THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 469 



somewhere to the eastward, farther east than Darnley Bay, and 

 that she had been said to belong to the Nagyuktogmiut. We 

 learned in the year spent at Coronation Gulf that the Nagyuktog- 

 miut proper are one of several groups in Coronation Gulf, as indeed 

 can be seen from Richardson's narrative of his two expeditions 

 in that region. But it is probable that the Mackenzie River and 

 Cape Bathurst Eskimos grouped under the term Nagyuktogmiut 

 not only that division but all divisions remote enough to be known 

 to them only through hearsay. It may well be that Uttaktuak's 

 grandmother came from Victoria Island instead of the mainland, 

 and possibly even from Prince Albert Sound where the European- 

 like characters are most in evidence to-day. 



According to Uttaktuak, her grandmother had eyes about the 

 color of mine, which are spoken of as blue. Both Uttaktuak and 

 Guinnana, who was an adopted child of Uttaktuak's parents, re- 

 membered her distinctly. They also said that Uttaktuak's father, 

 the man referred to by Sten, had blue eyes. Uttaktuak had two 

 brothers and two sisters. One brother had blue eyes even lighter 

 than mine, according to Uttaktuak. He died when four or five 

 years old. The second brother had eyes also lighter than the 

 Eskimo brown although scarcely blue. One of the sisters, Mamay- 

 auk, has eyes which are not of the typical Eskimo appear- 

 ance, as I know both from observation and from common Eskimo 

 opinion including Uttaktuak's, although they cannot be described 

 as blue. The darkest eyes in the family are those of Arnaretuak 

 and of Uttaktuak, who is the only one typically Eskimo in appear- 

 ance in the whole family.* 



My informants told me of two other people in the Mackenzie 

 delta who have eyes considered by the Eskimos to be of European 

 type and who are known to be of pure Eskimo descent — that is, 

 not the descendants of any white men who have come to the 

 country in recent times. One of these I had frequently seen and had 

 never noticed any peculiarity of his eyes, taking him to be a 

 typical Eskimo. I have since seen him and found that the eyes 

 are indeed lighter than ordinary, but scarcely blue. 



Unfortunately the circumstances now were such that I was unable 

 to spend much time with the Prince Albert Sound Eskimos. The 

 winter of 1916-1917 many of them visited the Polar Bear and were 



* For an account of the "blond" Eskimos (so-called popularly although 

 named by me Copper Eskimos because of the prevalence of copper imple- 

 ments among them), see Index of "My Life With the Eskimo," under the 

 head "Blond Eskimo." 



