26 
MUSEUM BULLETIN NO. 6. 
The market for wooden wares extends to-day to the north 
to the extreme limit of the inhabited districts; it may have been 
so in the past too, when that limit was farther north — Prince 
Patrick island, Melville island, and the others where ruins 
testify to a former population that may once have furnished the 
Gulf with customers. To the west the limit no doubt always 
was near Cape Bexley and to the east, as now, wares from Akilinik 
met those from the Gulf halfway. The stoneware has and had 
a wider field. Banks island and Victoria island almost certainly 
never had any other source of supply and the islands north of 
them may not have had any other; to the west Bering strait 
even may not have been the extreme limit of stone lamps made 
in the Gulf; to the east, however, there are competing stone- 
workers at Back river and perhaps even nearer than that. 
The Ekalluktogmiut, so far as our inquiries could bring 
out, have no special commercial resources. They are, however, 
an important link in the chain of traffic from the Akilinik to 
Cape Parry and to Alaska — a chain that has now been broken at 
Nelson head. There are still, however, the important tribe 
of the Kanhifyuafmiut and a remnant of the Kanhifyuatji- 
agmlut who deal with Hudson bay chiefly through the Ekal- 
iQktO^Iut. They also meet the Turnunirohifmiut of North 
Devon and the Netjili^Iut of King Williamsland, with whom 
they have dealings the nature of which we did not make out. 
East of Victoria island among the islands and east of Kent 
peninsula on the mainland, our information is unfortunately 
as yet too scant to allow us to add anything of value to what 
was said above in the discussion of the trade routes. 
It really follows from the preceding, but may be worth 
definitely pointing out, that a certain tribal specialization of 
industries and to a less extent a division of labour among indi- 
viduals, has resulted from the differing natural resources of the 
various districts and the attendant intertribal commerce. I 
have found it characteristic of Eskimo generally (and especially 
of those west of Cape Parry) that each tribe believes the arti- 
facts made by its own members to be superior to the correspond- 
ing articles made by ousiders. A few exceptions are known to 
me from western Alaska — few because of limited opportunities 
