50 THE POINT BAKROW ESKIMO. 



ornamented with beads and fringe. We saw one or two such jackets in 

 Utkiavwiii apparently made of moose skin, and a few pouches of the 

 same material, highly ornamented with beads. They have long Hint- 

 lock gnus, white man s wooden pipes, which they value highly, and 

 axes not adzes with which they &quot;break many trees.&quot; We easily 

 understood from this description that Indians were meaut, and since 

 our return 1 have been able to identify one or two of the tribes with 

 tolerable certainty. 



They seem better acquainted with these people than in Dr. Simpson s 

 time, and know the word &quot;kiitchin,&quot; people, in which many of the tribal 

 names end. We did not hear the names Ko yukan or Itkalya ruin which 

 Dr. Simpson learned, apparently from the Nunataiimiun. 1 I heard one 

 man speak of the Kutcha Kutchin, who inhabit the &quot;Yukon from the 

 Birch River to the Kotlo River on the east and the Porcupine River on 

 the north, ascending the latter a short distance.&quot; 2 



One of the tribes with which they have dealings is the &quot; Rat Indians&quot; 

 of the Hudson Bay men, probably the Vunta -Kutchin, 3 from the fact 

 that they visit Fort Yukon. These are the people whom Capt. Maguire 

 met on his unsuccessful sledge journey to the eastward to communicate 

 with Collinson. The Point Barrow people told ns that &quot;Magwa&quot; went 

 east to see &quot;Colli k-sina,&quot; but did not see him, only saw the Itkudlin. 

 Collinson, 4 speaking of Maguire s second winter at Point Barrow, says: 

 &quot;In attempting to prosecute the search easterly, an armed body of 

 Indians of the Koyukun tribe were met with, and were so hostile that 

 he was compelled to return.&quot; Maguire himself, in his official report, 5 

 speaks of meeting four Indians who had followed his party for several 

 days. He says nothing of any hostile demonstration ; in fact, says they 

 showed signs of disappointment at his having nothing to trade with 

 them, but his Eskimo, he says, called them Koyukun, which he knew 

 was the tribe that had so barbarously murdered Lieut. Barnard at 

 Xulato in 1851. Moreover, each Indian had a musket, and he had only 

 two with a party of eight men, so he thought it safer to turn back. 

 However, he seems to have distributed among them printed &quot;informa 

 tion slips,&quot; which they immediately carried to Fort Yukon, and return 

 ing to the coast with a letter from the clerk in charge, delivered it to 

 Capt. Collinson on board of the Enterprise at Barter Island, July 18, 

 1854. The letter is as follows: 



FOKT YOUCON, June 27, 1854. 



The printed slips of paper delivered by the officers of H. M. S. Plover on the 25th 

 of April, 1854, to the Rat Indians were received on the 27th of June, 1854, at the 

 Hudson Bay Company s establishment, Fort Youcon. The Rat Indians are in the 



&quot;The inland Kskimo also call them Ko -yu-kan, and divide them into three sections or tribes. * * * 

 One is called I t-ka-lyi [apparently the plural of Itkndlln], * * * the second It-kal-ya -ruiii [dirter- 

 ent or other ItkudM],&quot; op. cit., p. 269. 



2 Dall, Cont. to N. A. Ethn., vol. 1. p. 30, where they are identified with Itkalyaruin of Simpson. 



Ibid., p. 31. 



Arctic Papers, ]). 119. 



* Further papers, etc., pp. 905 et seq. 



