THE LIFE AT TUKTUYAKTOK 143 



any man who was chief, for such an idea did not exist 

 among them, the traders watched and found out who were 

 the most active and influential people. They then decided 

 for themselves that these were the chiefs, and called 

 them so. 



Ovayuak's uncle had been a man of good judgment 

 and great energy and had been influential in consequence, 

 for that is the Eskimo way. Him the Hudson's Bay 

 people x had picked out to call chief and had made hirn 

 their representative. This trust en the part of the Com- 

 pany in turn increased this uncle's influence, so that 

 eventually he came to have more power than any Eskimo 

 had had before him. This was not comparable to the 

 authority an elected officer has among us, but rather 

 comparable to the influence exercised by a public-spirited 

 and successful man. When Ovayuak's uncle died, the 

 Hudson's Bay Company had found that Ovayuak him- 

 self had the most influence and had concluded that he had 

 become chief. It was for this reason that Firth had 

 introduced him to me as such. 



This was the white men's aspect of the chieftainship. 

 So far as the Eskimos were concerned Ovayuak was a 

 man of influence because of his good judgment in part 

 but also because he had kept to the ways of his fathers 

 better than most of the others. When the rest spent 

 nearly the whole summer in long journeys to Fort Mac- 

 pherson and Herschel Island for purposes of trading, he 

 made only a quick journey to Fort Macpherson, return- 

 ing immediately to the fishing grounds. As I have men- 

 tioned above, the best run of fish ordinarily comes while 

 the main body of Eskimos are still engaged in selling their 

 furs either to the Hudson's Bay Company or the whalers. 

 But when these people returned to the fishing grounds 



