The sun., 1919-04-06
Warned by Reflection They Crawl to
Safety After Straying Far Out
on Thin Ice Over Swiftest
of Arctic Currents

ing metnOd IN its essence recurring
long delays, and thus not well ADAPTED
to travelling parties that are in a
hurry, and kerosene was therefore or
great value to us. We could of course
have gone several days without any
fuel at all, but it would have been a
rather unpleasant experience, for the
weather was very cold, going down to
5O degrees below zero at night oc-
casionally.
We were on CoronatiorA Gulf in
search Of people. and we had no idea
where to look for them, except that
they would not be anywhere near
shore. We confirmed on entering the
gulf fact Of which we had seen some
indications the previous spring, that
there are four times as many islands
in 1t as the charts show us. Most Of
these occur In chains running about
parallel to the south shore OF the gulf
or tending somewhat offshore as you
go east. 1t seemed to us the best plan.
therefore, to follow one Of these chains
eastward and to spy from the tops OF
their high islands with our glasses.
Although the snow houses them
selves are not easily seen at a great
distance. an Eskimo village on the ice
in spring presents as whole a dark
appearance, on account of the wet
clothes that are hung up outdoors to
be dried and because Of the blubber
bags and the other household belong
ings which are scattered about.
Trading with the Esximo..
On April 10 we came to a village OF
nfteen persons belonging chiefly to
the Nagyuktogmiut and Ungasiktag-
miut groups, who hunt generally in
the south central portion OF Victoria
Island in summer. We spent several
days trading for chronological speci-
mems. chiefly clothing. stone lamps
and stone pots, bows and arrows, carl
bou spears and harpoons. Most of
these were tipped with copper, al
though the knives generally had iron
blades made of gun barrels. This is
Que to the fact that the Eskimos who
trade with the Hudson's Bay Com
pany and with whalers on Hudson
Bay Buy guns and carry them west to
district where ammunition cannot
be had. Then they trade them of to
Eskimos still further west, who have
no use for them as guns, having no
ammunition or any knowledge of their
use and who therefore beat them up
into knife blades.
We discovered here the answer to a
problem OF long standing in the eth
nology and archaeology of the western
Eskimo. At Cape Bexley the previous
spring we had noted the abundance
and excellence of the stone lamps and
pots and had asked the people where
they got them. Their answer had
been that sometimes they purchased
them from people to the east and
sometimes individuals of their own
tribe went east to the place where
suitable stone could be found and made
their own pots and lamps. This place
they had named to US as Utkusiksalik,
or the place where there is material
for pots, and the people who lived in
the district they called the Utkusiksa-
ligmiut.
The Place of Stone Utensils.
We now found that some of the
people In this village considered them
selves Utkusiksaligmiut and that the
place where the pot stone was to be
found was the mouth of the valley of
a small river clearly visible from this
village as a V-shaped gap in the high
hills In the mainland to the south
From this quarry or from others
lying between It and Back River must
have come all the lamps and pots Of
tie peculiar stone known to the Es-
kimos as tunirktak, found all the way
from the Coppermine west to Boring
Straits. and pending further investi-
cations we may assume that utensils
OF the same stone found even in east
ern Siberia among the EslSimos and
| coast Chuckcee must have come from
the same sources.
We purchased here from its maker
a lamp forty-three inches long, weigh
ing about fifty pounds. which In spite
of its being a fragile and inconvenient
thing to carry has been safely trans
ferred to civilization and Is now In
the American Museum of Natural His
tory. Although we sawseveral larger
lamps we were unable to purchase
them from their owners, but forty
three inches is considerably more than
the length of any other lamp known
to us as existing In museums.
In this group we met people who had
travelled further abroad than any we
had previously seen. All whom had
asked up to this time whether Victoria
Land were an island or not had in
variably agreed that 1t was not an
island; in other words, that there was
no other side to 1t or sea surround
ing II.
In this village, however. there were
several people who expressed them
selves definitely as knowing that there
was an east side tk the island. t)ne M