Distribution of the Population 37 



be two uses of the word, one restricting its meaning to the islands just mentioned, 

 the other including with them the country to the northward, which really lies 

 between Puivlik and Kiglinik. Possibly this latter meaning was the older of 

 the two, since the Nagyuktomiut were perhaps the most widely known of all 

 the groups in this region, their fame reaching even to the Eskimos of the 

 Mackenzie delta. The name Nagyuktok, according to some natives, was given 

 to this region because of the abundance of caribou there {nagyuk, horn) ; they 

 seemed not 'to know of the legend recorded from the Baillie islanders by Mr. 

 Stefansson, that the people were called Nagyuktomiut because they fought 

 for their wives with caribou antlers.' 



Native tradition, joined to the present confusion of group names, seems to 

 indicate a considerable decrease in the population of Coronation gulf within 

 recent times. The most northerly island in the Duke of York archipelago is 

 named Inyuernerit, "the uninhabited place," because a great number of Eskimos 

 died there long ago.^ The island is now generally avoided for that reason. In 

 the summer of 1912 or 1913 (my informants were a little indefinite about the 

 exact date) there were fifteen deaths among the West Coronation gulf Eskimos, 

 whereas in the summer of 1914 there. was only one.^ Whatever the reason may 

 be, at the present day at least no definite groups can be distinguished at the west 

 end of Coronation gulf. Natives gather there from all the surrounding regions; 

 some are on their way to the soapstone deposits farther to the eastward; others 

 are seeking for copper or wood between the Coppermine and the Dismal lakes; 

 while others again merely come to hunt in a region where caribou are known to 

 be plentiful. Within the last few years, too, there has been the additional 

 motive. of trade with Indians and white men at Great Bear lake. In the autumn 

 these natives assemble at various points according to their hunting grounds in 

 the summer. Some of them gather together on the south shore of Victoria 

 island, others at the mouth of the Rae river; but the majority assemble on one 

 of the small islands a few miles east of the mouth of the Coppermine river, where 

 they have left their caches in the spring safe from the depredations of wolverines 

 and foxes. In winter they all unite into a single settlement close to the Berens 

 islands, and when the sun returns at the beginning of the year they gradually 

 work their way northwards towards Cape Krusenstern, whence visits can easily 

 be made to the natives farther west. A few go east at this season, while natives 

 from east and west join up with this central group till its character is totally 

 changed. Then in the spring, about May, the natives fall back to the coast 

 again, different bands separate according to the localities in which they intend 

 to pass the summer, and the cycle begins over again. 



In February, 1915, we found all the natives of this region gathered into one 

 settlement in the Duke of York archipelago. There were twenty-three huts, 

 and the number of inhabitants was somewhere between seventy and eighty. 

 Most of them followed us west in the following month, and spent two or three 

 days at Bernard harbour, and two or three more with the natives in the strait. 

 Three or four families stayed there, the rest moved slowly east again, and dis- 

 persed to the land at various places between Cape Krusenstern and the Copper- 

 mine river. In the autumn of the same year many of these natives, as soon as 

 the ice enabled them to travel by sled, came again to Bernard harbour — an 

 innovation in their ordinary movements occasioned by the presence of the 

 expedition. Others again came from as far east as Tree river, till by November 

 29 no less than one hundred and twenty-seven natives were living alongside of 

 us, some in tents, but the majority in snow huts. A few, about fifteen altogether. 



•stefansson, My Life with the Eskimo, p. 159. 



'Mr. Stefansson, Anthrop. Papers, A.M.N.H. Vol. XIV, pt. I, p. 131) says that about 40 (?) natives 

 died there some 15 years before, i.e. about 1895. 



'Possibly there was an.epidemio of influenza contracted from the white men or Indians at Great Bear 

 lake. But cf. Amundsen, Vol. II, p. 329. 



