44 THE POINT BARKOW ESKIMO. 



Island), eastward, and those who inhabit the small villages between 

 Point Belcher and Wainwright Inlet. These villages are three in num 

 ber. The nearest to Point Belcher, Nuna ria, is now deserted, and its 

 inhabitants have established the new village of Sida ru nearer the inlet. 

 The third village consists of a few houses only, and is called A time&quot;. 

 The people of these villages are so closely connected that they are some 

 times spoken of collectively as Sida rufimiun. At a distance up the 

 river, which flows into Waimvright Inlet, live the Ku nmiun, &quot;the peo 

 ple who live on the river.&quot; These appear to be closely related to the 

 people of the first village below Wainwright Inlet, which is named 

 Kllamvitawin. At any rate, a party of them who came to Cape Smyth 

 in the spring of 1883 were spoken of indifferently as Kufimiun or Kll- 

 auwitawi fimiuii. 



Small parties from all the villages occasionally visit Point Barrow 

 during the winter for the purpose of trade and amusement, traveling 

 with sledges along the land ice where it is smooth, otherwise along the 

 edge of the cliffs; and similar parties from the two northern villages 

 return these visits. No special article of trade appears to be sought at 

 either village, though perhaps the southern villages have a greater 

 supply of skins of the bearded seal, fit for making umiak covers, as I 

 knew of a load of these brought up for sale, and in the spring of 1883 a 

 party went down to the inlet in search of such skins. Single families 

 and small parties like that from Kllauwitawlfi, mentioned above, some 

 times spend the whaling season at Point Barrow, joining some of the 

 whaling crews at the northern villages. The people that we saw from 

 these settlements were very like the northern Eskimos but many of 

 them spoke a perceptibly harsher dialect, sounding the final consonants 

 distinctly. 



The people at Point Hope are known as Tlkera fimiun &quot; inhabitants 

 of the forefinger (Point Hope),&quot; and their settlement is occasionally vis 

 ited by straggling parties. No natives from Point Hope came north 

 during the 2 years of our stay, but a party of them visited the Plover 

 in 1853. We found some people acquainted by name with the Kuwu fi- 

 ininn and Silawl nmiun of the Kuwfik (Kowak or &quot;Putnam&quot;) and Sil- 

 awik Itivers emptying into Hotham Inlet, and one man was familiar with 

 the name of Sisualin, the great trading camp at Kotzebue Sound. We 

 were unable to find that they had any knowledge of Asia (&quot; Kokhlit- 

 nuna,&quot;) or the Siberian Eskimo, but this was probably due to lack of 

 properly directed inquiries, as they seem to have been well in formed on 

 the subject in the Plover * time. 2 



With the people of the Nu natak (Inland) River, the Nunataiimiun, 

 they are well acquainted, as they meet them every summer for purposes 

 of trading, and a family or two of Nunatanmum sometimes spend the 



Maguire, XW. Passage, p. :t84. 



* It is to be regretted that the expedition was not supplied with a copy of Dr. Simpson s excellent 

 paper, us much valuable information was missed for lack of suggestions as to the direction of inquiries. 



