NITRIJOCH.] SOCIAL SURROUNDINGS OTHER ESKIMO. 45 



winter at the northern villages. One family wintered at Nuwtik in 

 1881 - 82, and another at Utkiavwlfi the following winter, while a wid 

 ower of this &quot;tribe&quot; was also settled there for the same winter, having 

 married a widow in the village. We obtained very little definite infor 

 mation about these people except that they came from the south and 

 descended the Colville River. Our investigations were rendered difficult 

 by the engrossing nature of the work of the station, and the trouble 

 we experienced, at first, in learning enough of the language to make 

 ourselves clearly understood. Dr. Simpson was able to learn definitely 

 that the homes of these people are on the Nuiiiitilk and that some of 

 them visit Kotzebue Sound in the summer, while trading parties make 

 a portage between the JTunatak and Colville, descending the latter 

 river to the Arctic Ocean. 1 I have been informed by the captain of one 

 of the American whalers that he has, in different seasons, met the same 

 people at Kotzebue Sound and the mouth of the Colville. We also re 

 ceived articles of Siberian tame reindeer skin from the east, which must 

 have come across the country from Kotzebue Sound. 



These people differ from the northern natives in some habits, which 

 will be described later, and speak a harsher dialect. We were informed 

 that in traveling east after passing the mouth of the Colville they came 

 to the Kuumii dlm (&quot;Kangmali enyuin&quot; of Dr. Simpson and other 

 authors) and still further off &quot; a great distance &quot; to the Kupun or &quot; Great 

 Kiver&quot; the Mackenzie near the mouth of which is the village of the 

 Kiipunmiun, whence it is but a short distance inland to the great 

 house&quot; (iglu kpuk) of the white men on the great river (probably Fort 

 Macphersou). Beyond this we only heard confused stories of people 

 without posteriors and of sledges that run by themselves without dogs 

 to draw them. We heard nothing of the country of Kltiga ru 2 or of the 

 stone-lamp country mentioned by Dr. Simpson. The Kiifimudllfi are 

 probably, as Dr. Simpson believes, the people whose winter houses were 

 seen by Franklin at Demarcation Point, 4 near which, at Icy Eeef, Hooper 

 also saw a few houses. 5 



As already stated, Capt. E. E. Smith was informed by the natives 

 that there is now no village farther west than Herschcl Island, where 

 there is one of considerable size. If he was correctly informed, this 

 must be a new village, since the older explorers who passed along the 

 coast found only a summer camp at this point. He also states that he 

 found large numbers of ruined iglus on the outlying sandy islands 

 along the coast, especially near Anxiety Point. We have scarcely any 

 information about these people, as the only white men who have seen 

 them had little intercourse with them in passing along the coast. 6 The 



1 Op. cit., pp. 234 and 236. 

 This was the name of a girl at Nuwuk. 

 Op. cit., p. 269. 

 4 Second Exp., p. 142. 

 Tent of the Tuski, p. 255. 



*A11 the published information there, is about them from personal observation ran be found in Frank 

 lin, Second Exp., p. 142; T. Simpson, Narrative, pp. 118-123; and Hooper, Tuuts, etc., pp. 255-257 and 



