collection is now in the Columbian Museum." Putnam 

 was thus apparently successful in acquiring most of the 

 collection for his exhibition. Even that amount, how- 

 ever, was apparently a good deal less than he expected, 

 although it at least approximated what was mentioned in 

 the memorandum of agreement. However, considering 

 the fact that Peary was in almost constant contact with 

 Eskimos throughout the winter and spring of 1891-92 

 and frequently traded with them for meat and skins for 

 clothing, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the 

 acquisition of an ethnographic collection, although of 

 some interest, was not particularly high on his list of 

 priorities for the expedition. 



At the conclusion of the world's fair, the scientific 

 collections which had been acquired with exposition 

 funds were turned over to the Field Columbian Museum 

 as a nucleus to found the institution subsequently re- 

 named Field Museum of Natural History. Putnam be- 

 came curator of Anthropology at the American Museum 

 of Natural History on a part-time basis and continued his 

 association with Peary. During the latter's next expedi- 

 tion to Greenland in 1893, he began a collection of Polar 

 Eskimo material for the American Museum. This collec- 

 tion was augmented on future trips and was eventually 

 published by A. L. Kroeber, a student of Franz Boas at 

 Columbia University. 



Up to 1891 when Peary began his series of expedi- 

 tions to the Smith Sound region, little change had 

 occurred in Polar Eskimo life. Limited amounts of wood 

 and metal had been obtained from whalers, early explor- 

 ers, and through trade with Eskimos to the south and 

 these exotic materials enabled the people to improve 

 their hunting gear and other equipment to a limited ex- 

 tent. However, their culture was, in all essentials, virtu- 

 ally untouched by outside contacts. 



During four expeditions over a period of six years, 

 Peary supplied Eskimo families that helped him (which 

 at one time or other included virtually everyone in the 

 area) with considerable amounts of hardwood, food, 

 guns and other weapons, thimbles, needles, metal 

 knives, steel traps, tobacco, and many other items. 

 Writing with reference to the early years of the present 

 century, the Danish anthropologist Knud Rasmussen 

 stated emphatically that "it is Peary who has given the 

 tribe its present effective equipment for winning a liveli- 

 hood." 



An example of the largesse with which the Eskimos 

 must have associated the appearance of Peary on their 

 coast occurred at the end of the expedition which ac- 

 quired the items of material culture for the World's 

 Columbian Exposition. In early August of 1892, as the 

 Kite waited off the coast of McCormick Bay, Peary wrote 

 that his wife 



The Kite at the wharf in Philadelphii 



. . . distributed the household utensils to the delighted 

 women of the village, and then both women and men were 

 assembled upon the beach, and everything I did not care to 

 take home with me given to them, together with untold 

 wealth sent them [on the Kite] by kind friends of the 

 expedition in Philadelphia, in the shape of wood, knives, 

 iron kettles, etc. — treasures priceless to the Eskimo mind. 



Since this scene was to be repeated many times in the 

 future, it is little wonder that Peary could write at the 

 conclusion of his fourth expedition in 1897: "The effect 

 of my expeditions upon these children of the North 

 has been to raise the entire tribe to a condition of 

 affluence." FM 



NOTE 



This article is adapted from J. VanStone, "The First Peary Collection 

 of Polar Eskimo Material Culture" (Fieldiana: Anthropology, vol. 63, 

 no. 2, 1972). Most of the information and illustrations presented 

 here were obtained from the following sources: 



Davis, G. G. and R. N. Keely 



1892 In Arctic Seas. The Voyage of the Kite with the Peary 

 Expedition. RufusC. Hartranft, Philadelphia. 



Peary, J. D. 



1897 My Arctic Journal. A Year Among the Ice-Fields and 

 Eskimos. The Contemporary Publishing Co., New York. 



Peary, R. E. 



1898 Northward over "Great Ice." A Narrative of Life and 

 Work along the Shores and upon the Interior Ice-Cap of 

 Northern Greenland in the Years 1886 and l* 1 '! 



2 vols. Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York. 



 



