430 THE CENTRAL ESKIMO. 



North of I(ljoritiiai|tTiiii we find the winter settlement of Nuvujen 

 •with the fall scti Inniiit, N"uvujalung, a high cliff at the entrance of 

 Nettilling Fjurd. licldiiying to it. 



By far the most interesting branch of the Talirpingmiiit are the 

 inhabitants of Nettilling Fjord. Among all the tribes of Baffin Land 

 this one claims particular attention, as it is the only one whose resi- 

 dence is not limited tn the siasliore. From Greenland to the mouth 

 of the Mackenzie only two Eskimo tribes are known who do not live 

 all the year round on the coast of the sea. These are the Talirpiug- 

 miut and the Kinipetu of Chesterfield Inlet. Back and Anderson and 

 Stewart say that the latter tribe spend a great part of the year at 

 the lakes of Back River. 



Formerly the Talirpingmiut had three or four settlements on Lake 

 Nettilling: at Tikeraqdjung, near the south point of the lake; at the 

 outlet of Koukdjuaq, on the left bank of the river, opposite to Niko- 

 siving Island; at Qarmang ; and probably a fourth one, on the north 

 shore. As the lake abounds with seals, they could live here at all 

 seasons. Its western part seems to have been particularly fitted for 

 winter stations. In the winter of 1877-'78, thn-t- families staid near 

 Koukdjuaq Avithout encoiintering any consideraMc ilillicult y in ])ro- 

 curing food. This was the last time that natives jiassed the winter 

 at the lake; the greater portion of the tribe may hare retreated to 

 Nettilling Fjord about twenty years ago. 



Though the Eskimo assert that the discovery of Lake Nettilling is 

 of recent date, naming two men, Kadlu and Sagmu, as those who first 

 reached it, this assertion is not trustworthy, for with them almost 

 every historical tradition is supposed to have originated a com para, 

 tively short time ago. I was told, for instance, that an event which 

 is the subject of the tale Igimarasugdjuqdjuaq the' cannibal occurred 

 at the beginning of this century, and yet the tradition is told almost 

 word for word in Greenland and in Labrador. 



Just so with Kadlu and Sagmu. According to the assertion of the 

 natives the lake was discovered by the generation before the last — i. 

 e., about 1810 — and yet an old woman about seventy-five years of age 

 told me that her grandfather when a young man, starting from Net- 

 tilling, had visited Iglulik and that he had lived on the lake. The 

 customs aud lialiits of the Eskimo would have led to tlie discdviM-y of 

 the hikr very s,n,ii after the first visit to CumlierlaiKl Sum„l. and no 

 doubt tlieir attenticni was then called to the abuudaiiet.' df i^ame in 

 this region. 



The greater part of the natives spent the winter in Nettilling Fjord, 

 starting on their way inland about the beginning of May, and return- 

 ing to the sea about December. I suppose that cases in whicli men 

 spent their whole life on the lake were exceptional, for they are re- 

 ferred to by the natives as remarkable events. For instance, a man 

 called Neqsiang, who had two wives, lived on a small island near 



