ARCHEOLOGICAL WORK IN ARCTIC CANADA — COLLINS 515 



the island, mainly at Native Point. In the winter of 1902-3 the 

 Sadlermiut were struck by an epidemic, which seems to have been 

 typhoid, and the entire tribe perished except for two children who 

 had previously been adopted by the Aivilik. 



Without exception, those who had an opportunity to observe the 

 Sadlermiuts were impressed by the many differences between them 

 and other Canadian Eskimos. Their language was different, they 

 lived in permanent semisubterranean stone dwellings instead of snow 

 houses, and the men wore bearskin trousers and tied their hair in 

 an enormous knot above the forehead. Another striking difference 

 was that the Sadlermiut, instead of using iron tools like the Eskimos 

 all around them, still made their knives, harpoon blades, and other 

 implements from chipped flint. 



It has been commonly thought that the Sadlermiut were the descend- 

 ants of the old Thule people, the last remnant of this prehistoric 

 Eskimo population which originated in Alaska and spread eastward to 

 Arctic Canada and Greenland some seven or eight hundred years ago. 

 There was undoubtedly a connection of some kind between Sadlermiut 

 and Thule, but as a result of our work at Native Point it seems more 

 likely that the Sadlermiuts, instead of being the actual descendants of 

 the Thule people, had merely been influenced by Thule culture. On the 

 other hand, there are strong indications that the Sadlermiuts were 

 related in some way to the Eskimos of the prehistoric Dorset culture, 

 perhaps even descended from them. One of their most important 

 implements, the harpoon head with which they captured seals and 

 walrus, was demonstrably derived from one of the Dorset types. 

 In our excavations at the Sadlermiut site and the three Dorset sites 

 at Native Point, we found harpoon heads that clearly show the transi- 

 tion from Dorset to Sadlermiut. Stone side blades on knives and 

 lances are another feature which the Sadlermiuts appear to have 

 taken over from the earlier Dorset people. Our later work on Walrus 

 Island suggests that even the Sadlermiut form of dwelling may have 

 been borrowed from the Dorset Eskimos. It might also be mentioned 

 that the Sadlermiut, according to their own tradition, came to 

 Southampton from Baffin Island, and that their dialect seems to have 

 been related to that of the Okomiut of that area. The Sadlermiut 

 also lived on Coats Island and probably on Mansel and the islands 

 in Hudson Strait, and it was on these same islands and the southern 

 part of Baffin Island that the Dorset culture had previously flourished. 

 In short, both prehistoric Dorset and modern Sadlermiut occupied the 

 same territory in the Hudson Bay and Strait area. Though the evi- 

 dence is still incomplete, it would seem not unlikely that the Sadler- 

 miut, whose anomalous position has long puzzled ethnologists, were 

 the descendants of the mysterious Dorset people who were the other, 

 and principal object of study of our expedition. 



