Trade and Intercourse 53 



tering with the natives beyond Kent peninsula, where polar bears are said to 

 be numerous. Altogether, therefore, the Eskimos of Prince Albert sound are 

 at a disadvantage now in regard to their southern neighbours, on whom they 

 are largely dependent for stone lamps, pots and wood. 



The third route that these northern natives follow in the maintenance of 

 trade relations is eastward. According to Mr. Stefansson they ascend a river 

 named Kagloryuak at the head of Prince Albert sound, cross a divide and 

 descend the Ekaluktok river to Albert Edward bay. Somewhere in this region 

 they meet the Ekaluktomiut, and a few of them sometimes journey south to 

 Ogden bay on the jnainland and make their way to the Akilinnik river. Some 

 of them, no doubt, do follow this route at times, but since both the Ekaluktok 

 and the Kanghiryuak natives visit the Bathurst inlet people by way of Dease 

 strait, it would seem reasonable to suppose that there is a shorter route overland, 

 probably from the deep inlet on the south side of Albert Edward bay to Cam- 

 bridge bay or perhaps even Anderson bay, whence they could either turn west 

 into Dease strait or south to the Ellice river.^ Somewhere on the divide between 

 the Kagloryuak and the Ekaluktok rivers there must be a regular meeting place 

 between the two groups, for the son of a Prince Albert sound woman whom we 

 met at Lake Tahiryuak visited the Ekaluktomiut somewhere inland one summer, 

 and was drowned a few weeks later on his way back. 



There is always much trade, of course, between neighbouring groups, and 

 even between members of the same group. In the spring of 1915 a woman in 

 Dolphin and Union strait went round the whole settlement trying to buy a 

 tent-pole. Brisk barter took place when the west Coronation gulf Eskimos 

 visited this settlement in March. One woman bought musk-ox skins with some 

 cartridges she had received from the expedition, another sold a large wooden 

 table. Dolphin and Union strait natives purchese stone lamps and pots, musk- 

 ox ladles, blubber pounders, sled-toggles, and skins both of deer and of musk- 

 oxen from the Eskimos of Coronation gulf, besides of course copper and imple- 

 ments made of it. As their own region, however, furnishes them with few com- 

 modities for bartering, many, perhaps the majority, of these strait natives at 

 some time in their lives make special journeys eastward, in order to collect 

 their own copper and wood in the valleys of the Coppermine and Dease rivers, 

 and to hew out their own lamps and pots near Tree river. 



Mr. Stefansson has greatly magnified the difficulty of making stone pots 

 and lamps, naturally enough, for he never saw their manufacture. He says, 

 "To make a large pot (inside measure say 9 by 40 inches and 7 inches deep) 

 is said to take all a man's spare time for a year, and some take two years to 

 the making of a pot. Lamps are more quickly made. Certain individuals 

 are considered expert pot-makers, and many others attain old age without 

 ever having made a large pot, though all have owned one or more. We have 

 here the beginning of division of labour, the germ of a 'trade.' These pot and 

 lamp makers furnish the best example known to me both of specialization of 

 industries by tribes and of the division of labour among individuals."^ 



Two members of the staff of our expedition, Mr. J. R. Cox and Mr. J. J. 

 O'Neill, watched the manufacture of a lamp about 3 feet long at Port Epworth 

 in July, 1915. The workman, who was only a young man of about twenty-five 

 years, hewed his block out of the sohd rock in a single day. Two days later 

 his lamp was finished, though he worked only at odd intervals. At the same 

 time the children were amusing themselves by making small lamps and pots 

 from two to eight inches long. Working steadily, even an unskilled native 

 could make the largest lamp in use in three days, and a pot would take him very 

 httle longer. A Dolphin and Union strait woman wandered east with her 



'But see the appendix, where this subject is discussed in the light of more recent information. 

 zQeol. Survey Canada, Museum Bulletin, No. 6, 1914, p. 28. 



