188 B Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



Perhaps the most striking feature about this table is the large number of 

 figures that are known to nearly all Eskimo tribes outside of Greenland and 

 Labrador, the two places from which no figures at-all have as yet been recorded. 

 It would seem to be a reasonable assumption that any figure known from Hud- 

 son bay to northern Alaska is or was known at some time in central Alaska 

 (probably also to the Siberian Eskimos), thus giving a continuous distribution 

 throughout the Eskimo tribes of North America. Such figures are clearly very 

 ancient, but until we discover that they are found in Danish Greenland, or 

 among Indian or Siberian tribes, it would be unwise to assign too remote a 

 period for their origin. Undoubtedly the Eskimos were accustomed to make 

 string figures from the very earliest times, but any of those now known might 

 easily have arisen during the last few hundred or a thousand years and been 

 handed on from one tribe to another. 



At least twenty-four figures are found from Alaska to Hudson bay;^ prob- 

 ably the number is greater still, since no collection from any area is absolutely 

 complete. Of these eleven are found also among the Chukchee.- There is 

 nothing to show whether they arose in Asia or in America, or some in one con- 

 tinent and some in the other; but unless future researches show them to be 

 equally wide-spread in northern Asia the presumption must be that the majority 

 at least originated with the Eskimos and spread from them to the Chukchee. 



Of figures that appear in one locality alone the table shows 69 examples. 

 Some of these will no doubt be discovered in other regions, but this decrease 

 in the number will be more than counterbalanced by new figures that are also 

 limited to one district. So large a total indicates how popular the game is 

 among the Eskimos, and how easily new figures can arise. 



Two figures, LXII and CXXIV, are known only from the Siberian Eskimos 

 of Indian point and from the adjacent Chukchee. The former probably spread 

 from the Chukchee to the Eskimos, since its name, tarjayot, seems to be the 

 same as tan-nin, which Bogoras gives as the Chukchee term for Russians, or, 

 more usually, Koryaks. It is not unlikely, therefore, that the second figiire 

 came also from the Chukchee. One other figure, LXXXI, may have the same 

 source. It appears in both central and northern Alaska, but not to the eastward, 

 and in both' these places it has the same name, and the same significance, as 

 among the Chukchee. Of course it may have spread westward from the Alaskan 

 Eskimos to the Chukchee, but then one would expect it to have spread eastward 

 also to the Eskimos of the Mackenzie delta. 



This leaves fifty figures that appear in two or more regions, but are not 

 known to be widely distributed throughout the whole American Eskimo area. 

 Now the western Eskimos from Siberia to the Mackenzie delta have been in 

 close contact with one another for at least two centuries. The Mackenzie delta 

 natives used to meet their kinsmen of northern Alaska each summer at Barter 

 island or at some other point along the Arctic coast; and the north Alaskan 

 natives were in close contact with those of Kotzebue sound, who in turn conducted 

 a regular trade with the Asiatic coast natives. It is only to be expected, there- 

 fore, that certain figures have drifted eastward along this route; some may 

 not have passed beyond northern Alaska, while others reached beyond the 

 Mackenzie delta. Cases where such figures can be recognized are bound to be 

 rare, but LXXIV appears to be an example. Its opening movements are 

 peculiar, and appear in two other figures only, both of which are confined to the 

 western Eskimos. Among the Siberian Eskimos LXXIV has a very definite 

 significance, but this fades away towards the east and beyond the Mackenzie 

 delta the figure seems unknown. Another example is CXXXVI, which from its 

 meaning would seem to have arisen among the Eskimos around Bering strait. 



1 Nos. I, IV, IX, XXI, XXIV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXXI. XXXII, XXXIII, XXXVI XLI. 

 XLIII, LXXVIII, LXXXVIII, CI, CXII, CXVII, CXXXIII, CXXXVII, CXkxiX, CXLVIII ^^^'^*' ^^^* 

 ' Nos. IX, XXI, XXVI, XXIX. XXXI, XXXVI, XU, XLIII, CI, CXII, CXXXVII 



