488 AIsTNUAL REPORT SMITHSONHAN INSTITUTION, 1950 



floor of one of the houses. There was also a small pile of common 

 flint chips in the sod of the village area. 



The coastal Eskimos living today at Point Lay venture inland 

 to hunt caribou and to mine coal from the seams on the Kukpowruk 

 River. The coal is put up in sacks for their own use, and trans- 

 ported by boats down the river. One of their sod huts (pi. 5, &) was 

 found near a large riverside coal seam inland. 



Unfortunately ethnological and physical anthropological data on 

 the living Eskimos from the interior of the north slope are very 

 meager and available to us only in accounts of late nineteenth- and 

 early twentieth-century explorers. As far as we know, there is only 

 one band of truly inland north-slope natives left (pi. 4, h). This 

 band, called the Killik Eskimo, numbered about 60 persons at last 

 report.^ They live around Chandler Lake and Anaktuvuk Pass in the 

 mountains, with a trading station at Bettles to the south through 

 Anaktuvuk Pass. Presumably it is to the Killiks that we owe the 

 indications of comparatively recent camp sites in the neighborhood of 

 the upper Colville River and its tributaries (Solecki, 1950a). Al- 

 though these Eskimos still forage, living a nomadic existence, they 

 are not without communication with the outside world. They take 

 advantage of light plane carrier service, possess portable radios, and, 

 according to all reports, are well versed in things mechanical, even 

 the mysteries of repairing an obstinate outboard motor or an airplane 

 pontoon float. 



The immediate antecedents of the Killiks, probably the same people 

 who left the historic archeological material along the rivers, were 

 collectively known as the Nunatagmiut Eskimos. This population, 

 which Larsen and Rainey call the Nunatarmiuts, numbered "not less 

 than 3,000" at the turn of the century (Larsen and Rainey, 1948, p. 31) . 

 The Nunatagmiut people, according to the first-hand observations of 

 Stoney (1899) were slow in moving over the country, since they de- 

 pended entirely on the land for food. They stopped wherever they 

 encountered herds of caribou. Even when going down river to the 

 coast from the mountains in the springtime, only a few boats jour- 

 neyed together, since enough food could not be provided for all the 

 people at the same time. In at least one case, the Eskimos at the 

 upper part of a river waited for the caribou to precede them down- 

 stream, so that they would have game as they descended the river 

 (ibid., pp. 813-814). Illustrative of the importance of the caribou 

 in the inland Eskimos' economy is an inventory of the items made 

 from, and the uses of, the various parts of these animals. The skin 

 furnished material for huts, tents, boats, clothing, bedding, and rope; 



• Personal communication from Robert Rausch, U. S. Public Health Service, November 20, 1950. Mr. 

 Rausch asserts that these Eskimo call themselves Nunamiut, a contractual name for Nunatagmiut (see 

 below). 



