18 AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS 



The Third ur Suuihtiii Panel — Cape York, a Summer Home of the 



Ituiuit. 



The scene depicted is at Cape York, a summer home of the Innuit, 

 at the head of Melville Bar. Here the Innuit, or Arctic Highlander, as 

 he was misnamed l)y Sir James Ross, is first met by those visiting the 

 Arctics. The painting gives a view of Cape York looking toward the 

 north. 



In the foreground is the camp, where an Innuit leans over a harp- 

 seal which he has killed and is about to cut up, while his dogs are 

 watching for some stray pieces of meat. This man is clothed in bear- 

 skin trousers and a hooded jacket made of about seventy auk skins, the 

 feathers being turned next to the body. He is wearing boots of seal- 

 skin. 



To the left in the camp is a girl of about seven years, painted from 

 a sketch made by the artist in 1894. She is clothed in small trousers 

 of fox skin and an upper hooded garment, also of fox skin, and wears 

 boots of sealskin, reaching to the thighs. She is attending a fire of 

 moss and blubber, over which blood soup is being prepared, while 

 guarding from the dogs a piece of meat on the ground at her right. 

 Behind the girl are two sealskin tents (tupekhs) from one of which 

 a voung woman is emerging. 



Beyond the tents are mountains towering 1500 to 3000 feet above the 

 camp. The summits of these mountains are frequently obscured by 

 dense fogs, from which come continually the wild cries of innumerable 

 multitudes of kittiwake gulls and little auks. 



In this bay, but some miles to the eastward, the three meteorites 

 now on exhibition in the foyer of this nniseum remained for ages. 

 It was Peary who wrested them from their ancient abode and brought 

 them to New York in 1895. From these meteorites, in olden times, 

 the Innuit fiaked off pieces for use in knives, harpoons and arrow 

 heads, to aid in the struii'gle for food and life. 



