Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos/Chapter 3

In 1922 the total number of Iglulik Eskimos was 504; of these 165 were Aivilingmiut, 146 Iglulingmiut and 193 Tununermiut.

The following is a list of all adults, the number of their children, the meaning of their names and the settlements they lived in during the winter of 1921–22.

Chesterfield Inlet (the trading station, Depot Island, etc.)

In all, 146 men, 161 women and 197 children; among the women are eight who have married in from other tribes.

About the year 1900 the number of Iglulik Eskimos was estimated^[1] to be about 378 persons in all, of which 138 were Aivilingmiut, 60 Iglulingmiut and 180 Tununermiut (including the Tununerusermiut at Admiralty Inlet). These counts have, however, doubtless ​been incomplete; such rapid growth in the course of 20–25 years is not very probable. On the contrary, there is reason for believing that the population has declined during the past few years, particularly as a result of the severe treatment meted out to them by the whalers; contagious diseases, especially syphilis, have undoubtedly carried many off, whilst the excessive drinking of strong liquor has reduced the power of resistance of the people. According to their own traditions, they have previously been much more numerous, which indeed seems to be confirmed by the enormous number of ruins of habitations spread over the country. Whether the population is now increasing or decreasing is difficult to say. The diseases of the whaling period are not yet wholly eradicated and, at the trading stations, there is still the possibility of infection. The birth rate is by no means high and, of children born. about half of them succumb, so that, as will be seen from the foregoing, the number of children is not great. In addition, there is the fact that periods of famine now and then set in, as in the winter of 1922–23 when 13 people died of starvation in Admiralty Inlet, a number that is severely felt in this little, scattered community.

The terms Aivilingmiut, Iglulingmiut and Tununermiut are more geographical than ethnographical. The natural boundary between the first two groups is the stretch of coast between C. Wilson and C. Jermain, which is uninhabitable as open water stretches right into the country in winter, whereas in summer the coast is often blockaded by drift-ice; for this reason sledge journeys here must proceed overland. The watershed in the interior of Cockburn Land may be taken to be the boundary between the Iglulingmiut and the Tununermiut.

However, it is by no means the case that it is always the same people who live within these three great areas. It is true that there are some who spend practically their whole lives within one of them; but even these oftenest know either one or both of the others through journeys or short sojourns there. But a movement between these areas is constantly going on, with the result that their population is constantly changing in number and composition. That a man is an Iglulingmio as a rule means nothing more than that for the present he is living in the Iglulik area; still, one hears occasionally that this or that person is an Iglulingmio because he was born in Iglulik, or even because his mother was born in Iglulik; thus this term has no fixed definition.

It is no rare occurrence that a man has lived a few years in all three areas. Ivaluartjuk, a man about 60 years old, now living at Repulse Bay, thus spent his earlier years at Iglulik, where he was ​born, lived six years at Admiralty Inlet and five years at Ponds Inlet, having spent the remaining time among the Aiviliks at Fullerton and Repulse Bay; his older brother Utsutsiaq, who now lives at Ponds Inlet, was born at Iglulik and has previously lived on Depot Island, at Repulse Bay, Iglulik and Admiralty Inlet, whilst his younger brother Aua, who now lives south of Pt. Elisabeth, has spent most of his life at Iglulik. It is a common thing in a family to meet one member among the Aivilingmiut, another among the Iglulingmiut and a third among the Tununermiut.

Some statistics, which I drew up at Ponds Inlet, illustrate these conditions:

Of the 55 adult men of whom 1 had information, 25 were born at Ponds Inlet, four at Admiralty Inlet, 20 at Iglulik, one at C. Wilson, one at Repulse Bay, one on Depot Island and three at Home Bay.

Of 33 adult men at Ponds Inlet of whom I made enquiries, 32 had been at Admiralty Inlet, 24 at Iglulik, 16 at the fjord Anaularealing, 5 at River Clyde, 4 at Home Bay, 13 at Repulse Bay, 8 at Wager Bay. 7 at Fullerton, 6 on Depot Island and at Chesterfield Inlet, 7 at Piling, one at Nyboe's Fjord. 14 on North-Devon, 5 on North Somerset, one on Bathurst Island, one on Cornwallis Island and one on Prince of Wales Island.

At Ponds Inlet I met 26 adults who had near relatives (parents. children or brothers and sisters) at Iglulik, 9 at Repulse Bay, 5 on Southampton Island, one at Chesterfield Inlet and 7 at Home Bay.

From all this it will be seen how closely connected are the Ponds Inlet Eskimos especially with the inhabitants of Iglulik, but also with the Repulse Bay people, despite the great distance between these two places.

That these are not new conditions, caused by circumstances connected with whaling and trading, is seen from particulars of much earlier date. Parry's^[2] two Eskimo maps, drawn on Winter Island, extend from Nuvuk south of Wager Bay to Ponds Inlet, and later on he writes that “a great number of these people, who were born at Amitioke and Igloolik, had been to Noowook, or nearly as south as Chesterfield Inlet, which is about the ne plus ultra of their united knowledge in a southerly direction."^[3] Hall^[4] at Nuvuk met an Eskimo, Armou, who could draw a map from Churchill to the south coast of North Devon, from the west coast of Committee Bay to the west coast of Southampton Island, and later he mentions a man, ​Papa, who had lived five years near Ponds Inlet and many more at Iglulik.^[5]

From a cultural point of view, too, the Aiviliks, Igluliks and Ponds Inlet Eskimos form a unity; as the following will show, there is no great difference in the material culture of these three groups. There are, however, a few local peculiarities, to some extent the result of geographical conditions, as likewise at the extreme points, Chesterfield Inlet and Ponds Inlet, it is possible to trace some influence from the neighbouring tribes: the Qaernermiut and the Akudnermiut respectively. As the statistics show, the Tununermiut are also to some degree connected with the Akudnermiut at River Clyde and Home Bay, to whom in fact some of them are related by marriage; the connection here, however, is much weaker than with the Igluliks.

We are thus in a position to state that the three Eskimo "tribes": the Aivilingmiut, Iglulingmiut and Tununermiut, in reality form one tribe, united by the ties of blood and culture; if they have any connection with the neighbouring tribes, the Akudnermiut, Netsilingmiut and Qaernermiut, they regard them nevertheless as strangers whom they very often look down upon. My old friend Takornaq, who accompanied me on my journey to Ponds Inlet, expressed it in this manner that if she were to have a new husband, it was all the same to her whether he was an Aivilingmio, an Iglulingmio or a Tununermio; if need be, a Qaernermio or an Akudnermio might to do; but a Netsilingmio — never!

The Iglulik Eskimos live a rather roaming life. Thus there are no permanent settlements such as we know them from Greenland and the Western Eskimos. It is, however. possible to recognise a certain regularity in their movements, an annual cycle, which recurs almost year after year, all according to the possibilities of the hunting of land or marine mammals offered by the various seasons: another factor which is a great contributor to this is the strict taboo regulations, which keep the hunting of marine and land mammals sharply separated. Thus there are no permanent villages, and on the other hand there are certain places where the population at certain times of the year usually assemble and pursue a particular branch of hunting. In the following a large number of such "seasonal settlements" will be mentioned, some of them inhabited almost every year, whereas others are only visited now and then. The summer ​settlements, with their tent rings, meat caches and kayak supports are most easily recognisable on the terrain; the winter snow huts only leave very little trace after the thaw; but on the other hand many of these winter settlements are more regularly populated than many of the summer settlements.

Whaling, the trading stations and the introduction of a kind of Christianity have to some degree altered the old cycle of occupations: the main features of it are still traceable, however.

Repulse Bay has from the earliest times been an important centre for the Eskimos in these regions; it is from the settlement here, Aivilik, that the Aivilingmiut have their name. In winter, Repulse Bay forms one great continuous surface of smooth winter ice up to a line from Beach Point to Hall Island.

The cycle of occupations of the Repulse Bay Eskimos before whaling and the trading stations interrupted it was related to me by a 60 year old Eskimo (Saorre): In summer they hunted the walrus, seal and, now and then, the whale with the kayak, at the settlements Aivilik, Pitiktârfik, Sitorarfik and Beach Point, all of which are points jutting out into the bay; at the end of August or the beginning of September the young men went out caribou hunting, the old men remaining behind and continuing the kayak hunting as long as there was open water (until the middle of September); then they. too, went into the country. The chief caribou-hunting places were Rae Isthmus, especially Christie Lake, and a large number of localities between this and Repulse Bay, where the caribou were hunted from the kayak as they passed over lakes and rivers: Ariang, Tinguktorvik, Qorngo, Qiqersitordleq, Neqetoq, Utsiaq, Kutjarvik, Usiareaq. Ivnartoq. The country north of the bay was also visited, as for instance the big lake Taserssuaq, the outlet of which runs into the head of Lyon Inlet, and the lakes Angmalortoq and Peringajoq, between Haviland and Ross Bay. In the later part of the autumn the caribou were hunted with bow and arrow or the gun, and salmon were fished at the same time. Towards the end of January or in February they removed to Repulse Bay and built snow houses on the ice; here they lived on ice-hunting for seals. In spring they hunted young seals in their holes and, when the weather became warmer (May-June), they pitched tents on points and islands in the bay and hunted the seals which basked in the sun (Utoq hunting), this lasting until the ice again broke up at the beginning of August.

This cycle corresponds on the whole with that which Boas^[6] ​constructed by comparing the observations of the earlier expeditions: In spring, tents are pitched on the ice, the islands and the points in the bay, the big winter settlements being evacuated and the blubber being stored in skin bags. Caribou are killed at the passes. In July, many leave the ice and proceed to the salmon rivers; but seal hunting is continued until the ice breaks up. A large number of seals and walruses are caught in the open water and are cached for the winter; whales are sometimes caught too. In September. most of them go to Fig. 3.The old summer settlement Aivilik. the lakes and rivers, especially to North Pole Lake, to hunt caribou and musk oxen; other important caribou-hunting grounds are west of Repulse Bay and near Lyon Inlet. Depots of caribou meat are formed. In January most of them gather together in one big settlement, which is built at Hall Island, Naujan, Inuksulik or some other place in the bay; here they live principally on the summer depots. Towards the end of March the winter settlements are left and the inhabitants scatter for the seal hunting and salmon fishing.

Conditions now are rather changed, partly owing to the fact that the trading station has been established (near Naujan on the north coast), and partly as result of the kayak having been replaced by the whaleboat, also that the caribou has retreated further into the interior as a result of the widespread use of guns, and that whales (and to some extent walruses) have disappeared.

The summer is now principally spent at Beach Point, where ​there is open water close by as early as in June, and where the walrus. white whale and seal are hunted with the whaleboat, to some extent on behalf of the trading station; some of the meat and blubber collected is cached for the winter. A number of families, however, especially the young people, go caribou hunting in the interior as soon as the ice breaks up. The autumn is spent hunting the caribou. In the winter of 1921–22 a large group of Eskimos lived at Taserssuaq in Lyon Inlet, whence they returned to Repulse Bay on January 4th; they then built snow houses near the trading station and hunted. the seal, both from the ice-edge and at the breathing holes. Other Eskimos spent that winter in the country north and east of Haviland Bay, where they hunted the caribou and trapped foxes. Later on they all moved to Repulse Bay, where they caught seal until the ice broke up.

In the winter (February–March) of 1923 a large number of the Repulse Bay Eskimos were living on the sea ice at Qajûvfik, near Cape Martineau, hunting the seal at the breathing holes; the proximity of our headquarters, however, was scarcely entirely without influence on their choice of this dwelling-place.

During the winter of 1921–22 a group of Eskimos lived at Itibdjeriang (Pt. Elizabeth), having moved there in the spring from Usugarssuk, which had been their residence during the two previous years. These people spent the summer of 1922 caribou hunting at Adderley Bluff and also at Lyon Inlet; the following winter they moved to Qajûvfik. In the winter of 1923–24 a group of Eskimos lived round C. Wilson.

Of the various settlements in the Repulse Bay area there may be reason for going more into detail regarding the former principal summer settlement of the tribe, Aivilik. It lies on a broad, flat point, about three kilometres west of the trading station on the north shore of the bay; a very considerable area is closely dotted with tent rings, meat caches, meat columns, kayak supports, graves and other Eskimo remains, some of them lying on the rocky surface itself, others on sandy stretches between the rock; over swampy patches rows of stepping stones have been laid. The point barely reaches 10 metres above sea level. During my last visit to the settlement, in July 1922, I commenced to map the details of it — the biggest and most extensive Eskimo summer settlement I have seen: I found, however, that this mapping would take more time than could he afforded in the summer time which was so precious to the work of excavation and, owing to my being marooned on Southampton Island, I did not get an opportunity of returning later to Repulse Bay. I would roughly estimate the number of Eskimo habitation-remains at Aivilik at ​about 500, spread over an area of 20 to 30 hectares. At no point did there seem to be refuse heaps of any great size, however. It must be here where Parry's Expedition landed in 1821 and which Lyon^[7] describes as "an immense Esquimaux settlement. Above sixty circles of stones .. were counted, several small fire places covered with soot, about a dozen perfect store-houses for flesh, and everything which would make the place appear to have been inhabited of late years". Aivilik is now oftenest uninhabited; in the summer of 1922 a single Netsilik family had pitched its tent there.

That the shores of Repulse Bay are extremely rich in Eskimo ruins appears from the map in "Archaeology of the Central Eskimos",^[8] which shows a portion of the north shore. There, too, the settlement Naujan is described in detail, the settlement where Hall^[9] in the winter of 1865–66 lived in a snow-house village with 43 Eskimos. The shores east and north of Repulse Bay have also been visited frequently; numbers of tent rings and meat caches are to be seen everywhere at the coast, as for instance a great many along Hurd Channel. The map of Eskimo ruins in Palmer Bay gives an idea of conditions a little further up along the coast of Melville Peninsula.^[10] Boas mentions "Maluksilaq" (Maluksitak, Lyon Inlet) as an important settlement and, when Parry wintered on Winter Island in 1821–22, this island was inhabited by many Eskimos.

Boas indicates Committee Bay, Akutdlêt, as another of the Aivilik Eskimos important settlements; there a number of families formerly hunted the caribou and musk ox in summer and, late in winter, returned to Repulse Bay. The Aivilik Eskimos never go to Committee Bay now, although a few are still alive who have been there. This area is now inhabited and is visited occasionally by Netsilik Eskimos. whom the trading stations have drawn further east.

As regards the more southerly Aivilik Eskimos Boas gives, principally after Klutschak, the following cycle of occupations: In spring they live on Depot Island, Cape Fullerton or the point north of Chesterfield Inlet, where they hunt utoq-seals and establish depots of blubber and meat. When the ice breaks up a number of them go into the interior to hunt caribou, whilst others remain and hunt the whale and walrus from kayaks. About new year the caribou hunters return from the interior and hunt the walrus from the edge of the ice or live upon the summer depots.

During the years in which we were in the country. Silumiut, Ũmánaq and the trading station at Chesterfield Inlet were occasionally inhabited by the Aivilik Eskimos apart from Depot Island (Esk.: ​Pikiulaq); there is no real, regular cycle of occupations for these few families, particularly as most of them are in the service of the trading station and police station. Boas^[11] states that, up to 1800, Depot Island and its environs were inhabited by a separate tribe, Inuissuitmiut, who fought with the Aiviliks; a descendent of this tribe is said to live among the Qaernermiut.

A very important spring and winter settlement in earlier times was Nuvuk, south of Wager Inlet; people often lived there in summer. In September 1864 Hall^[12] came across a tent-camp with 40 people there. Boas^[13] mentions that another tribe who lived there was exterminated by the Aiviliks while on a warring expedition under the leadership of their chief, Oudlinak. It is possible that these old stories of fights at Nuvuk and Depot Island date right back to the struggle between the Thule culture and the ever-progressing inland culture.

After having been uninhabited many years, a group of Aivilik Eskimos, who had been prevented from returning to Southampton Island by the ice, settled down in the winter of 1922–23 at Nuvuk. At Mátoq (Berthie Harbour), on the north side of the mouth of Wager Inlet, two families lived that winter and the one before; there is good seal hunting all the year round in the open current holes at the mouth of the fjord.

Southampton Island is a recent acquisition of the Aivilik Eskimos, but nevertheless is now their most important possession. Until 1902 it was inhabited by the Sadlermiut, who were very unfriendly towards the Aiviliks with whom they did not have much intercourse until the later years, when the whaling ships brought them to the island. It seems, however, that even before then the Aiviliks visited the northern part of the island fairly frequently, from which the Sadlermiut had disappeared at a much earlier date. The 60 year old Aivilik, Angutimarik, told me that in his childhood he had several times been in Duke of York Bay with his parents and he was able to point out tent rings, etc. from these visits; they spent the summer there hunting the caribou and fishing for salmon and returned with the arrival of autumn.

After the Sadlermiut had died off in 1902–3 a number of Aivilik Eskimos settled on the island, which is a splendid hunting district. As a rule their cycle of occupations is as follows: In spring they live partly at Duke of York Bay (Nias Island) and partly at South Bay (Bear Island), hunting the utoq. When the ice breaks up, a number of them go on trading journeys in whaleboats to Repulse Bay and Chesterfield Inlet (a station has now been established in South Bay), ​whereas others remove to Kûk and Tunermiut, hunting seal and walrus in open water; the young men go caribou hunting. In spring the older men move to a salmon lake, especially Hansine Lake and Qeqertauarlik. The winter is spent in the interior, hunting the caribou, especially round about Kirchhoffer River, and it is from there that they move out to the coast (Nias Island and Bear Island) in March-April, when the sewing of caribou skins is completed and seal hunting can commence; at these places they make depots of blubber and meat. which can be fetched during the winter. During the half year I lived on the island, the removal from Nias Island to Kûk took place in the middle of August. At the end of August three young men and their families were put ashore on the coast south of Cape Welsford, where they hunted caribou and only rejoined the other families at Kirchhoffer River in the middle of December. On October 3rd we moved from Kûk in to Hansine Lake, whilst another family went to Qeqertauarlik, and on October 26th we left with supplies of blubber for the interior where, on November 19th, at Darkness Lake, Kirchhoffer River, we met the people from South Bay. We lived there until our departure from the island on February 15th.

The Iglulik Eskimos proper may geographically be divided into three groups which, previously at any rate, seem to have had a certain independence: 1) The inhabitants of the big bay on the east side of Melville Peninsula; of these the term Amitsormiut is often used. after the old main settlement Amitsoq. 2) The inhabitants of Iglulik and Pingerqalik. 3) The inhabitants of Steensby Fjord, Kangerdlugssuaq, and the coast to the east of it towards Piling, often called Kangerdlugssuarmiut; apparently they correspond to Boas' Pilingmiut and Sagdlirmiut;^[14] both Piling and the island Sadleq are now uninhabited, however.

The Amitsormiut now only comprise a few families. In March 1922 we met three families at Ingnertoq, they having sejourned in that neighbourhood the whole year; in summer in tents at Ingnertoq near the winter settlement, whence they hunted the walrus in boats; later in the summer they had been caribou hunting on the mainland within the spot where their autumn house stood at Kingatjuaq: when the sewing of caribou skins was over in February they moved to Ingnertoq, where they spent their time walrus hunting from the ice edge until in April they went on a trading journey to Repulse Bay. When we returned from Iglulik at the end of May we met them ​at the isthmus of Amitsoq Peninsula, where they were hunting caribou. In March 1923 I met the same group again at Kingatjuaq, where they were hunting seal and walrus. In February 1924 Eskimos lived in this area at Anangiarssuk, Umiarfik and on the northern point of Amitsoq, where they were occupied in ice-hunting for seals and walrus from the ice edge.

Amitsoq seems to have been an important settlement in earlier times; Parry did not visit it but often heard it spoken of by the Eskimos. Hall visited it on February 23rd, 1867, but found it uninhabited. It was also uninhabited when I was there in March 1922, and only a few cairn stones and tent rings of lime gravel on the flat, lime-gravel point showed that this was an old settlement.

A man about 60 years old, Ivaluartjuk, informed me of the following cycle of occupations in the Iglulik Area itself:

The spring was spent at Iglulik, at Qeqertârtjuk on the north-east end of Iglulik Island and on the ice north of it, hunting utoq seal. Before the ice broke up they carried a part of the blubber to Qupersortuaq, on the mainland south of Iglulik, and cached it there. In summer, walrus and seal were hunted with kayak and boat, first from Iglulik, Alarnang and Pingerqalik, and later, when the ice had quite disappeared, from Arversiorvik, a little way inside of Pingerqalik. In September the old men went to the island Apatdleq, just west of Iglulik, where they continued walrus hunting, whilst the young men went caribou hunting, partly on the mainland within Richards Bay and Hooper Inlet and round Hall's Lake, partly on the north side of Fury and Hecla Strait. When the ice formed and the hair of the caribou became too long to be suitable for clothing skins, the skins were taken to Apatdleq, where the sewing of caribou skins took place. About new year they assembled again at the two winter settlements Iglulik and Pingerqalik and hunted the walrus from the ice edge and seals at the breathing holes.

Of late years Arpatdleq seems to have been abandoned as an autumn settlement; in the spring of 1922 I saw the deserted snow-house village where the caribou skins had been sewn, at Ungerlôdjan,^[15] the naze east of Turton Bay on Iglulik Island, and in the spring of 1923 I saw it at Arnarquagssâq,^[16] just west of this bay. Qeqertârtjuk does not seem to be so much used as a spring settlement within recent years either, but Iglulik itself. Furthermore, Arversiorvik has been replaced as a summer settlement by the nearby Ungerlôdjan (not to be confused with the place of the same name on Iglulik Island). On the occasions on which we have visited these ​areas, March-April 1922–24, we have always met with people at Iglulik and Pingerqalik and also on the ice north of Iglulik, where in April 1923 we came across a snow-house village; in May the same year the inhabitants had moved to Iglulik. In the autumn of 1922 a number of Eskimos lived on salmon fishing at Hall lake; in March we found a deserted snow-house at Sarbaq. the most easterly cove on the lake, and in April 1923 a family, who had no dogs, lived there on salmon fishing.

On the caribou hunts in summer and autumn the Igluliks travel widely in the south of Cockburn Land. There an important settlement is Eqaluit, a point at the mouth of Gifford Fjord, where there are many caribou and salmon. Two years ago some Iglulik families passed the summer at Ingnerit, between Steensby Fjord and Piling.

In Steensby Fjord a group of Eskimos, some of them from Iglulik, some from Ponds Inlet, have settled down and lived there during the past few years. The winter settlement is Manertoq, whence they hunt the walrus from the ice edge, and the seals at the breathing holes. In summer, seals and walruses are hunted from boats, and later on they hunt caribou; the most important summer settlement is C. Thalbitzer (Iglorssuit).

In October 1910 Lavoie^[17] met five Eskimo families at the lake Ivisaroqtoq and six families at the lake Saputit, both places in southwest Cockburn Land; they lived principally on salmon fishing.

Boas^[18] summarises his information on the cycle of occupations of the Iglulingmiut, principally after Parry and Hall, in the following words:

"As soon as the sea begins to freeze up the natives gather on Iglulik, where they hunt the walrus throughout the winter. According to the position of the floe edge, Iglulik, Pingerqalik, or Uglit Islands are the favorite settlements. Later in the winter, when new ice is frequently attached to the floe. parts of the families move to the ice northeast of Iglulik, where seals are caught with the harpoon. Another winter settlement seems to be near Amitoq. In April young seals are hunted in the bays and fiords, particularly in Hooper Inlet — —. As soon as the warm season approaches the natives go deer hunting on Melville Peninsula or more frequently on Baffin Land."

Some further details may be given of a few of the settlements of the Iglulik area:

Iglulik is the most important settlement in the area and of the whole tribe. The locality of Iglulik itself is the south-east corner of Iglulik Island; about a kilometre from the coast there is a number ​of old ruins of whale bone houses,^[19] of which some seem to have been transformed into autumn houses in comparatively recent years but have again been allowed to become dilapidated. Beyond these ruins, right out by the coast, the modern snow-house village Iglulik Fig. 4.Sketch of the snow village Iglulik April 1st 1922. Scale 1:1000. rises every year. In the shelter of the lowest shore ridge a large, deep snow-drift forms and provides material for the houses. and two reefs, their surfaces just lying on the top of the water. stretch outwards like a pair of arms and form between them a plain of flat ice in front of the settlement, to which admission is gained through an opening between the "arms".

Fig. 4 is a sketch of the snow-house village of Iglulik as it appeared when I was there for the first time at the end of March 1922, and Fig. 5 is a photograph of it.

When Parry reached Iglulik Island on July 16th, 1822, he found 17 tents and about 120 people living on the east side of Turton Bay;^[20] when he returned to Iglulik in September. 1822, he found some of the Eskimos living in bone houses with skin roofs. whereas others lived in ice houses^[21] later on during the winter most of them gathered out on the sea ice, where they lived in snow houses, and by the middle of February they had all moved out there.^[22] Parry^[23] refers to Iglulik as "one of their principal rendezvous, forming, as it were, a sort of central link in the very extensive chain of these peoples peregrinations", and Lyon^[24] judges from the quantity of refuse that "the island of Igloolik must have been, for centuries, the residence of the Esquimaux".

​Hall^[25] also found many people at Iglulik when he visited the place on March 1–4; there he counted 42 women; on March 6th he found 23 snow-houses on the ice off Iglulik.

On March 30th, 1922, when Freuchen and I arrived at Iglulik, only five families were living at the settlement itself, whereas three other families had left there for a trading journey to Repulse Bay; when we returned to Iglulik in May, 17 families were living there, a number who earlier had lived out on the ice having moved in. On April 16th, 1923, four families lived at Iglulik whereas five had gone to Ponds Inlet to trade.

Fig. 5.The snow village of Iglulik.

Pingerqalik is a low point on the mainland, south of Iglulik; here, too, there are many whale-bone houses, whereas the modern snow-house village lies by the beach just as at Iglulik. Like Iglulik, Pingerqalik is an important hunting ground for walruses. Parry^[26] says that in March 1823 "Pingitkalik" was inhabited, and Hall^[27] also met Eskimos there in April 1868. In March 1922 six families were living there, in April 1923 ten, and in February 1924 four families.

Arversiorvik and Ungerlôdjan, the two most important summer settlements of the Igluliks, lie close together a little west of Pingerqalik; the first is simply marked by some few meat caches and tent rings; Ungerlôdjan, however, which of late years has been the principal place for hunting walrus from boats, has many large meat caches, some high cairns and tent rings; it lies on the two lowest shore terraces. Arversiorvik is presumably identical with Parry's Ag-wisse-o-wik,^[28] which, however, is given as lying within S. Uglit, whereas it actually lies within N. Uglit; this is probably a misunderstanding; the point within S. Uglit (Uglerlârssuk) is called Qarman.

For the Eskimos at Ponds Inlet, Button Point (Sanerun) is the spring settlement; they gather here in May-June for ũtoq-seal hunting and later on the very profitable hunting of narwhals from the ice edge and in open holes and cracks in the ice. Since the Hudson's Bay Company built a small station at the adjacent Kôroqdjuaq in 1923. Fig. 6.Button Point. this has now become the principal hunting ground. As the ice gradually breaks up, the Eskimos move further in, to Qaersut, Albert Harbour or Kaparoqtalik, where M'Clintock's Expedition met them in August 1858.^[29] When the ice is quite broken up, they now move to the two trading stations, Igaqdjuaq and Mitimatalik, where they spend the summer, hunting seals and narwhals with the boat and kayak although some of them — seven families in the summer of 1923 — go away caribou hunting before the ice breaks; important grounds for this are Qorloqtoq in Milne Inlet (where Eskimos sometimes live all the year round, on salmon fishing), Low Point on the west side of Navy Board Inlet and the head of Arctic Sound. Before the trading stations were built, Qilalukan and Qaersuarssuit were important summer settlements. Late in the winter, when caribou hunting is over, they formerly assembled at Qilalukan, which was ​the principal settlement in winter; now most of them live near the trading station. Osborn^[30] states that on August 21st 1850 he found no Eskimos at Button Point and that they were in the interior, salmon fishing and hunting caribou. That Low^[31] writes: "In the winter all congregate at Button Point" is due to the circumstance that in the year he was at Ponds Inlet, the only trading station was at Iterdleq, close by Button Point.

Almost every spring there are some families — in 1923 four — who cross Lancaster Sound to North Devon to hunt the bear; it is no uncommon occurrence for them to pass the summer there or at North Somerset, hunting caribou and musk ox. In the spring of 1923 four families had gone to the fjord Anaularealing for caribou and bear; they returned to Button Point from there in June.

The most important settlements at Ponds Inlet, Qilalukan and Button Point, are fully described in Archaeology of the Central Eskimos I, p. 136 and 206 respectively.

In Admiralty Inlet the number of families is constantly changing; now, at any rate, one cannot speak of them as a separate tribe, the Tununerusermiut, who are said to have had a certain amount of independence formerly. The principal winter settlement is Ulukssan at Arctic Bay; the spring is as a rule spent on Cape Crawford (Kangeq), where they hunt narwhal from the ice edge and ùtoq-seal. In summer, some of them move to Ulukssan, where they hunt narwhal from both boat and kayak, and some go caribou hunting and salmon fishing in the south of the fjord, where Saputit, Imeq and Siming are important grounds; in January they move back to Ulukssan, where they live upon the summer depots and the seals they catch at the breathing holes. It often happens. however, that some families spend the winter at the mouth of the fjord, where they hunt walrus from the ice edge and seal at the breathing holes. At Eqalulik I counted 22 tent rings and 10 meat caches.

As a result of this examination of the cycle of occupations of the Iglulik Eskimos one may say: As regards occupations, the year is divided into two main periods: 1) a period comprising the whole or part of summer, autumn and the first half of winter, when caribou hunting is the principal occupation, with the addition of salmon fishing now and then; settlements in the interior of the country or at places at the coast from which there is easy access to the caribou areas. 2) Another period, covering the latter half of winter. from the time when the sewing of caribou skins is ended (January–February), spring and a part (as far as some are ​concerned the whole) of summer when they live on hunting aquatic mammals: walrus and narwhal from the ice edge, utoq and breathing-hole hunting of seals and hunting the seal, narwhal or walrus from boats and kayaks. In this period the settlements are on points or islands or on the sea ice itself.

How the annual cycle progresses in detail depends upon the local conditions. At those places where there is good hunting of large aquatic mammals, walruses and narwhals, as at Iglulik and Ponds Inlet, this hunting naturally plays an important part and will often employ a large number of people in summer. Among the Aiviliks, however, caribou hunting is even more predominant than among the Eskimos living more to the north.