PRESENT COMMERCE AMONG ARCTIC COAST ESKIMO. 13 



ceived were stone lamps and stone pots. They bought some 

 copper too, but (within the last century or two at least) not 

 much, for they were supplied from the west with Siberian metals. 



The preceding sketch has been made briefer than even the 

 fewness of facts at the writer's command makes imperative; in 

 dealing with the tribes from Banks island to Back river an at- 

 tempt will be made at greater thoroughness, not so much be- 

 cause the information is more abundant as because this district, 

 as Boas has somewhere said, "is virtually unknown." 



The tribes with which it is desired to deal more fully are 

 by Boas, the foremost of living students of the Eskimo, appar- 

 ently excluded from the "Central Eskimo" group. In a work 

 which is fortunately at hand for definite citation, he says: "The 

 last tribe of the Central Eskimo, the Utkusiksalirmiut, inhabit 

 the estuary of Back river" (The Central Eskimo, Sixth Annual 

 Report, Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1888). A century 

 ago, while brisk intercourse was yet maintained, some cultural 

 or other ground might possibly have been found for including 

 them with their western neighbours among the Mackenzie River 

 Eskimo, but the day for that is past. No geographic term 

 descriptive of the district exists without being either too com- 

 prehensive (as "Arctic Coast Eskimo," cf. Hanbury), or not 

 comprehensive enough and therefore misleading (as "Coronation 

 Gulf Eskimo" or "Parry Island Eskimo"). Tentatively we 

 shall in the present discussion give them a title from the chief 

 commercial resource of their country copper. Banks island and 

 Back river may not define absolutely the area within which the 

 production of implements of native copper had a decided influence 

 on the culture of the people ; on the other hand, future research may 

 show that they do. Meantime, for our convenience in the pres- 

 ent paper, we will refer to the below-mentioned tribes collectively 

 as the Copper Eskimo. In the list, the winter residence of the 

 tribe will be given first, and then the summer residence. Tribes 

 visited on their own hunting grounds are designated by (1), those 

 members which have been interviewed away from home are 

 marked (2). The rest are known to us only through the accounts 

 of members of other tribes. 



