December 30, 1914 



Canada 



Geological Survey 

 Museum Bulletin No. 6. 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL SERIES, No. 3. 



Prehistoric and Present Commerce among the Arctic 

 Coast Eskimo. 



By V. STEFANSSON. 



If, with reference to the Eskimo, we are to call prehistoric 

 all the time that antedates the first visit to them of a v whire man 

 who puts on record some information concerning them, then 

 some tribes of Eskimo even now may be in the prehistoric period, 

 for it is not certain that there are not tribes whose very names 

 and existence are unknown to us. From this point of view, 

 prehistoric time may include not only to-day but to-morrow. In 

 the following discussion, it will appear just what is meant by 

 "prehistoric" in the case of each tribe or section of the country. 

 In general the past will be inferred from the present condition 

 supplemented by some apparently reliable information through 

 word of mouth. 



So far as a research might be based on the published or 

 unpublished accounts of the explorers of the past, this essay 

 will be found wanting, for the sources are not at hand where 

 this is written. 



There are three things that chiefly determine the character 

 of Eskimo commerce: the geographic conditions that make 



PHONETIC NOTE. The alphabet used in spelling Eskimo names is that 

 of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, slightly modified: g =*g 

 in Icelandic saga or Norwegian dag; r = the German guttural r, while r is as 

 in English; 5 always has a sibilant sound, nearly, but not quite, equal to 

 English sh\ tj = English ck in church. Other variations from the Bureau of 

 Ethnology alphabet occur, but are of little consequence. 



003 /i 



