return. I shall never forget on the Belcher Islands a storm that lasted eight days. The men were trying to get seals on the ice, far out at sea. I was in a bad way for food, myself, and was getting worried about what might happen. The Eskimo children were beginning to whimper with hunger, the snow was too thick for the women to see anything, all they could do was huddle with their children in the igloos, and the igloos were in utter darkness for they had not even oil for their lamps. But at last on the ninth day the storm died away. Suddenly I heard shrieks. What in the world had happened, I wondered. I rushed out of my hut. The women, gathered in a group, were looking out over the ice, they were hysterical. £Netsuk, Netsuk,' they screamed, and pointed to some black specks far out on the sea-ice. 'Netsuk, Netsuk.' Those black specks were the hunters returning. The slowness of their approach told the tale. Their dogs were pulling heavy loads. At last they had make a kill.
'Netsuk', seals. The Eskimo staff of life is, of course, the seal. The seal lives in the sea ; therefore most of the Eskimo