190 B Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



In the first group of figures, those known to nearly all Eskimo tribes, it is 

 noticeable that the eastern and Coronation gulf natives have a similar interpre- 

 tation for CXVII, but the interpretation among the western natives is different. 

 IX is a doubtful case of the same thing. In IV, XXXII, and LXXVIII, on the 

 other hand, the interpretations in Coronation gulf and the Mackenzie delta are 

 the same, but are uncertain for the eastern Eskimos. XXXIII and CXII are two 

 rather doubtful cases where the eastern. Coronation gulf and Mackenzie delta 

 regions seem to line together in opposition to Alaska. 



Very little can be gathered from the twenty-five figures that are not known 

 from anywhere outside of Coronation gulf. Two of them, XCVIII and XCIX, 

 are very intricate, and may have arisen in this area or farther east. Of the 

 twenty-nine figures known from Coronation gulf westwards, but not reported 

 from the eastern Eskimos, one notices that ten of them are reinterpreted in the 

 gulf. Furthermore the chants that accompany so many of them in the west do 

 not appear in Coronation gulf, which may be described as an altogether chantless 

 region as far as string figures are concerned. Four figures are common to the 

 Mackenzie delta. Coronation gulf and Hudson bay Eskimos, but are not known 

 from any other region. Two of them have the same names in the Mackenzie 

 delta and in Coronation gulf, but different names to the eastward; the third 

 has different names in all three places, although there is a similarity between 

 the interpretations among the Copper and eastern Eskimos; the fourth has 

 the same name in all three places, but the two eastern ones agree in making 

 only a simple form of the figure, whereas the Mackenzie delta form is more 

 complicated. It is not improbable, in view of their absence from Alaska, that 

 these four figures all originated among either the Copper or the eastern Eskimos, 

 and spread west from them to the Mackenzie delta. The one figure, XCIV, 

 that has been found in the two eastern regions alone is also probably of eastern 

 origin, for not only is it made in a very unusual way, but it has no definite 

 significance in Coronation gulf, whereas the eastern natives give it quite a 

 plausible interpretation. 



It would appear from this distribution of the figures that the influence of 

 the western Eskimos on the inhabitants of Coronation gulf was on the whole 

 considerably greater than the influence of the eastern natives. In support of 

 this view we may recall that the Copper Eskimos agree with the western natives 

 in their taboo regarding the time for making string figures, and in their belief 

 in a definite spirit of cat's cradles, although the latter superstition is far less 

 prominent than in Alaska and may have been introduced in recent years. 



On the other hand it must be remembered that there is a far larger col- 

 lection of figures from the Mackenzie delta and from Alaska than from the 

 eastern Eskimos, so that the resemblances between the two former regions and 

 Coronation gulf are certain to appear disproportionately great. Furthermore, 

 most of my Coronation gulf figures were collected at the western end of the 

 gulf, where western rather than eastern influences might be expected to pre- 

 dominate. One striking difference between the string figures of Coronation 

 gulf and those of the Mackenzie delta and Alaska is the total absence of chants 

 in the gulf area;^ but whether this is the case also in Hudson bay and in Baffin 

 island I do not know. 



There are four figures^ that seem to be absent from Coronation gulf, but 

 are found among the eastern and the Mackenzie delta Eskimos. Two of them 

 have identical meanings in both places, and the interpretation of the third 

 seems to correspond very closely; the meaning of the fourth figure among the 

 eastern Eskimos is uncertain. That there are four such gaps in Coronation gulf, 

 where my collection is fairly exhaustive, would appear to favour a separate 



^ The Copper Eskimo chant in XXVII is almost certainly a fragment of a dance song. 

 ! Nos. Ill, XLVIII, XLIX, LXXXV. 



