50 Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



Ilatsiak, who had thrice visited the Akilinnik region, had also been three 

 times to Netsilik, or at least had visited those people three times. Many white 

 men, he said, men without chins on their faces,^ go to that country in ships, 

 and the Netsilingmiut barter with them for knives. Somewhere in that direction 

 also, he believed, were a people with long claws on their hands with which they 

 tear strangers to pieces. 



The father of KingoUik, a Bathurst inlet native still living, once made a 

 trip to the country of Netsilik, and his sister married a Netsilik man. Other 

 Bathurst inlet natives had also visited that country, and have met natives 

 there from other groups, Aivilingmiut (Repulse bay natives?), Mallorektomiut 

 who live behind them {tungani, i.e. north?), and Ukkusiksalingmiut (Wager 

 bay inland to the mouth of Backs river). One man who is still living, the father 

 of a young Tree river native, married a woman of Asiak and made a journey 

 to the country of the Aivilingmiut. The Netsilingmiut, these Coronation gulf 

 natives say, have a very peculiar manner of welcoming strangers; they give 

 them a buffet on the head or shoulder with their fists. Their mittens deaden 

 the force of the blow to some extent; nevertheless it is no mere tap, for in one 

 case at least a visitor was "killed for a time" (i.e., stunned) by a buffet behind 

 the ear.2 The country of Netsilik is almost devoid of driftwood, consequently 

 its people are eager for sleds and other objects of wood which the western natives 

 possess, though the Netsilingmiut also purchase stone lamps and pots. In 

 exchange they give the Copper natives articles of iron, such as knives and 

 harpoon heads. A few of the Netsilingmiut had guns from white men, but not 

 knowing how to use them, they broke them up, the western natives say, for 

 the sake of the iron.^ One Eskimo in Coronation gulf had heard of white men 

 who visited the shores of Netsilik and UkkusiksaUk one summer in two ships, 

 but left again before the sea froze over; one of the ships had four masts, the 

 other only two. He had heard too that a Bathurst inlet native who had 

 migrated to NetsiUk after the death of his parents had finally boarded a ship 

 of the white men and sailed away with them. Evidently this is a reference to 

 the Eskimo named "Manni," whom Amundsen took west with him when he 

 left the NetsiUk country.^ 



Returning to the northwestern natives — those inhabiting the regions 

 of Prince Albert sound and Minto inlet — there were three routes at least by 

 which they communicated with their southern and eastern neighbours. Some 

 of them used to follow round the coast past Cape Baring and meet the Eskimos 

 of Dolphin and Union strait in the neighbourhood of Cape Hamilton early in 

 the spring, about April. Captain Klengenberg fell in with them near this place 

 in the winter of 1905-6, and in the spring of 1915, when I travelled along the 

 coast to Cape Kendall, some Prince Albert sound natives were camped only 

 a few miles farther north, as we learned a few months later. The Hanerak 

 natives, when that group still existed, and the natives from AkulUakattak 

 across the strait, regularly fell back in this direction in the spring of the year 

 after they had associated with the Puivlik and Noahognik Eskimos east of 

 them and come into contact there with visitors from Coronation gulf; and 

 although the Hanerak group is now dispersed, the Akulliakattak natives still 

 often return to the neighbourhood of Point Williams before crossing the strait 

 to their own country. Nor was it only their kinsmen of Dolphin and Union 

 strait that the Kanghiryuak natives encountered here, but apparently western 

 Eskimos as well. On Bell island, close to Cape Kendall, Captain Jos. Bernard 

 found some stone cairns used as graves, and the ruins of three old sod houses 



iSee Stefansson, Anthrop. Papers, A.M.N.H., Vol. XIV, pt. I, p. 302; My Life with the Eskimos 

 p. 179. 



=Cf. Boas, Central Eskimo, p. 609. 



3A Puirlik native informed me that the Kanghiryuarmiut obtained some guns from McClure's ship 

 thclmeshgator, but as they did not know how to use them they broke them up. They had not seen anv 

 of the white men who abandoned this ship in Mercy bay. 



'Amundsen, Vol. II, p. 114. 



