46b Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



submitted later to the expert examination of Inspector E. Foster, of the Depart- 

 ment of Justice, Ottawa, who reported on them as follows: — - 



"It has been established beyond peradventure by experimentation on the 

 part of those responsible for initiating finger-prints as a means of identification, 

 and by the practical application of the finger-print system throughout the civihzed 

 world for many years, that the patterns or types into which prints may be divided 

 do not vary in the different classes of the human race, nor do they possess dis- 

 tinctive features peculiar to each. My examination of the enclosed prints 

 confirms this. There is not one individual digit in the whole twenty-four sets of 

 impressions which possesses a new or even rare pattern or type. Our bureau 

 collection contains many which are similar in general conformation and contour. 



" Men engaged in the work of finger-print identification, par- 

 ticularly those who, like myself, have charge of large bureau collections, have 

 observed patterns of the whorl type occur with greater frequency in races other 

 than the Caucasian. The prints of your Eskimos would seem to furnish addi- 

 tional evidence in this regard. There are the prints of 239 individj^al digits in 

 the collection divided by type as follows: 131 whorls, 99 loops, 9 arches. This, 

 you will note, gives the whorl type a substantial predominance. 



"In our collection here where the prints are mostly those of Caucasians, 

 I would say, speaking approximately, that sixty per cent of them are of the loop 

 type, thirty per cent of the whorl type, and ten per cent of the arch type." 



B. MEASUREMENTS 



The description of the Copper Eskimos given in the last few pages might 

 be applied in almost every detail to the Eskimos of other regions. Outwardly 

 the natives of Coronation gulf can be distinguished from those of Alaska or of 

 Hudson bay only by their style of clothing, by their manner of wearing the hair 

 and tattooing the face, and by other features of an equally secondary character. 

 Any physical peculiarities they may possess are relatively slight and can be 

 established only by detailed measurements compared with the measurements 

 of other Eskimo groups. In this way alone may we hope to discover whether 

 the natives of Coronation gulf are to be classed as pure-blood Eskimos, or whether 

 they show traces of foreign admixture. 



The only foreign admixture that appears at all possible is with Indians. 

 It is true that Mr. Stefansson thought he could discern traces of European 

 blood among the Copper Eskimos, and suggested as its only conceivable source 

 the old Icelandic colonists in South Greenland. ^ His theory was based on certain 

 supposed peculiarities in the length and colour of the hair, the colour of the eyes, 

 and the general outlines of the features; and it was supplemented by a com- 

 parison of the proportion breadth o°hrad between the Copper and other Eskimos, 

 a comparison which favoured, he thought, the hypothesis of their part-European 

 descent. But the descriptions of the 126 natives from all parts of the Copper 

 Eskimo region given in Section I of this paper show clearly that the theory 

 has no foundation in actual fact. Not a single native there differs noticeably 

 from the rest in colour and length of hair, while the blue or grey tinge of the 

 eye, a peculiarity which is one of the cardinal points in Mr. Stefansson's theory 

 and of which my tables give 16 instances, is not only pathological in origin, but 

 common among Eskimos elsewhere. As for the general outlines of the features, 

 I can merely remark that neither I myself nor any member of our party, during 

 the two years we spent in this region, saw a single Copper Eskimo whose appear- 

 ance suggested in the slightest degree the presence of European blood. The last 



'Stefansson, My Life with the Eskimo, Chapter XII; The Friendly Arctic, pp. 467-470. In the 

 former work these "blond" Eskimos are located on the north shore of Dolphin and Union strait; in 

 the latter they are localized in Prince Albert sound. I myself saw only 9 natives from Prince Albert 

 sound, 6 of whom were measured. The Rev. H. Girling, who visited them in the winter of 1917-18, 

 informed me that he could see no difference whatever in physical type between the natives there and 

 their kinsman to the south and east, with whom, as before stated, they constantly intermarry. 



