Ql'OTATIOXS FROM AX KXPLOREIVS LETTERS 9 



fear and dislrust of white men, of Indians and of the I']skinio to the west. Of one 

 thing I am glad, that I have had an oi)i)Oit unity to see that all the best qualities of 

 the civilized Eskimo arc found more fully among their uncivilized countrymen. 



SOME ETHNOLOGICAL RESLLTS OF THE EXPEDITIOX TO THE COPPERMINE RIVER 



We are able to assign a population of about one thousand to the sea coasts lying 

 between Kent peninsula and Cape Bexley — of these we have seen about two hundred 

 and fifty persons, but we have seen some representative of every group. 



We are able to extend the geographic range of the Eskimo west of the Copper- 

 mine considerably to the south and to the west on the mainland beyond what was 

 I)reviously known to any explorer, and to show that this is not a recent spread or 

 extension of territorial limits, but that owing to the choice of seasons by previous 

 travelers it was not possible for them to know wh(>n they were within the limits of 

 contemporaneous Eskimo occupation. 



We can show a correspondence in culture greater than hitherto known between 

 the Central (Coronation Gulf) Eskimo and the tribes who are their neighbors to the 

 south. It seems likely that the evidence, when sifted, will show a focal point farther 

 west than formerly believed, from which the Eskimo have spread east and west 

 in former times. 



We are able to extend the range of the wood-and-carth house, of permanent 

 villages and of bowhead whaling some seventy-five or one hundred miles farther 

 east than the limit assigned by the only jirevious observer. Dr. Richardson. 



We have seen the manufacture and use of "jM-iinitive" hunting im])lements 

 before the people knew firearms. 



From our knowledge of the Western Eskimo and our experience this year to the 

 east, we can adduce more numerous and stronger jiroofs than known before to show 

 the extreme, almost unbelievable conservatism of the Eskimo — apart from what 

 our coll(>ctions, ethnological and archteological, may show. For instance, an Eskimo 

 woman will always turn over pieces of boiling meat, beli(>ving they will not cook well 

 on both sides although completely immersed in water. This belief comes from the 

 days .several generations back when cooking was done in shallow stone jjots where 

 the pieces of meat were seldom more than half covered and had to be turnetl over. 



THE DISCOVERY OF A SCANDINAVIAN-LIKE PEOPLE IN VICTORIA LAND 



We have found (May 17, 1910) a North European-looking people, the Ha-nC- 

 r-tg-ml-ut of ^'ictoria Land north from Cape Bexley. Their total number is about 

 forty, of whom I saw seventeen, and was said not to have seen the blondest of the 

 group. They are markedly different from any American aborigines I have seen; 

 they suggest, in fact, a group of Scandinavian or North European jjcasants. Perhaj)s 

 better than my characterizaticm of them was that of my Alaskan Eskimo companion, 

 who has worked for ten or more years on a whaling vessel: "They are not Eskimo, 

 they are fo'c'sle men." Two of them had full chin beards to be described as light, 

 tending to red; everyone had hght eyebrows; one — perhajjs the darkest of all — 

 had hair that curled slightly. 



The Eskimo ])hysical tyjje varies considerably fi-om (Ireenland to Siberia. It 

 may be that all these variants are due partly to blood mixture, and that the 

 earlier, i)urer type was more "European" in character than we have been thinking. 

 On the other hand, there may have been direct admixture of European blood. 

 In the fifteenth century there disappeared from (Ireenland the Icelandic (Norse- 



