Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/16

most important spring settlement of the Eskimos there, Button Point. It was here that I also had an opportunity of seeing most of the population from Admiralty Inlet, many of them having gathered here at the police station in connection with an enquiry into a case of murder.

To the other members of the Expedition, Knud Rasmussen, Peter Freuchen, Birket-Smith, Helge Bangsted and Jacob Olsen, I owe much information regarding these Eskimos, with whom we were in daily contact for long periods; all the members have also helped towards getting together the considerable collection of more than 900 specimens (apart from a number of old specimens found in the ground) from this Eskimo tribe, now in the Ethnographic Section of the National Museum in Copenhagen and to be described in the following.

Although the Expedition's first-hand observations and the description of the collection acquired thus form the main contents of the following, this material will be supplemented by facts from previous publications and reports of journeys, so that as far as possible this work will form a monographically exhaustive description of the material culture of this Eskimo tribe.

The works which in particular have provided a valuable supplement to the Expedition's own records are Parry's and Lyon's reports of 1824, and Boas' publications of the specimens collected by Capt. G. Comer, 1901 and 1907. Information hos also been secured here and there from Rae, Hall, M'Clintock, Gilder, Klutschak, Low, Bernier, and several other reports of journeys.

Furthermore, with the help of the University grant in aid of travelling I have been enabled to study the collections brought home by Parry and Lyon in the British Museum, Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford and the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh. For granting me an opportunity to do so and giving me permission to photograph and publish several of these specimens, I tender my sincere thanks to Messrs H. J. Braunholtz, H. Balfour and R. Kerr. For looking through the spelling of the Eskimo names I must thank the Rev. H. Ostermann: the method of Kleinschmidt, modified for the dialect, has been used. The photographs of museum specimens are by Mr. S. Bengtsson; the translation is the work of Mr. W. E. Calvert.