Page:Archæology of the Central Eskimos.djvu/229

Qilalukan (on Hall's Eskimo map of 1869: Kinelookun) is a point in the form of a projecting delta of a small stream, about 2 kilometres west of the Hudson's Bay Co's station, midway between the latter and the mouth of Salmon River; the name means "Narwhals" and presumably the spot is an old important hunting ground for these animals, which in the early summer pass through Ponds Inlet in thousands and provide an opportunity of making great catches. From olden times this place has been an important winter settlement; a large number of old house ruins bear witness of this; this importance it has retained up to comparatively recently; an old Eskimo told me that right up to the time when the whalers built permanent stations at Ponds Inlet (1903), Qilalukan was the most important winter residence of the Eskimos. Here the older men gathered together already in the autumn, while the young men were out caribou hunting, and lived in autumn houses — qarmat — which they had built up on the sites of the old houses; and here they built snow houses in winter as soon as the snow became suitable for the purpose; here they had their dancing and festival house — qagi; some Eskimos are still alive who have had qarmat at Qilalukan. In summer, too, Qilalukan was often inhabited; but since the trading station was built no one has lived there.

It is presumably this spot which Belcher^[1] mentions: . . . . 'I examined the watercourse and valley, where the remains of an old village stood.' He says that the houses resembled those he had seen in Northumberland Sound. Low^[2] too visited the place: "A number of partly underground houses, similar to that described, were found at the mouth of a small stream close to the anchorage. From several ancient graves along the banks of the stream a short distance from the houses a good collection of skulls was obtained."

Conditions at Qilalukan will be seen by the map, fig. 42; the country behind the point forms a sand plateau, about 40 metres high, in which the stream has cut a broad valley with high sides and, with the material carried down from this, has formed the point. The point consists of a number of sand terraces which rise one behind the other, formed by the rising of the land. At the outer edge is a low terrain (1–3 metres above the sea), covered in parts with grass; on the left bank of the stream a terrace, 5 or 6 metres above sea level, stretches well out; small portions of this terrace are also to be found on the right bank, where behind it rises a plateau of considerable extent, 8 to 10 metres above sea level, falling fairly steeply towards