Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/40

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^[1] 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",^[2] which shows a portion of the north shore. There, too, the settlement Naujan is described in detail, the settlement where Hall^[3] 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.^[4] 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.: