MTKDOTH.] SOCIAL SURROUNDINGS INDIAN. f)l 



habit of making periodical trailing excursions to the Esquimaux along the eoast. 

 They are a harmless, inoffensive set of Indians, ever ready anil willing to render 

 any assistance they can to the whites. 



WM. LUCAS HAKUISTY, 



Clerk in charge. 1 



Capt. Collinson evidently never dreamed of identifying this &quot; harm 

 less, inoffensive set of Indians&quot; with &quot;an armed body of Indians of the 

 Koynkun tribe.&quot; It is important that his statement, quoted above, 

 should be corrected lest it serve as authority for extending the range of 

 the Koynkun Indians 2 to the Arctic Ocean. The Point Harrow people 

 also know the name of the U lia-kho-taiia, 3 or En akotina, as they pro 

 nounce it. Their intercourse with all these Indians appears to be rather 

 slight and purely commercial. Friendly relations existed between the 

 Bat Indians and the &quot; Eskimos who live somewhere near the Oolville &quot; 

 as early as 1S4!), 4 while it was still &quot; war to the knife &quot; between the Peel 

 River Indians and the Kupunmiun. 5 



The name Itku dlin, of which I t-ka-lyi of Dr. Simpson appears to be 

 the plural, is a generic word for an Indian, and is undoubtedly the same 

 as the Greenland word erKileK plural eridgdlit which means a tabu 

 lous &quot; inlander &quot; with a face like a dog. &quot; They are martial spirits and 

 inhuman foes to mankind; however, they only inhabit the east side of 

 the land.&quot; 6 Dr. Kink 7 has already pointed out that this name is in use 

 as far as the Mackenzie River for instance, the Indians are called 

 &quot;eert-kai-lee&quot; (Parry), or &quot;it-kagh-lie&quot; (Lyon), at Fury and Hecla Strait; 

 ik-kil-lin (Gilder), at the west shore of Hudson Bay, and &quot; itk/&amp;gt;e le it &quot; 

 (Petitot) at the Mackenzie. Petitot also gives this word as itkpe lit in 

 his vocabulary (p. 42.) These words, including the term Ingalik, or 

 In-ka-lik, applied by the natives of Norton Sound to the Indians,&quot; and 

 which Mr. Dall was informed meant &quot;children of a louse s egg,&quot; all 

 appear to be compounds of the word erKeK, a louse egg, and the affix 

 lik. (I suspect erKileK, from the form of its plural, to be a corruption 

 of &quot;erKiliK,&quot; since there is no recognized affix -leK in Greenlandic.) 



Petitot 9 gives an interesting tradition in regard to the origin of this 

 name: &quot;La tradition Innok dedaigne de parler ici des Peaux-liouges. 

 L ayant fait observer a mem narrate iu* A/tviuna: Oh ! me repondait-il, 

 il ne vaut pas la peine d en parler. Us naquirent aussi dans 1 ouest, sur 

 Pile du Castor, des larves de nos poux. (J est pourcpuoi nous les nom- 

 mons Itk/&amp;gt;e le it.&quot; 



CONTACT WITH CIVILIZED PEOPLE. 



Until the visit of the Blosxom s barge in 1820 these people had never / 

 seen a white man, although they were already in possession of tobacco 

 and articles of Russian manufacture, such as copper kettles, which they 



Arctic Papers, i&amp;gt;. 144. Crautz, vol. 1, p. 208. 



Koyu .ku kh-ota na. Dall, Cent, to N. A. Kth., p. 27. .Journ. Antlirop. Inst.. 1885, p. 344. 



1 Ibid., p. 28.. Dall, Alaska, p. 28, and Contrib., vol. 1, p. 25. 



4 Hooper. Teuts, et., p. 276. 9 Monographic, p. xxiv. 



Ibid., p. 273. 



