PREFACE 



All the Eskimo songs discussed in the present work were recorded on a 

 phonograph between the years 1914 and 1916, either at Bernard harbour, in 

 Dolphin and Union strait, or at Eskimo settlements in the immediate vicinity. 

 Bernard harbour during that period was the headquarters of the southern party 

 of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, and the great majority of the records were 

 made within the station house, since the low temperature of the Eskimo snow 

 huts hardened the wax and marred the impression of the needle. Dolphin and 

 Union strait lies within the territory of the Copper Eskimos, but a few songs 

 of the more western Eskimos were obtained from some natives in the employ 

 of the expedition, and half a dozen eastern songs from two Hudson bay men 

 who visited our station, and from a Copper Eskimo woman who accompanied 

 them. 



The Copper Eskimos were not acquainted with a phonograph prior to this 

 time; there were still a few natives, in fact, who had never seen a white man. 

 They thought a spirit was reproducing their words, and were quite nervous at 

 first about singing into the machine; later, when more familiar with it, one or 

 two of them were inclined to play pranks, ejaculating, laughing or talking in 

 the middle of a song to create more amusement when the record was played 

 over. The texts of the songs are full of this extraneous matter. By far the 

 larger portion of it, however, is the natural expression of the singers' emotions, 

 voiced in exactly the same manner as in their own dance-houses, where the 

 songs are constantly interspersed with cries and laughter. 



Natives from nearly every part of the Copper Eskimo area flocked to 

 ' Dolphin and Union strait to trade with the Expedition, and songs were recorded 

 from individuals of every age and sex, from little children to old men and women. 

 Hence the collection from this area illustrates fairly adequately the characteristic 

 features of the music and. of the versification. The handful of songs from other 

 regions are less representative and, while valuable for comparative purposes, 

 reveal but little of the real wealth of song in those areas. 



It was seldom possible to transcribe and translate the texts of the songs 

 with the help of the actual singers. The work was long and tedious, and very 

 few of the natives showed the necessary aptitude and patience. So the records 

 were played in sections to one, or more usually two, Eskimos and translated 

 into English through an interpreter. For about a third of the songs toy inter- 

 preter was a Mackenzie river Eskimo whose knowledge of English was limited 

 to what he had picked up around the police post at Herschel island; for the 

 remainder I used an Alaskan half-breed who spoke English a little more fluently 

 and was more intelligent, although he could neither read nor write. Eskimo 

 songs, as a rule, are comprehensible to their composers only; their obscurity, 

 and the limited knowledge of myself and of my interpreters, will explain the 

 imperfections, and I fear sometimes the errors, of the translations. The divi- 



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