_Other Eskimo._--The nearest neighbors of these people, as has been
stated above, are the Eskimo living at Demarcation Point (or Herschel
Island), eastward, and those who inhabit the small villages between
Point Belcher and Wainwright Inlet. These villages are three in
number. The nearest to Point Belcher, Nuna´ria, is now deserted, and
its inhabitants have established the new village of Sida´ru nearer the
inlet. The third village consists of a few houses only, and is called
A´tûnĕ. The people of these villages are so closely connected that
they are sometimes spoken of collectively as Sida´ruñmiun. At a
distance up the river, which flows into Wainwright Inlet, live the
Ku´ñmiun, “the people who live on the river.” These appear to be
closely related to the people of the first village below Wainwright
Inlet, which is named Kĭlauwitawĭñ. At any rate, a party of them who
came to Cape Smyth in the spring of 1883 were spoken of indifferently
as Kuñmiun or Kĭlauwitawĭ´ñmiun.
Small parties from all the villages occasionally visit Point Barrow
during the winter for the purpose of trade and amusement, traveling
with sledges along the land ice where it is smooth, otherwise along
the edge of the cliffs; and similar parties from the two northern
villages return these visits. No special article of trade appears to
be sought at either village, though perhaps the southern villages have
a greater supply of skins of the bearded seal, fit for making umiak
covers, as I knew of a load of these brought up for sale, and in the
spring of 1883 a party went down to the inlet in search of such skins.
Single families and small parties like that from Kĭlauwitawĭñ,
mentioned above, sometimes spend the whaling season at Point Barrow,
joining some of the whaling crews at the northern villages. The people
that we saw from these settlements were very like the northern Eskimos
but many of them spoke a perceptibly harsher dialect, sounding the
final consonants distinctly.
The people at Point Hope are known as Tĭkera´ñmiun “inhabitants of the
forefinger (Point Hope)”, and their settlement is occasionally visited
by straggling parties. No natives from Point Hope came north during
the 2 years of our stay, but a party of them visited the _Plover_ in
1853.[N38] We found some people acquainted by name with the Kuwû´ñmiun
and Silawĭ´ñmiun of the Kuwûk (Kowak or “Putnam”) and Silawik Rivers
emptying into Hotham Inlet, and one man was familiar with the name of
Sisualĭñ, the great trading camp at Kotzebue Sound. We were unable to
find that they had any knowledge of Asia (“Kokhlitnuna,”) or the
Siberian Eskimo, but this was probably due to lack of properly
directed inquiries, as they seem to have been well informed on the
subject in the _Plover’s_ time.[N39]
[Footnote N38: Maguire, NW. Passage, p. 384.]
[Footnote N39: It is to be regretted that the expedition was not
supplied with a copy of Dr. Simpson’s excellent paper, as much
valuable information was missed for lack of suggestions as to the
direction of inquiries.]
With the people of the Nu´natăk (Inland) River, the Nunatañmiun, they
are well acquainted, as they meet them every summer for purposes of
trading, and a family or two of Nunatañmiun sometimes spend the winter
at the northern villages. One family wintered at Nuwŭk in 1881-’82,
and another at Utkiavĭñ the following winter, while a widower of this
“tribe” was also settled there for the same winter, having married a
widow in the village. We obtained very little definite information
about these people except that they came from the south and descended
the Colville River. Our investigations were rendered difficult by the
engrossing nature of the work of the station, and the trouble we
experienced, at first, in learning enough of the language to make
ourselves clearly understood. Dr. Simpson was able to learn definitely
that the homes of these people are on the Nunatăk and that some of
them visit Kotzebue Sound in the summer, while trading parties make a
portage between the Nunatăk and Colville, descending the latter river
to the Arctic Ocean.[N40] I have been informed by the captain of one
of the American whalers that he has, in different seasons, met the
same people at Kotzebue Sound and the mouth of the Colville. We also
received articles of Siberian tame reindeer skin from the east, which
must have come across the country from Kotzebue Sound.
[Footnote N40: Op. cit., pp. 234 and 236.]
These people differ from the northern natives in some habits, which
will be described later, and speak a harsher dialect. We were informed
that in traveling east after passing the mouth of the Colville they
came to the Kûñmû´dlĭñ (“Kangmali enyuin” of Dr. Simpson and other
authors) and still further off “a great distance” to the Kupûñ or
“Great River”--the Mackenzie--near the mouth of which is the village
of the Kupûñmiun, whence it is but a short distance inland to the
“great house” (iglu´kpûk) of the white men on the great river
(probably Fort Macpherson). Beyond this we only heard confused stories
of people without posteriors and of sledges that run by themselves
without dogs to draw them. We heard nothing of the country of
Kĭtiga´ru[N41] or of the stone-lamp country mentioned by Dr.
Simpson.[N42] The Kûñmûdlĭñ are probably, as Dr. Simpson believes, the
people whose winter houses were seen by Franklin at Demarcation
Point,[N43] near which, at Icy Reef, Hooper also saw a few
houses.[N44]
[Footnote N41: This was the name of a girl at Nuwŭk.]
[Footnote N42: Op. cit., p. 269.]
[Footnote N43: Second Exp., p. 142.]
[Footnote N44: Tents of the Tuski, p. 255.]
As already stated, Capt. E. E. Smith was informed by the natives that
there is now no village farther west than Herschel Island, where there
is one of considerable size. If he was correctly informed, this must
be a new village, since the older explorers who passed along the coast
found only a summer camp at this point. He also states that he found
large numbers of ruined iglus on the outlying sandy islands along the
coast, especially near Anxiety Point. We have scarcely any information
about these people, as the only white men who have seen them had
little intercourse with them in passing along the coast.[N45] The
Point Barrow people have but slight acquaintance with them, as they
see them only a short time each summer. Captain Smith, however,
informs me that in the summer of 1885 one boat load of them came back
with the Point Barrow traders to Point Barrow, where he saw them on
board of his ship. There was a man at Utkiavwĭñ who was called “the
Kûñmû´dlĭñ.” He came there when a child, probably, by adoption, and
was in no way distinguishable from the other people.
[Footnote N45: All the published information there is about them
from personal observation can be found in Franklin, Second Exp.,
p. 142; T. Simpson, Narrative, pp. 118-123; and Hooper, Tents,
etc., pp. 255-257 and 260.]
Father Petitot appears to include these people in the “Taρèoρmeut”
division of his “Tchiglit” Eskimo, whom he loosely describes as
inhabiting the coast from Herschel Island to Liverpool Bay, including
the delta of the Mackenzie,[N46] without locating their permanent
villages. In another place, however, he excludes the “Taρèoρmeut” from
the “Tchiglit,” saying, “Dans l’ouest, les _Tchiglit_ communiquaient
avec leurs plus proches voisins les Taρèoρ-meut,”[N47] while in a
third place[N48] he gives the country of the “Tchiglit” as extending
from the Coppermine River to the Colville, and on his map in the same
volume, the “Tareormeut” are laid down in the Mackenzie delta only.
According to his own account, however, he had no personal knowledge of
any Eskimo west of the Mackenzie delta. These people undoubtedly have
a local name derived from that of their winter village, but it is yet
to be learned.
[Footnote N46: Monographie, p. xi.]
[Footnote N47: Ibid, p. xvi.]
[Footnote N48: Bull. de la Société de Géographie, 6^e sér., vol.
10, p. 256.]
It is possible that they do consider themselves the same people with
the Eskimo of the Mackenzie delta, and call themselves by the general
name of “Taρèoρmeut” (= Taxaiomiun in the Point Barrow dialect),
“those who live by the sea.” That they do not call themselves
“Kûñmû´dlĭñ” or “Kanmali-enyuin” or “Kangmaligmeut” is to my mind
quite certain. The word “Kûñmû´dlĭñ,” as already stated, is used at
Norton Sound to designate the people of Point Barrow (I was called a
“Kûñmû´dlĭñ” by some Eskimo at St. Michaels because I spoke the Point
Barrow dialect), who do not recognize the name as belonging to
themselves, but have transferred it to the people under consideration.
Now, “Kûñmû´dlĭñ” is a word formed after the analogy of many Eskimo
words from a noun kûñme and the affix lĭñ or dlĭñ (in Greenlandic
lik), “one who has a ----.” The radical noun, the meaning of which I
can not ascertain, would become in the Mackenzie dialect kρagmaρk
(using Petitot’s orthography), which with -lik in the plural would
make kρagmalit. (According to Petitot’s “Grammaire” the plural of -lik
in the Mackenzie dialect is -lit, and not -gdlit, as in Greenlandic).
This is the name given by Petitot on his map to the people of the
Anderson River,[N49] while he calls the Anderson River itself
Kρagmalik.[N50] The father, however, had but little personal knowledge
of the natives of the Anderson, having made but two, apparently brief,
visits to their village in 1865, when he first made the acquaintance
of the Eskimo. He afterwards became fairly intimate with the Eskimo of
the Mackenzie delta, parties of whom spent the summers of 1869 and
1870 with him. From these parties he appears to have obtained the
greater part of the information embodied in his Monographie and
Vocabulaire, as he explicitly states that he brought the last party to
Fort Good Hope “autant pour les instruire à loisir que pour apprendre
d’eux leur idiome.”[N51] Nothing seems to me more probable than that
he learned from these Mackenzie people the names of their neighbors of
the Anderson, which he had failed to obtain in his flying visits 5
years before, and that it is the same name, “Kûñmû´dlĭñ,” which we
have followed from Norton Sound and found always applied to the people
just beyond us. Could we learn the meaning of this word the question
might be settled, but the only possible derivation I can see for it is
from the Greenlandic Karmaĸ, a wall, which throws no light upon the
subject. Petitot calls the people of Cape Bathurst Kρagmaliveit, which
appears to mean “the real Kûñmû´dlĭñ” (“Kûñmû´dlĭñ” and the affix
-vik, “the real”).
[Footnote N49: See also Monographie, etc., p. xi, where the name
is spelled Kρamalit.]
[Footnote N50: Vocabulaire, etc., p. 76.]
[Footnote N51: Bull. Soc. de Géog., 6^e sér., vol. 10, p. 39.]
The Kupûñmiun appear to inhabit the permanent villages which have been
seen near the western mouth of the Mackenzie, at Shingle Point[N52]
and Point Sabine,[N53] with an outlying village, supposed to be
deserted, at Point Kay.[N54] They are the natives described by Petitot
in his Monographie as the Taρèoρmeut division of the Tchiglit, to
whom, from the reasons already stated, most of his account seems to
apply. There appears to me no reasonable doubt, considering his
opportunities for observing these people, that Taρèoρmeut, “those who
dwell by the sea,” is the name that they actually apply to themselves,
and that Kupûñmiun, or Kopagmut, “those who live on the Great River,”
is a name bestowed upon them by their neighbors, perhaps their western
neighbors alone, since all the references to this name seem to be
traceable to the authority of Dr. Simpson. Should they apply to
themselves a name of similar meaning, it would probably be of a
different form, as, according to Petitot,[N55] they call the Mackenzie
Kuρvik, instead of Kupûk or Kupûñ.
[Footnote N52: T. Simpson, Narrative, p. 112.]
[Footnote N53: Hooper, Tents, etc., p. 264.]
[Footnote N54: ibid, p. 263.]
[Footnote N55: Bull. Soc. de Géog., 6^e sér., vol. 10, p. 182.]
These are the people who visit Fort Macpherson every spring and
summer,[N56] and are well known to the Hudson Bay traders as the
Mackenzie River Eskimo. They are the Eskimo encountered between
Herschel Island and the mouth of the Mackenzie by Franklin, by Dease
and Simpson, and by Hooper and Pullen, all of whom have published
brief notes concerning them.[N57]
[Footnote N56: Petitot, Monographie, etc., pp. xvi and xx.]
[Footnote N57: Franklin, 2d Exp., pp. 99-101, 105-110, 114-119 and
128; T. Simpson, Narrative, pp. 104-112; Hooper, Tents, etc., pp.
263-264. There is also a brief note by the Rev. W. W. Kirkby, in a
“Journey to the Youcan.” Smithsonian Report for 1864. These, with
Petitot’s in many respects admirable Monographie, comprise all the
information regarding these people from actual observation that
has been published. Richardson has described them at second hand
in his “Searching Expedition” and “Polar Regions.” The “Kopagmute”
of Petroff (Report, etc., p. 125) are a purely hypothetical people
invented to fill the space between “the coast people in the north
and the Athabascans in the south.”]
We are still somewhat at a loss for the proper local names of the last
labret-wearing Eskimo, those, namely, of the Anderson River and Cape
Bathurst. That they are not considered by the Taρèoρmeut as belonging
to the same “tribe” with themselves is evident from the names
Kρagmalit and Kρagmalivëit, applied to them by Petitot. Sir John
Richardson, the first white man to encounter them (in 1826), says that
they called themselves “Kitte-garrœ-oot,”[N58] and the Point Barrow
people told Dr. Simpson of country called “Kit-te-ga´-ru” beyond the
Mackenzie.[N59] These people, as well as the Taρèoρmeut, whom they
closely resemble, are described in Petitot’s Monographie, and brief
notices of them are given by Sir John Richardson,[N60] McClure,[N61]
Armstrong,[N62] and Hooper.[N63] The arts and industries of these
people from the Mackenzie to the Anderson, especially the latter
region, are well represented in the National Museum by the collections
of Messrs. Kennicott, Ross, and MacFarlane. The Point Barrow people
say that the Kupûñmiun are “bad;”[N64] but notwithstanding this small
parties from the two villages occasionally travel east to the
Mackenzie, and spend the winter at the Kupûñmiun village, whence they
visit the “great house,” returning the following season. Such a party
left Point Barrow June 15, 1882, declaring their intention of going
all the way to the Mackenzie. They returned August 25 or 26, 1883,
when we were in the midst of the confusion of closing the station, so
that we learned no details of their journey. A letter with which they
were intrusted to be forwarded to the United States through the
Mackenzie River posts reached the Chief Signal Officer in the summer
of 1883 by way of the Rampart House, on the Porcupine River, whence we
received an answer by the bearer from the factor in charge. The Eskimo
probably sent the letter to the Rampart House by the Indians who visit
that post.
[Footnote N58: Franklin, 2d Exp., p. 203.]
[Footnote N59: Ibid., p. 269.]
[Footnote N60: Franklin, 2d Exp., pp. 193, 203 and 230; Searching
Exp., and Polar Regions, p. 300.]
[Footnote N61: N. W. Passage, pp. 84-98.]
[Footnote N62: Personal Narrative, p. 176.]
[Footnote N63: Tents, etc., pp. 343-348.]
[Footnote N64: Compare what Petitot has to say--Monographie, etc.,
p. xiii and passim--about the turbulent and revengeful character
of the “Tchiglit.”]
The intercourse between these people is purely commercial. Dr.
Simpson, in the paper so often quoted, gives an excellent detailed
description of the course of this trade, which agrees in the main with
our observations, though we did not learn the particulars of time and
distance as accurately as he did. There have been some important
changes, however, since his time. A small party, perhaps five or six
families, of “Nunatañmiun” now come every summer to Point Barrow about
the end of July, or as soon as the shallow bays along shore are open.
They establish themselves at the summer camping ground at Pérnyɐ, at
the southwest corner of Elson Bay, and stay two or three weeks,
trading with the natives and the ships, dancing, and shooting ducks.
The eastward-bound parties seem to start a little earlier than
formerly (July 7, 1853, July 3, 1854,[N65] June 18, 1882, and June 29,
1883). From all accounts their relations with the eastern people are
now perfectly friendly. We heard nothing of the precautionary measures
described by Dr. Simpson,[N66] and the women talked frequently of
their trading with the Kûñmû´dlĭñ and even with the Kupûñmiun.[N67] We
did not learn definitely whether they met the latter at Barter Point
or whether they went still farther east.
[Footnote N65: Dr. Simpson, op. cit., p. 264.]
[Footnote N66: Op. cit., p. 265.]
[Footnote N67: In the Plover’s time they were left a day’s journey
in the rear.]
Some of the Point Barrow parties do not go east of the Colville. The
articles of trade have changed somewhat in the last 30 years, from the
fact that the western natives can now buy directly from the whalers
iron articles, arms, and ammunition, beads, tobacco, etc. The
Nunatañmiun now sell chiefly furs, deerskins, and clothing ready made
from them, woodenware (buckets and tubs), willow poles for setting
nets, and sometimes fossil ivory. The double-edged Siberian knives are
no longer in the market and appear to be going out of fashion, though
a few of them are still in use. Ready-made stone articles, like the
whetstones mentioned by Dr. Simpson,[N68] are rarely, if ever, in the
market. We did not hear of the purchase of stone lamps from the
eastern natives. This is probably due to a cessation of the demand for
them at Point Barrow, owing to the falling off in the population.
[Footnote N68: Op. cit., p. 266.]
The Kûñmû´dlĭñ no longer furnish guns and ammunition, as the western
natives prefer the breech-loading arms they obtain from the whalers to
the flintlock guns sold by the Hudson Bay Company. The trade with
these people seems to be almost entirely for furs and skins, notably
black and red fox skins and wolverine skins. Skins of the narwhal or
beluga are no longer mentioned as important articles of trade.
In return for these things the western natives give sealskins, etc.,
especially oil, as formerly, though I believe that very little, if
any, whalebone is now carried east, since the natives prefer to save
it for trading with the ships in the hope of getting liquor, or arms
and ammunition, and various articles of American manufacture, beads,
kettles, etc. I was told by an intelligent native of Utkiavwĭñ that
brass kettles were highly prized by the Kupûñmiun, and that a large
one would bring three wolverine skins,[N69] three black foxskins, or
five red ones. One woman was anxious to get all the empty tin cans she
could, saying that she could sell them to the Kûñmû´dlĭñ for a foxskin
apiece. We were told that the eastern natives were glad to buy gun
flints and bright-colored handkerchiefs, and that the Nunatañmiun
wanted blankets and playing cards.
[Footnote N69: T. Simpson saw iron kettles at Camden Bay which had
been purchased from the western natives at two wolverine skins
apiece. Narrative, p. 171.]
_Indians._--They informed us that east of the Colville they sometimes
met “Itkû´dlĭñ,” people with whom they could not converse, but who
were friendly and traded with them, buying oil for fox skins. They
were said to live back of the coast between the Colville and the
Mackenzie, and were described as wearing no labrets, but rings in
their ears and noses. They wear their hair long, do not tonsure the
crown, and are dressed in jackets of skin with the hair removed,
without hoods, and ornamented with beads and fringe. We saw one or two
such jackets in Utkiavwĭñ apparently made of moose skin, and a few
pouches of the same material, highly ornamented with beads. They have
long flintlock guns, white man’s wooden pipes, which they value
highly, and axes--not adzes--with which they “break many trees.” We
easily understood from this description that Indians were meant, and
since our return I have been able to identify one or two of the tribes
with tolerable certainty.
They seem better acquainted with these people than in Dr. Simpson’s
time, and know the word “kŭtchin,” people, in which many of the tribal
names end. We did not hear the names Ko´yukan or Itkalya´ruin which
Dr. Simpson learned, apparently from the Nunatañmiun.[N70] I heard one
man speak of the Kŭtcha Kutchin, who inhabit the “Yukon from the Birch
River to the Kotlo River on the east and the Porcupine River on the
north, ascending the latter a short distance.”[N71]
[Footnote N70: “The inland Eskimo also call them Ko´-yu-kan, and
divide them into three sections or tribes. * * *
One is called I´t-ka-lyi [apparently the plural of Itkûdlĭñ],
* * * the second It-kal-ya´-ruīn [different or other Itkûdlĭñ],”
op. cit., p. 269.]
[Footnote N71: Dall, Cont. to N. A. Ethn., vol. 1, p. 30, where
they are identified with Itkalyaruin of Simpson.]
One of the tribes with which they have dealings is the “Rat Indians”
of the Hudson Bay men, probably the Vunta´-Kŭtchin,[N72] from the fact
that they visit Fort Yukon. These are the people whom Capt. Maguire
met on his unsuccessful sledge journey to the eastward to communicate
with Collinson. The Point Barrow people told us that “Magwa” went east
to see “Colli´k-sina,” but did not see him, only saw the Itkûdlĭñ.
Collinson,[N73] speaking of Maguire’s second winter at Point Barrow,
says: “In attempting to prosecute the search easterly, an armed body
of Indians of the Koyukun tribe were met with, and were so hostile
that he was compelled to return.” Maguire himself, in his official
report,[N74] speaks of meeting _four_ Indians who had followed his
party for several days. He says nothing of any hostile demonstration;
in fact, says they showed signs of disappointment at his having
nothing to trade with them, but his Eskimo, he says, called them
Koyukun, which he knew was the tribe that had so barbarously murdered
Lieut. Barnard at Nulato in 1851. Moreover, each Indian had a musket,
and he had only two with a party of eight men, so he thought it safer
to turn back. However, he seems to have distributed among them printed
“information slips,” which they immediately carried to Fort Yukon, and
returning to the coast with a letter from the clerk in charge,
delivered it to Capt. Collinson on board of the _Enterprise_ at Barter
Island, July 18, 1854. The letter is as follows:
FORT YOUCON, _June 27, 1854_.
The printed slips of paper delivered by the officers of H.M.S.
_Plover_ on the 25th of April, 1854, to the Rat Indians were
received on the 27th of June, 1854, at the Hudson Bay Company’s
establishment, Fort Youcon. The Rat Indians are in the habit of
making periodical trading excursions to the Esquimaux along the
coast. They are a harmless, inoffensive set of Indians, ever ready
and willing to render any assistance they can to the whites.
WM. LUCAS HARDISTY,
_Clerk in charge_.[N75]
[Footnote N72: Ibid., p. 31.]
[Footnote N73: Arctic Papers, p. 119.]
[Footnote N74: Further papers, etc., pp. 905 et seq.]
[Footnote N75: Arctic Papers, p. 144.]
Capt. Collinson evidently never dreamed of identifying this “harmless,
inoffensive set of Indians” with “an armed body of Indians of the
Koyukun tribe.” It is important that his statement, quoted above,
should be corrected lest it serve as authority for extending the range
of the Koyukun Indians[N76] to the Arctic Ocean. The Point Barrow
people also know the name of the U´na-kho-tānā,[N77] or En´akotina, as
they pronounce it. Their intercourse with all these Indians appears to
be rather slight and purely commercial. Friendly relations existed
between the Rat Indians and the “Eskimos who live somewhere near the
Colville” as early as 1849,[N78] while it was still “war to the knife”
between the Peel River Indians and the Kupûñmiun.[N79]
[Footnote N76: Koyū´-ku´kh-otā´nā, Dall, Cont. to N. A. Eth.,
p. 27.]
[Footnote N77: Ibid., p. 28.]
[Footnote N78: Hooper, Tents, etc. p. 276.]
[Footnote N79: Ibid., p. 273.]
The name Itkû´dlĭñ, of which I´t-ka-lyi of Dr. Simpson appears to be
the plural, is a generic word for an Indian, and is undoubtedly the
same as the Greenland word erĸileĸ--plural erĸigdlit--which means a
fabulous “inlander” with a face like a dog. “They are martial spirits
and inhuman foes to mankind; however, they only inhabit the east side
of the land.”[N80] Dr. Rink[N81] has already pointed out that this
name is in use as far as the Mackenzie River--for instance, the
Indians are called “eert-kai-lee” (Parry), or “it-kagh-lie” (Lyon), at
Fury and Hecla Strait; ik-kil-lin (Gilder), at the west shore of
Hudson Bay, and “itkρe´le´it” (Petitot) at the Mackenzie. Petitot also
gives this word as itkpe´lit in his vocabulary (p. 42). These words,
including the term Ingalik, or In-ka-lik, applied by the natives of
Norton Sound to the Indians,[N82] and which Mr. Dall was informed
meant “children of a louse’s egg,” all appear to be compounds of the
word erĸeĸ, a louse egg, and the affix lik. (I suspect erĸileĸ, from
the form of its plural, to be a corruption of “erĸiliĸ,” since there
is no recognized affix -leĸ in Greenlandic.)
[Footnote N80: Crantz, vol. 1, p. 208.]
[Footnote N81: Journ. Anthrop. Inst., 1885, p. 244.]
[Footnote N82: Dall, Alaska, p. 28 and Contrib., vol. 1, p. 25.]
Petitot[N83] gives an interesting tradition in regard to the origin of
this name: “La tradition Innok dédaigne de parler ici des
Peaux-Rouges. L’áyant fait observer á mon narrateur Aρviuna: ‘Oh!’ me
repondait-il, ‘il ne vaut pas la peine d’en parler. Ils naquirent
aussi dans l’ouest, sur l’ile du Castor, des larves de nos poux. C’ést
pourquoi nous les nommons Itkρe´le´it.’”
[Footnote N83: Monographie, p. xxiv.]