50 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO, 
ornamented with beads and fringe. We saw one or two such jackets in 
Utkiavwin apparently made of moose skin, and a few pouches of the 
same material, highly ornamented with beads. They have long flint- 
lock guns, white man’s wooden pipes, which they value highly, and 
axes—not adzes—with which they “break many trees.” We easily 
understood from this description that Indians were meant, and since 
our return I have been able to identify one or two of the tribes with 
tolerable certainty. 
They seem better acquainted with these people than in Dr. Simpson’s 
time, and know the word “kiitchin,” people, in which many of the tribal 
namesend. Wedid not hear the names Ko/yukan or Itkalya/ruin which 
Dr. Simpson learned, apparently from the Nunatanmiun.! I heard one 
man speak of the Kiitcha Kutchin, who inhabit the “Yukon from the 
Birch River to the Kotlo River on the east and the Porcupine River ou 
the north, ascending the latter a short distance.”? 
One of the tribes with which they have dealings is the ‘* Rat Indians” 
of the Hudson Bay men, probably the Vunta’-Kitchin,* from the fact 
that they visit Fort Yukon. These are the people whom Capt. Maguire 
met on his unsuccessful sledge journey to the eastward to communicate 
with Collinson. The Point Barrow people told us that “Magwa” went 
east to see ‘Colli/k-sina,” but did not see him, only saw the Itkidlin. 
Collinson,’ speaking of Maguire’s second winter at Point Barrow, says: 
“In attempting to prosecute the search easterly, an armed body of 
Indians of the Koyukun tribe were met with, and were so hostile that 
he was compelled to return.” Maguire himself, in his official report,° 
speaks of meeting four Indians who had followed his party for several 
days. He says nothing of any hostile demonstration; in fact, says they 
showed signs of disappointment at his having nothing to trade with 
them, but his Eskimo, he says, called them Koyukun, which he knew 
was the tribe that had so barbarously murdered Lieut. Barnard at 
Nulato in 1851. Moreover, each Indian had a musket, and he had only 
two with a party of eight men, so he thought it safer to turn back. 
However, he seems to have distributed among them printed ‘“informa- 
tion slips,” which they immediately carried to Fort Yukon, and return- 
ing to the coast with a letter from the clerk in charge, delivered it to 
Capt. Collinson on board of the Enterprise at Barter Island, July 18, 
1854. The letter is as follows: 
Forr Youcon, June 27, 1854. 
The printed slips of paper delivered by the officers of H. M. 8. Plover on the 25th 
of April, 1854, to the Rat Indians were received on the 27th of June, 1854, at the 
Hudson Bay Company’s establishment, Fort Youcon. The Rat Indians are in the 
1“'The inland Eskimo also call them Ko!-yu-kan, and divide them into three sections or tribes. * * * 
One is called I't-ka-lyi [apparently the plural of Itkfdlin], * * * the second It-kal-ya/-ruin [differ- 
ent or other Itkfidlinj,” op. cit., p. 269. 
2Dall, Cont. to N. A. Ethn., vol.1, p. 30, where they are identified with Itkalyaruin of Simpson. 
3Ibid., p. 31. 
4 Arctic Papers, p. 119. 
6 Further papers, etc., pp. 905 et seq. 
