Trade and Intercourse 49 



wards. The strangers were living in very large tents and possessed a nunabe 

 •of kayaks, which they would lash together when ferrying big loads across th 

 rivers and lakes. 



Only within quite recent times did the Coronation gulf Eskimos meet 

 with any of the Pallik Eskimos from the southwest hinterland of Hudson bay.' 

 A Kilusiktok hunter named Sikoaluk, who died a few years ago, came upon a 

 few of these natives while hunting to the south of Bathurst inlet, probably in 

 the vicinity of Backs river. Kaksavik, a Pallik Eskimo who visited our station 

 at Bernard harbour in December, 1915, left his native district in 1912 and migrated 

 to the country of Saningaiyok or Backs river,^ because of the abundance of caribou 

 and musk-oxen in that region. In the summer of 1914 he met some Bathurst 

 inlet natives who told him that white men were living to the westward, so as 

 soon as the fall set in he left two of his wives and their children inland, and 

 with his third wife, and a young couple from the Akilinnik, travelled north and 

 west till he came to Bernard harbour. He stayed with us for three days, then 

 crossed to the Liston and Sutton islands to visit the local Eskimos. They 

 immediately held a dance in his honour, which he returned on the following 

 day; on the third he left again for Backs river. 



Ilatsiak, the Kilusiktok shaman whom I have mentioned, gave an account 

 of how two Akilinnik natives named Kitiraiyak and Innitak met two Back 

 river natives named Pattuyak and Pakunnuak. In friendly rivalry they strove 

 to knock each other down. One succeeded in throwing his adversary, but the 

 latter quickly rose and knocked him down in turn, tearing his clothes; his com- 

 panion, too, was equally successful. After the wrestling was over they lived 

 together for a few days and traded for various goods. On another occasion a 

 party of Eskimos was hving on a grassy flat beside a large lake named Tahiryuak 

 not far from Backs river; another band was living on the opposite side of the 

 lake, behind a long spit that projected into the water. One day four men 

 from the flat lashed two of their kayaks together and crossed over to visit their 

 neighbours; two sat in the kayak holes and paddled, while one lay across the 

 bows and the other across the sterns. As they drew near the spit five natives 

 went forward to meet them, and one of the paddlers, Pitiganna, cried out, 

 "We have come from the place where the long grass grows beside the lake. 

 We have come in two kayaks lashed side by side, to visit you dwellers on the 

 spit." As soon as the kayaks grounded the man in the bow jumped ashore 

 holding a knife in his hand, and the other three followed quickly after. The 

 five strangers approached them, one grasping a spear. First they had a wrestling 

 contest to find out which side was the stronger, then the visitors went up to 

 the tents and they all ate together and traded. 



Natives from Dolphin and Union strait and from the west side of Coronation 

 gulf seldom travel beyond Bathurst inlet. My Eskimo Ikpakhuak, whose 

 home was in Puivlik, had never been farther east than Cape Barrow, though 

 he knew of the Netsilingmuit, a ferocious people who stabbed strangers in the 

 arms and head and killed them. He had even heard of the AiviUngmiut, who 

 dwell somewhere beyond the Netsilingmiut, but more than this he did not know. 

 The natives at the east end of Coronation gulf, on the other hand, have met 

 some of the Netsilingmiut at an inland named Putuhk, which was said to be 

 one of a cluster of five small islands a short distance beyond Kent peninsula; 

 the others were named Tigaktok, Anaktok, Kingmiktok and Nallok, the last 

 two perhaps being different names for the same island. Not far from them , 

 is a much larger island named Nugluktarvik, which may possibly be Melbourne 

 island. These places apparently are all in Asiak, and the natives from either 

 side travel there to meet one another. 



•Cf. Stefansson, My Life with the Eskimo, p. 251. 



^he Backs river natives are called Saningaiyomiut. Kaementiiut, an alternative name Mr. Stefansson 

 gives them, means "the'people of the flat land." 

 23335—4 



