Mr Rivers, The colour vision of the Eskimo. 147 



word "kaijuk," which was said to be the name of the yellow fox, 

 was used by three individuals for brown wools and seemed more 

 like a word for brown. It was only used spontaneously for brown, 

 but the natives agreed that it would be correct to call a bright 

 yellow by this name and it was also said to be properly used for 

 grey. It was evidently far from being a generally accepted term 

 for the colours which we are in the habit of classing together as 

 brown. Of the five individuals examined by Virchow. three called 

 brown aupalangajuk, one tongulangajok and one kojoangajok, no 

 doubt the same word which I have written kaijuangaijuk. 



One of the men examined by me also called two different 

 brown wools tungajuangaijuk, showing the same tendency to 

 confuse blue and brown in nomenclature which Bessels found 

 among the Eskimo of Smith Sound. This confusion of blue and 

 brown is very common and is still met with among German 

 peasants 1 . 



The most characteristic feature of the Eskimo language appears 

 in the colour vocabulary in the very extensive use of qualifying 

 affixes. If one excepts three words, sinanuk, a^jangatuk and 

 kaijuk, which were comparatively rarely used, all hues, shades and 

 tints of colour were named by various modifications of the six 

 words for red, yellow, green, blue, white and black. I have given 

 in brackets the meaning of the various affixes used so far as I was 

 able to ascertain them. There seemed to be no doubt that the 

 termination " -angaijuk " corresponded exactly to our "-ish"; the 

 terminations -larik. -lulutuk, -sorituk, -niusaijak, were said to 

 mean real, light, pure, and light or dull, respectively, and the way 

 in which they were used corresponded with these meanings. 



Another termination " -tamerik," once used in the form " tam- 

 erikmerik," was said to mean " dark," but it was used both for 

 deep black and for white and was probably used in the sense of 

 " intense " or " pure." I was unable to ascertain the meaning of 

 the termination " -netuk," but it may be negative ; one object was 

 called " kenelariknetuk " which was said to mean " not real 

 black." I have been unable to find any of the above examples in 

 the list of affixes given by Rink. 



The Eskimo colour vocabulary presents a marked development 

 of what I believe to be an uncommon tendency of colour language. 

 In every language there are a certain number of well-established 

 definite terms for colour with which every individual of the race 

 is familiar. When names are given to other colours it is most 

 common to use words derived directly from comparison with some 

 natural object. This usage is generally found in Australian and 

 Melanesian languages and, among the languages of which I have 



1 See Kirchhoff, l)a$ Audand, 1883, p. 546. 



