Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/37

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^[1]