TRAVELS AFTER THE SUN CAME BACK 163 



as to resemble more or less closely some word of the 

 white man's language. For this reason it is certain that 

 were three traveling parties to pass through any given 

 aboriginal region, one party English, another French, 

 and the third Swedish, the three parties would bring back 

 very different versions of the names of persons and 

 places. This shows how unlikely it is that the Indian 

 names that we use in America to designate our rivers, 

 mountains and cities are even approximately similar to 

 the real Indian pronunciation of those names. 



When I first dealt with the Eskimos their names 

 sounded very different to me from what they now do. 

 The man whom I call Ovayuak was introduced to me by 

 the Hudson's Bay people as "Levayuk," which some of 

 the white men had shortened into "Levi." At first the 

 name sounded to me a little like "Levayuk" and I used it 

 until he himself took me in hand to instruct me. It was 

 only after continuous listening to his slow repetitions that 

 I began to hear it clearly as O-va-yu-ak. Another good 

 example was an Eskimo woman Ikkayuak (Ik-ka-yu-ak), 

 whom the white men called "Kashia" saying it was her 

 native name. The next sandspit east of Shingle Point is 

 called by the natives Akpaviatsiak (Ak-pa-vi-at-si-ak) 

 which means "the little race course." The white men 

 have turned this into "Appawuchi," which resembles the 

 real name only faintly and which means nothing. 



It was agreed that when I went to Herschel Island to do 

 the trading for Sten, Kanirk and Roxy's boy would go 

 with me, taking his team with the idea of possibly buying 

 certain things for him. We started west along the coast 

 February 15th. Nothing special happened the first day. 

 The ice offshore had been crushed up into huge ridges 

 by the wind and we could not travel over it but had to 



