^ Eskimo String Figures. 



By D. Jenness 

 Victoria Memorial Museum, Ottawa, Canada 



INTRODUCTION 



The collections of string figures described in the following memoir were 

 obtained at different times and in different places during the years 1913-1916. 

 Those from Alaska were gathered in the winter of 1913-1914 from various natives 

 between Barrow and the international boundary, five hundred miles to the 

 eastward. A few Siberian figures were secured in the spring of 1914 from some 

 Indian point Eskimos belonging to the steam whaler Belvedere, caught in the 

 ice off this coast. During the same spring I met some Mackenzie delta Eskimos 

 at Icy reef, close to the boundary, and obtained some notes on the game in their 

 region; further information was obtained at Herschel island during the summer, 

 and from some Mackenzie delta natives in the service of the expedition. The 

 figures from the Copper Eskimos were obtained during the years 1914-1916, 

 when the southern party of the Canadian Arctic Expedition had its headquarters 

 at Bernard harbour. 



The arrangement of the figures is based upon their opening movements. 

 A secondary arrangement follows the order of their distribution, those which 

 are most widely spread being placed first, then those which are more local. In 

 the case of the local figures, those from Alaska precede those from the Mackenzie 

 delta, and the latter precede those from Coronation gulf. Occasionally a figure 

 which was found in one place only has been placed in another setting when it 

 was obviously derived from or connected with a figure from a different locality. 



After the figures had been arranged in this way and the MS. virtually com- 

 pleted two other collections of string figures, mounted on sheets of paper and 

 cardboard, were submitted to me for examination. The first collection, sub- 

 mitted by Dr. F. Boas, was secured many years ago by Captains Comer and 

 Mutch from the Eskimos of Cumberland sound and the west coast of Hudson 

 bay. The other collection, submitted by Captain Joseph F. Bernard, was obtained 

 by him in 1922 from the Maritime Chukchee on the Siberian coast between 

 Capes Nuniamo and Unikin. No information was obtained as to how these 

 figures were constructed, but about 60 per cent of them could be identified with 

 figures in my own collection. The remainder I have disregarded altogether, 

 partly because of the lack of information as to how they were made, and partly 

 because in many cases the string had been distorted out of all semblance to its 

 original shape. In the Appendix, however, I have given a list of the unidentified 

 figures from Cumberland sound and Hudson bay. 



As far as the literature is concerned, very little has been published con- 

 cerning Eskimo string figures. The largest collection hitherto made is that of 

 Dr. G. B. Gordon, obtained on the west coast of Alaska in 1905 ;i Mrs. Jaynes 

 has republished these figures, together with two or three new ones which she 

 obtained from an Eskimo of the same region.^ Klutschak illustrates three 

 figures from the Eskimos of King WilHam island,' and Dr. Boas has published 

 five from Cumberland sound.^ From Labrador and Greenland the only figures 

 recorded, to my knowledge, are six that were obtained by Dr. A. L. Kroeber 

 from some Eskimos of Smith sound.' 



1 Gordon, G. B. Notes on the Western Eskimo, Transactions of the Department of Archaeology, Free Museum 

 of Science and Art, University of Pennsylvania, Vol. II, part I, 1906. 



' Jaynes, Mrs. C. F. String Figures. New York, 1906. 



' Klutsohak, H. W. AIs Eskimo unter den Eskimo. Leipzig, 1881, p. 139. 



* Boas, P. Internationales Archiv f iir Ethnographie, I, 1888, p. 229 ; cf . the same author. The Central Eskimo, 

 Sixth Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, 1888, p. 669. 



' Kroeber, A. L. The Eskimo of Smith Sound. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. XII , 

 -899, p. 298. 



