430 THK I OINT BARROW ESKIMO. 



thus selected, is generally shrewd enough to make the most of the great 

 ness thrust upon him, and no doubt often pretends to more influence 

 and power than he actually possesses. 



As to the story of the whalemen, that the &quot; chieftainship&quot; is the re 

 ward of the best fighter, who holds it like a - challenge cup,&quot; subject 

 to being called out at anytime to defend his rank iu a duel, as far as 

 concerns Point Barrow, this is a sheer fable, perhaps invented by the 

 Eskimo to impose upon the strangers, but more likely the result of 

 misunderstanding and a vivid imagination on the part of the whites. 

 Among umialiks, one, or two appear to have more wealth and influence 

 than the rest. Tcufiaura in Utkiavwlil and the late Katiga at Xuwftk 

 were said, according to Captain llerendeen, to be &quot; great umialiks &quot; and 

 Tcufiaura was always spoken of as the foremost man in UtkiavwTfi. We 

 knew of one party coming up from Hidaru with presents for Tcufiaura, 

 and were, informed that the other Kskimo never sold to him, but only 

 gave him presents. It was also said that Katiga s infant son would one 

 day be a &quot; great umialik. 



All these men are, or have been captains of whaling umiaks, and the 

 title nmialiks appears to be applied to them in this capacity, since 

 many of the poorer men, who, as far as we could learn, were not con 

 sidered umialiks, own umiaks which they do not fit out for whaling, 

 but use only to transport their families from place to place iu thesummer. 



RELIGION. 



General ideax. It was exceedingly difficult to get any idea of the 

 religious belief of the people, partly from our inability to make ourselves 

 understood in regard to abstract ideas and partly from ignorance on our 

 part of the proper method of conducting such inquiries. For instance, 

 in trying to get at their ideas of a future life, we could only ask &quot; Where 

 does a man go when he dies?&quot; to which we, of course, received the 

 obvious answer, &quot; To the cemetery ! &quot; Moreover, such a multitude of 

 other and easier lines of investigation presented themselves for our at 

 tention that we were naturally inclined to neglect the difficult field of 

 religion, and besides under the circumstances of our intercourse it was 

 almost impossible to get the attention of the natives when their minds 

 were not full of other subjects. 



Nevertheless, many of the fragments of superstition and tradition 

 that we were able to collect agree remarkably with what has been 

 observed among the Eskimo elsewhere, so that it is highly probable, 

 that their religion is of the same general character as that of the Green - 

 landers, namely, a belief in a multitude of supernatural beings, who 

 are to be exorcised or propitiated by various observances, especially by 

 the performances of certain specially gifted people, who are something 

 of the nature of wizards. So much has been written by many authors 



1 Comparu the rase of the alleged &quot; c hiefn &quot; of tlm Chukches, in NordensktSWa Vega, vol. 1. H&amp;gt;. 44 

 and 495. 



