December 30, 1914 
Canada 
Geological Survey 
Museum Bulletin No. 6. 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SERIES, No. 3. 
Prehistoric and Present Commerce among the Arctic 
Coast Eskimo. 
By V. Stefansson. 
If, with reference to the Eskimo, we are to call prehistoric 
all the time that antedates the first visit to them of a white man 
who puts on record some information concerning them, then 
some tribes of Eskimo even now may be in the prehistoric period, 
for it is not certain that there are not tribes whose very names 
and existence are unknown to us. From this point of view, 
prehistoric time may include not only to-day but to-morrow. In 
the following discussion, it will appear just what is meant by 
“prehistoric” in the case of each tribe or section of the country. 
In general the past will be inferred from the present condition 
supplemented by some apparently reliable information through 
word of mouth. 
So far as a research might be based on the published or 
unpublished accounts of the explorers of the past, this essay 
will be found wanting, for the sources are not at hand where 
this is written. 
There are three things that chiefly determine the character 
of Eskimo commerce: the geographic conditions that make 
Phonetic Note. The alphabet used in spelling Eskimo names is that 
of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, slightly modified: g = g 
in Icelandic saga or Norwegian dag-, r = the German guttural r, while r is as 
in English; s always has a sibilant sound, nearly, but not quite, equal to 
English sh\ = English ch in church. Other variations from the Bureau of 
Ethnology alphabet occur, but are of little consequence. 
