The Caribou Eskimos/Part 1/Introduction

"Caribou Eskimos" is the name which the Fifth Thule Expedition has attached to a group of Eskimo tribes in the southern part of the extensive Barren Grounds west of Hudson Bay. It may be small and unimportant — a handful of people in the middle of the arctic waste — but it has acquired a natural right to be regarded as a complete unity, in that it possesses a culture that is essentially different to all other forms of culture among the otherwise homogeneous Eskimo stock.

In reality, this group comprises the only Eskimos who could with any justification be included in what Wissler calls "the caribou area” in the culture of North America; for in grouping all Eskimos under this head, this eminent ethnographer underrates the fundamental importance of the hunting of aquatic mammals to these other tribes. On the other hand, the importance of caribou hunting as far as the Caribou Eskimos are concerned cannot be rated high enough. To them the caribou occupies at least the same position as the seal and the walrus to their kinsmen, or as the bison of the past to the Plains Indians. The caribou is the pivot round which life turns. When it fails, the mechanism of culture comes to a stop and hunger and cold are the consequences for those tribes which, relying upon it, have created an almost incredibly one-sided culture. And yet it must not be inferred that the word "one-sided" is used deprecatingly. It should be emphasised that up to the present time this culture is the only one that has made these regions habitable, regions where even the Indian caribou hunters are as helpless as children when the winter cold approaches.

​The culture of the Caribou Eskimos is the subject of this work; but only a single aspect of it is to be dealt with. Our task is first of all to describe the outer side of the culture, that which may be called the material culture in the widest sense of the word, comprising occupations, technology, dwellings, intercourse, etc., and to a certain extent social life too. On the other hand religion, poetry and other aspects of their intellectual life will not be touched upon. It is readily admitted that, from a purely scientific point of view, this is a procedure that is open to criticism; a culture is a living organism which will not tolerate an arbitrary amputation, and not much more than an inanimate trunk is in fact left, when the very heart-blood, which in the form of the primitive philosophy of a primitive religion pulsates out into its extreme arteries, is lacking.

But whilst recognising this we are justified in taking regard to practical requirements. It is such a practical consideration as this, and not scientific premeditation, that has dictated the limitation of this work. On the Expedition the work among the Caribou Eskimos was divided in such a manner that Knud Rasmussen, as a natural consequence of his eminent knowledge of Eskimo mentality, undertook the whole study of their religion, tales, songs, etc., whilst I myself worked on just that material side of the culture which is here taken up for description and analysis. We have since made an exchange of what we more incidentally got to know outside our own particular fields — an arrangement for which I have probably more reason to be grateful than Knud Rasmussen.

Methodological considerations: the object and means of making the investigation. Our object ought to be this, not only to secure a description of the material culture, but also as far as possible an understanding of it, an understanding which, by making a retrospective examination of the development of the culture, makes clear both the influence of the geographical environment and the historical conditions which have contributed to its growth. That the purely psychological considerations ought also to be examined goes without saying; but the possibilities of getting hold of just what we need in this respect are as yet so regrettably few that for the most part psychology will have to rest in peace for the present.^[1]

Thus our object is historical: a reconstruction of the culture development of the Caribou Eskimos and, through this, a defining of their cultural position among the Eskimos and the northern tribes in America as a whole. However, the path along which we must travel ​to attain this object can naturally only to a small extent follow the paths of historical research. The material available to us in the written records is quite insignificant, and even the contributions of archæology are small, at any rate as far as they deal with the Caribou Eskimos directly. On the other hand the recent excavations in Greenland and the Central Eskimo area have brought to light much that is new and at any rate throw an indirect light over many matters concerning the Caribou Eskimos.

The road which otherwise is open to us is that of the cultural analysis, and it is not of least importance that all elements — in this case, however, only all those within the material culture — are taken into consideration. Erland Nordenskiöld's pioneer works on the ethnography of South America have shown the importance of completeness. Without theorising about such ideas as Elementar- and Völkergedanke, or cultural convergence, it may be stated that hardly anyone now doubts the reality of culture diffusion.^[2] The question is, then, whether or not there is any rational means of determining whether an element is autochthonous or absorbed from the outside. Fritz Krause believes he has found such a means. Just as a landscape is more than an accidental collection of hills, valleys, and rivers, so are the elements of a culture connected together into what may be called an organic whole. For these connections between the elements Krause uses the expression "Struktur" and proceeds to say: "Unter inneren Bedingungen gewordene, aus ihren eigenen inneren Verhältnissen heraus erstandene und geformte Kulturen zeigen eine ausgeglichene Struktur, in der alle Glieder durch gegenseitiges Wechselverhältniss bedingt sind..."^[3] Conversely, an inharmonious structure will naturally be a sign that something foreign has made its way into the culture, such as Krause convincingly shows by his views of the Bushmen and the Central Australian tribes.

Theoretically, Krause's view is unassailable; but he leaves out of consideration a very important point which makes it most difficult to apply his idea in practice. For quite apart from the fact that, in deciding whether the structure is harmonious or not, rather much of the subjective is liable to creep in, we must take into account that the harmony may not only be due to the culture having grown up "in itself", but also that it may, in fact, be the result of the old age of that culture. Indeed, it may doubtless be said that a long process of adaptation and acculturation can gradually impress a culture with ​the most perfect harmony inwardly, among its elements, and outwardly with its surroundings, and yet most of the elements may originally have been absorbed from other cultures. Under these circumstances we are, in other words, always faced by the possibility of having to deal with a heterogeneous culture, and we must act accordingly. This means that, instead of taking the culture as a unity, we must disintegrate it into its elements. Then in every single case we are called upon to show whether the particular element is to be presumed to have appeared on the spot or whether it came from the outside.^[4]

If we find that an element owes its appearance to culture diffusion, we will have a new problem before us that is no less burning than the question of the reality of culture diffusion itself was to the previous generation, viz. the question of its kind. This may be briefly expressed as follows: Is a culture diffused in complete complexes, or do the elements wander individually? Graebner has said "dass ein als selbständig gedachter Kulturkomplex naturgemäss alle notwendigen Kategorien des Kulturlebens, also etwa religiöse Vorstellungen, soziale Verfassung, Wohnungsart, Waffen, Gerät, usw. umfassen muss".^[5] Here the stress must be laid upon the words "selbständig gedachter”; for, if rightly understood, they show that this whole train of ideas rests upon an abstraction. A culture is never independent. It is not built up like a geological sediment series, in which each stratum has no inner connection with the foregoing one and the following one. It is true that we read in Father Schmidt: "Man kann überhaupt kein Kulturelement eines Kulturkreises mit dem analogen Element eines anderen Kulturkreises in eine innere Entwicklungsverbindung bringen".^[6] This, however, is absurd. By this means the exaggerated Kulturkreislehre assumes a serious likeness to Cuvier's old catastrophe theory in geology. But as scarcely anybody will assume that a new culture with all its elements is suddenly created like Aphrodite, of the foam of the sea, it is a logical necessity that somewhere or other it has developed out of an earlier culture and thus at any rate at this place has most certainly been brought "in eine innere Entwicklungsverbindung" with it. And if we examine the course of events while a ​new culture is spreading to other peoples, it will be seen that the old culture does not become lost without trace in the life of the people just because new elements find their way in and old customs die out.

Is it then quite incorrect to say that culture complexes as such can be spread? To assert this would be impossible. Certain elements are often so closely connected with each other that their existence is mutually dependent upon each other, and in such cases they will undoubtedly spread in company. As far as the Eskimos are concerned, we need merely think of whaling and the appurtenant skin-boats, harpoons and taboo rules, or, further south in North America, all the elements connected with the horse in the plains culture. But however true this is, just as truly does Father Schmidt shoot over the mark by asserting that the chain once made between the elements of a culture become perpetual, "weil eben kein Teil weggelassen werden konnte, ohne ein wesentliches Bedürfniss zu schädigen; sie hielt deshalb auch überall dort an, wohin der Kulturkreis auf seinen Wanderungen gelangte und sich dann niederliess".^[7]

How incorrect this is may best be seen in prehistorical archæology. In our Bronze Age, Denmark went through a period of cultural prosperity in comparison with the surrounding countries such as it perhaps never experienced before or since, but which, for the greater part of the elements, was built upon the culture round the eastern Mediterranean. Nevertheless we have neither Egyptian nor Minoan culture in this country, and any attempt to transfer classic culture classifications to it leads to pure nonsense. Still more striking are the excavations of settlements during the past few years, which have shown that during the whole of the Bronze Age, with its nobly formed bronze objects and refined art, the working of flint for implements of daily use continued; this is also true of Switzerland and even more so as regards Norway.

Thus speak the archæological facts and, in reality, the reasons are not difficult to understand. It must be remembered that that which Father Schmidt calls an essential requirement is only essential under very definite, geographical circumstances. What is necessary to life on the shores of the Mediterranean is not necessary by the Baltic, where on the other hand there are other requirements. For this reason a culture can never, quite unaltered, go beyond a natural, geographical boundary.^[8] If we do not take this into consideration, we arrive at results similar to Father Schmidt's, who groups together such culturally heterogeneous peoples as certain Australians, Fiji Islanders, ​Battaks and Dravidians in his "exogam-vaterrechtliche Kreis".^[9] Even one who does not doubt that the culture elements common to these races have a genetic connection must, however, recognise that the differences between them outnumber the similarities.

Thus geographical factors have the effect that the elements of a culture change in their mutual relationship to each other in the course of diffusion; this, however, must be regarded in the light of and supplemented by psychology. This teaches us that man, by virtue of a fundamental instinct of submissiveness (which seems the more pronounced the more primitive the mind), is very prone to allow himself to be influenced. In the process of culture borrowing this instinct is doubtless much more contributory than reflections as to usefulness and utility.^[10] This process, however, does not go on without opposition on the part of the receiver. In some cases a conscious "contraimitation" may occur,^[11] although it is seldom observable at more primitive stages. At these stages, however, there may certainly be expected a strong conservative tendency which exercises a selective effect upon the elements flowing in.^[12] In this manner it may happen, as Bartlett expresses it in his interesting study of the psychology of culture diffusion, that "some element may actually be 'lifted' out of its setting and put into a new frame" and, what is more, new elements are often diffused more rapidly than the explanation of them, the result often being a simplification and remodelling;^[13] see, for instance, regarding the "false hood yokes" (pt. II). We have something similar in the bracteates of our own ancient history with the misunderstood reproductions of the impression on the Roman gold solidi.^[14] Finally, the natures of the elements have a different psychological effect and give them a different speed of diffusion from the very beginning; "a humorous story travels faster than a religious ceremony", as Sapir rightly observes.^[15]

Geographical as well as psychological factors thus unite in disintegrating the culture complexes as soon as they begin to spread. In reality, Father Schmidt has never in theory denied that elements may migrate singly. He simply means that this happens more rarely than migration in complete complexes.^[16] He is even aware that "für Amerika, bei seinen besonders schwierigen Anschluss an die Landmasse der alten Kontinente, erst jedesmal eine Zersetzung der von den letzteren ​herkommenden Kulturkomplexe vor sich ging, wenn sie in Nordostasien in die kalte Eiszone gerieten, und dass die gelockerten Bestandteile in Amerika selbst sich zum Teil vielleicht (sic!) etwas anders zusammenfügten, als es vorher der Fall gewesen war".^[17] It may be doubted whether it is so rare an occurrence that culture elements wander alone, and it may be doubted whether one geographical region has a much greater power of disintegration over the complexes than another.^[18] From a methodological point of view, however, this is not the main point. This is that the complex can be disintegrated at all, that the elements can wander separately. As we can never know beforehand whether this has occurred, we are compelled to study the elements singly. In this manner there is a possibility of succeeding from within in separating certain complexes within a given culture; but of what nature these will prove to be cannot, and therefore must not, be decided a priori.^[19]

It is, however, only a step on the way forward when the relationship between different elements is at length ascertained. Then there still remains the question as to which is the contributing part and which the receiving part, whether the similarities may possibly be due to borrowing from a common third source, or whether they are the result of an ancient relationship.^[20] In many cases we have here again the need of the geographical factor in the investigation, which already played a part in determining whether a culture element was to be looked upon as an independent, local invention or not. Of great assistance is the question of adaptation to environment. The geographic criterion cannot, it is true, stand alone in an ethnographic investigation;^[21] but it is a check and a supplement which may bring the scales to turn in favour of one of several possibilities. It is true that it cannot in advance be said that a culture element has first made its appearance there where it is found to be adapted to the geographical environment; but on the other hand it is a well-founded assumption that when an element is not adapted to the surroundings, but perhaps even contrasts with them, it does not belong there, at any rate.^[22]

​It still remains for us to decide as to how far we shall extend the investigations into cultural relationship. Strictly speaking, we ought not only to have the "hologæic" sight which Ratzel demands for all geographical research,^[23] but also a "holochronic" sight. The fact that the African negroes hollow out their calabashes with a knife which very much resembles the crooked knife of the circumpolar tribes; and that Herodotus from "the forty mouths of the Araxes" refers to a people who dress in sealskin, are facts which should be taken into consideration by all who seek to unravel the history of the Eskimo whittling knife and the Eskimo skin dress. In advance, a connection would seem to be more or less probable; but it can never be described as impossible until after a very thorough investigation. Thus any restriction of a problem like the foregoing is artificial from a logical point of view.

On the other hand, practical considerations must draw certain boundaries. Solely in view of the fact that the question of limitation is a practical one, I have in the present investigation not felt myself bound to any definite geographical line. Naturally, importance has first and foremost been attached to procuring a comprehensive comparitive material from the tribes which geographically, and to a certain extent culturally, most closely resemble the Eskimos, i. e. the sub-aretic tribes in America and, though to a lesser degree, in Eurasia. The connecting threads having been followed still further out, America in particular has come into consideration, and this for two reasons. Firstly, because geographically the Eskimos are an almost wholly American people and therefore are in most intimate touch with other American nations. Secondly, and especially, because the sub-arctic tribes in Eurasia are bounded by higher forms of culture, to which run only few and slender threads of connection (though they are by no means absent), whereas the corresponding threads in America are both numerous and strong. Fritz Krause has shown as regards California, and I myself believe I have shown a probability with regard to the eastern part of the United States, that the culture foundation there is, in its essentials, the same as in the sub-arctic forests, though greatly changed by local adaptation and powerful influence from other directions. The dependence of the plains culture upon the woodland culture is well known. But once we come to the regions by the Mexican Gulf and to the arid plateaux in the southwest, with their artificially watered agriculture, there is so little left of the connection with the northern regions that in many cases we may bring the investigation to an end there. And yet there are lines which lead farther out, over México and Central America to South ​America. In the most southern parts of this continent we meet what is probably the most difficult problem of all: the agreement between north and south which Erland Nordenskiöld has repeatedly pointed out and which is to be seen in such dissimilar elements as huts with entrance passageways, arrows with three feathers, the carrying cradle etc. Ethnography is for the present unable to solve this problem, and presumably only the most thorough study of both continents will make it possible to disperse the prevailing darkness.

This work having thus been characterised as both a description and an analysis, as an explanation of the effects of environment and outside influences, as an application of geographical and ethnographical methods, it may be doubtful whether, according to ordinary usages of speech, it ought to be called ethnographical (i. e. historical) or geographical. It is neither of them or rather, it is something of both. In some chapters the geographical points of view, in others the historical, will appear most prominently. We are working along a border area. In reality, all geography may be regarded historically, for how old must a phenomenon be in order to come in under the label of history? Every geographical process of adaptation is also a historical event, and, on the other hand, many historical events are in their origin geographically conditioned. And, indeed, nothing is more natural, for no inductive science is self-contained. One of France's greatest modern geographers rightly says: "En réalité, la limitation exacte du champ des investigations géographiques est une enterprise chimérique. Cette science touche à trop de sciences et elle a, son histoire le prouve, trop d'intérêt à rester en contact avec elles pour qu'on puisse même désirer cette limitation".^[24] Just as vague is the boundary of the ethnographical sciences. Haddon says somewhere that those who really feel some inconvenience on account of this uncertainty are cataloguers and librarians.^[25] Only an Englishman could utter a sentence containing so much common sense. To what purpose at all is that mental line between cultural and natural science, a division which may perhaps be practical, but under no circumstance is essential? Our own culture and the culture of all nations have quietly grown up out of the earth as naturally as the tree unfolds its leaves.^[26] The history of culture is the natural history of the develop​ment of the human intellect, and never has this been expressed better or more nobly than in the words placed over this introduction. They ought to form the starting point of all ethnographical philosophy.

Documentary evidence and criticism. If it is only possible to extract such sparse knowledge of the Caribou Eskimos from historical, literary sources, it is not really a result of there only having been little opportunity of learning to know them. Many tribes in different parts of the world, with which we have long been familiar, live in places that have been discovered much later than those we are now dealing with. It is more nearly a result of the systematically worked secretiveness carried on by the Hudson's Bay Company in these regions, especially in the eighteenth century. In addition, among the whites who had an opportunity of collecting information there were only few such interested and highly educated men as the Egede's, Cranz, Glahn, Fabricius and others who created the classical reputation of Greenland. Finally, it must not be overlooked that when the sense for scientific expeditions awoke, these were more attracted by the more northern regions, and the Caribou Eskimos' territory, which had no great, outstanding discoveries to offer, and which mostly lay outside the sphere of the Franklin searches, remained until the present day an almost unknown lacuna.

At first the prospects seemed otherwise. It is true that this region lies in an out-of-the-way corner of the world, at the extreme edge of the inhabited earth; but to it leads directly one af the roads which lay marked out and tempting when the great discoveries had thrown open the door to European civilisation. All were convinced that this road must lead to the treasure chambers of India and Cathay. That it was a blind alley — at any rate from a trade point of view — naturally could not be sensed beforehand. Of the nations, Great Britain and the Netherlands, who were most interested in a discovery which could strike a mortal blow at the world-wide empire of Spain and Portugal, it was the former who took the lead in the struggle for the Northwest Passage. When Henry Hudson in 1610 had discovered the bay which now bears his name, the fmding of a northwest passage seemed certain, and in 1612 Sir Thomas Button was sent out principally for the purpose of making that discovery.

Button's route was the first to touch the land of the Caribou Eskimos, he having followed the west coast of Hudson Bay. After his and Hudson's journeys, the stretch between Nelson River and Cape ​Henrietta Maria was in reality almost the only wholly unknown part of the shores of this water.^[27] But even with this first of all journeys we meet that secretiveness which the habit of that time deemed necessary and which culminated a century later. Button himself seems to have kept his report hidden and in all probability it is now lost. Our knowledge of the course of the journey is almost limited to the very meagre report in Luke Foxe's introduction to his North-West Fox, which appeared twenty years later. What is known is contained there in the following sentences: "From thence (i. e. Cary's Swans Nest) he proceeded to the Southward of the West, falling with land in Latitude about 60 d. 40, which he named Hopes-check, I think because that there his expectation was crossed; and there about, enduring a grievous storm, (he) was put to the Southward and constrained to look for a harbour the 13 of August, to repaire some loss. After which time, came on the new winter, with much stormie weather, (so) as he was constrained to winter there, in a small Rile or Creeke on the North side of a River in Lat. 57 d. 10, which River he named Port Nelson, after the name of his (Sailing) Master...".^[28] According to an abstract of Button's journal, which Sir Thomas Roe communicated to Luke Foxe, the expedition next summer went right up into Roe's Welcome, where it had to turn back in lat. 65° N. owing to fog; but no details are known about this.^[29]

The English expeditions of the following years have no connection with our subject, although Bylot and Baffin 1615 were as close as in the southern part of Foxe Channel. It is in Denmark's honour that the only non-British expedition to be fitted out for Hudson Bay with the Northwest Passage as its aim was the one sent out in 1619 by Christian IV under the command of Jens Munk.^[30] This was a natural link in the endeavours to establish the Danish-Indian colonial kingdom which later came to realisation by Ove Gjedde's expedition and acquisition of Tranquebar. That Jens Munk's expedition came to its well-known, sad end does not detract from the seaman's exploit which he carried out. His voyage is mentioned here, however, because Therkel Mathiassen has justly pointed out the probability that one of Jens Munk's ships discovered both Chesterfield and Rankin Inlets.^[31] ​On Jens Munk's chart two indentations are marked out which hardly permit of any doubt, and he himself relates that the smallest of the two ships, separated from the other in a storm, tacked along the coast north of Churchill. It will later be mentioned that the Eskimos have extended so far to the south as to the mouth of this river, where Munk's winter haven was. The expedition, however, did not here come in contact either with Eskimos or Indians; only a stray dog with harness showed that the country was not wholly destitute of man.

Luke Foxe and Thomas James were the next to set sail, independently, for Hudson Bay. Both left in 1631, the first as it seems principally at the instance of "that famous mathematician, Mr. Henry Briggs" and an unknown Sir John Brooke. James was sent out by some Bristol merchants and his purpose, like that of Foxe, was to find the Northwest Passage. Foxe struck land on the west coast of Hudson Bay near Cape Fullerton, where he called an island Sir Thomas Roe's Welcome, a name that has since been transferred to the strait between Southampton Island and the mainland. From there he followed the coast to the south and east right round to Cape Henrietta Maria. James went the opposite way, first along the east side of Hudson Bay and thereafter along the south coast, where the two rival expeditions met. Later, they were both a little northward in Foxe Channel, and James wintered at Charlton Island; but their voyages do not contribute anything to the ethnography of the Caribou Eskimos either, whilst their geographical discoveries are outside the scope of this subject.^[32]

A new era in the history of discovery of these regions opened up on May 2, 1670, when king Charles II signed the famous charter for the "Governor and Company of Adventurers of England, trading into Hudson's Bay." This event was a consequence of a long series of endeavours which were started by the two Frenchmen P. E. Radisson and M. Chouart (better known as Sieur des Groseilliers), seeking support in England for their extensive trading schemes. After having obtained Prince Rupert's protection they were able to dispatch the "Nonsuch", a ketch of 50 tons, to Hudson Bay. At the mouth of Rupert River, Fort Charles was erected in 1668, and later it became the oldest possession of the Hudson's Bay Company.

On three points it can now be observed that Europe has got a firm footing in the land of the Caribou Eskimos, or, more correctly, ​its neighbouring region the sub-arctic forests to the south. In the first place, the work of the expeditions was now made easier in that they had a nearer base and, in spite of everything, this leads to a rather more comprehensive investigation than before. Furthermore, from this time various descriptions of Hudson Bay begin to make their appearance, very much inferior to the Greenland classics, it is true, but still containing a little ethnographic information, mostly, however, about the Indians and very little about the Eskimos. The last of the three points has not left any literary trace, but is not of less importance: from this time we may reckon that the Eskimos had access to more or less regular trading with the whites and, even if up to the present day this has been insignificant as compared with that with the Indians, it has not been without importance in the long run.

The British Government charged the Hudson's Bay Company with the exploration of the Northwest Passage; the company, however, was in no way eager to make discoveries which might endanger its trading monopoly. But when the first act of the Franco-English colonial wars in North America came to an end with the Peace of Utrecht 1713, and England had got all her forts and possessions round Hudson Bay back again, the company lost a weighty excuse for its lack of activity. At the same time it stood on very shaky ground after its mixing up in "The South Sea Bubble" and therefore had at last to bite the sour apple.^[33] In Fort Prince of Wales by the mouth of Churchill River it now had a possession which long served as a base for its usually unwilling, and consequently only slightly effective explorations.

In 1719 James Knight was sent out from there with two ships, which were wrecked at Marble Island, and only about fifty years later was it cleared up that this voyage had ended with the death of all members of the expedition.^[34] In 1719 and 1721 two other small ships sailed from Churchill; but with regard to these Christy says: "It seems probable that these vessels (of the voyages of which we have no information) were engaged rather in general discovery and in extending the trade, than in a serious search for a northwesterly passage".^[35]

Knight's failure to return gave rise to anxiety, and in 1722 a sloop was sent out under the command of John Scroggs, who reached Whale Point in Roe's Welcome, but returned without result. This voyage is only known from the reference in Dobbs. Arthur Dobbs was ​England's most enthusiastic advocate of the exploration of the Northwest Passage, and only his fiery ardour throws a redeeming shade over the rather odious events in which he was involved during the following years. After the Hudson's Bay Company had grudgingly given way to Dobbs' urgings and in 1737 again sent out two sloops from Churchill, which turned back a little above lat. 62° with their task unaccomplished,^[36] Dobbs got into connection with Captain Middleton. The latter had formerly been in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, and with this the curtain rises on a not very creditable play. We see the Hudson's Bay Company lower itself to offer Middleton a bribe of £5000 to lead the expedition, which he was now fitting out at the instance of Dobbs, to another place than Hudson Bay.^[37] Nevertheless we see Middleton gallantly complete his voyage, which in 1741–42 through Roe's Welcome led to such important results as the discovery of Wager Inlet, Repulse Bay and Frozen Strait. And then, when he returned home without having discovered the passage which does not exist at this place — Dobbs' uncontrolled anger! Anonymous accusations, charges of bribery and scurrilous libels characterise a conflict in which Middleton's straightforward and honest opinions seem, it is true, to have satisfied the Admiralty, but in which his full justification was not proved until eighty years afterwards, by Parry.

However, two things were achieved by this dispute; Dobbs wrote his valuable Account of the Countries adjoining to Hudson's Bay, which includes reports on the voyages of Scroggs and Middleton,^[38] and he was able to get together a new expedition, after his influence had secured the carrying of an Act of Parliament, according to which the British Government offered a reward of £220,000 for the discovery of the Northwest Passage.^[39] This new expedition was led by Moor and Smith, who with two vessels reached Roe's Welcome in 1746, wintered at York and in the summer of 1747 went to Wager Inlet and some way up Chesterfield Inlet. From this voyage there are no less than two reports (no particularly warm feeling seems to have prevailed between the two leaders) of which Ellis' is the most pleasing from a human point of view,^[40] whereas most of the ethnographic material, particularly about the Cree, is contained in the work by ​the Clerk of the "California", a pseudonym which hides the name of Drage.^[41]

The hope of a northwest passage from Hudson Bay was now mainly anchored to Chesterfield Inlet, which in 1761 was explored by Christopher. Next summer he and Norton found that Baker Lake has no outlet. There is no report of these voyages, but they are briefly referred to in the preface to James Cook & King's Voyage to the Pacific Ocean 1776–80.^[42] In 1791–92 Charles Duncan explored Rankin Inlet and Chesterfield Inlet with Baker Lake but, it would seem, without anything being published of this voyage other than a few lines in Barrow.^[43] As at the same time Vancouver proved that on the North Pacific coast no strait opened to Hudson Bay, whilst Hearne's and Mackenzie's journeys established the continuation of the American mainland north of the Arctic circle, all hope of a commercially important northwest passage had to be definitely abandoned.

We have followed the discoveries along the coast which bounds the territory of the Caribou Eskimos and the regions bordering upon it, and it will be clear that these voyages have not yielded much in the way of ethnographic material. Here we will for a moment discontinue the historical statement in favour of the general descriptions of Hudson Bay which saw the light in the 18th century. There are only a few, and of these Dobbs' has already been mentioned. The others are Robson's account of a six year's sojourn at York and Churchill between 1733 and 1747, Coats' work, which principally deals with navigation, and Umfreville's observations on the coast.^[44] The authors had all been in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, and it is true of them — at any rate of the first and the last — that they entertain no overwhelming love for their former employers. To a great extent their books contain a severe criticism of the company's policy, and they condemn, for instance, the casual manner in which trade was carried on with the Eskimos north of Churchill. This is naturally information of ethnographic value, but otherwise practically only the Indians are mentioned. Coats' description of the Eskimos obviously refers to Hudson Strait and the east side of the Bay.^[45]

​Finally we must in this connection refer to a treatise, Fragments sur les Esquimaux, la Mer d'Hudson et le Labrador, which, it is true, first appeared in 1838, but which is stated to have been written upon a treatise published in 1774 by Roger Curtis. In the English original, however, mention is only made of the Eskimos on the Atlantic coast of Labrador, whereas in the French edition appears a good deal of information which is apparently to apply to the Eskimos north of Churchill. And it actually does, although in a peculiar manner, and it is a striking example of how little ethnography may venture to disregard the all too frequently neglected criticism of documentary evidence. For it turns out that all the particulars, with one exception, have been written almost word for word from Hearne, and, it should be observed, in such a manner that Hearne's observations from Coppermine River are mixed up among those from Hudson Bay. This will be seen from the following summary:

Where the information about the winter houses comes from I cannot ascertain; but it is obvious that under the above circumstances no weight can be attached to it.

The last 150 years are characterised by the fact that not only is the coast of Hudson Bay more thoroughly explored; but the interior, the Barren Grounds proper, is also brought into view. Here the pioneer is Samuel Hearne, whose travels in company with the Chipewyan Indians from Churchill were undertaken for the purpose of discovering the coppermine which Knight long before him had expected to find. Although the journey in 1770 led far into the Barren Grounds and round the whole of Dubawnt Lake, they met no Eskimos. In many respects this is remarkable. It is more comprehensible that before the sadly famous meeting at the mouth of Coppermine River, they saw no Eskimos on the main journey either, which took them much nearer the forest line over the lakes Nueltin and Kasba.

Although Franklin, Richardson and Rae all have some scattered information about the Eskimos on the west coast of the Bay, it is Schwatka's outstanding journey, about a hundred years after Hearne, which first reveals that a strange group of inland Eskimos lives on the Barren Grounds. Both Gilder's and Klutschak's accounts of the Schwatka Expedition contain valuable ethnographic material. Since that time exploration has proceeded more rapidly, especially through J. B. Tyrrell's two great journeys on the rivers. Dubawnt, Kazan and Ferguson and by Hanbury's and J. W. Tyrrel's mapping of Thelon River. Although none of these travellers have paid much attention to the natives, they have brought tidings of them at a time when hardly anything was known of them. The J. W. Tyrrell referred to, a brother of J. B. Tyrrell, has written a popular account of his travels with an illustrated description of the Eskimos, but it seems mostly to apply to the natives of Labrador, where the author had previously sojourned. Only exceptionally are his observations so definitely localised that they can be used.^[46] In 1896 the Rev. Lofthouse undertook a journey on Tha-anne River to Maguse Lake, but without meeting with Eskimos. While wintering at Fullerton in 1903–04 Low collected a lot ​of ethnographic information. Unfortunately, this too is often difficult to use, because it not only originates from Hudson Bay (and here both from the Caribou Eskimos and the Aivilingmiut), but also from Baffin Land and Labrador.^[47]

Only one single scientific, ethnographic work has, up to the last few years, partly dealt with the tribes referred to here. This is the indefatigable investigator Franz Boas' Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay, in which, based upon Capt. Geo. Comer's observations and collections, a great quantity of information is given about the Hudson Bay tribes. Although most of it concerns the Aivilingmiut, it will always stand as fundamental for the study of the Caribou Eskiinos too. In 1913 and the following year or two Chr. Leden made some journeys between Churchill and Chesterfield Inlet, on which he visited, among other places, the land at the head of Rankin Inlet and collected material for the study of Eskimo music. A report on this was not published until 1927. The information given in this book about the life of the Eskimos is, without being otherwise indicated, taken just as often from Greenland and other places as from the Barren Grounds, and excels besides by such thorough inaccuracy of detail that it is useless as a scientific work. I have therefore as a rule preferred to leave this book entirely out of consideration. In 1925 the leader of the Catholic Mission at Chesterfield, Mgr. A. Turquetil, O. I. M., published a short article on the Eskimos at Hudson Bay.

An investigation into these was one of the most important tasks of the Fifth Thule Expedition; how the work was distributed has already been mentioned. I arrived by dog sledge from Repulse Bay at Chesterfield Inlet in February 1922 and then continued to Baker Lake after staying about a month. Knud Rasmussen arrived there about the middle of May together with Helge Bangsted and the Polar Eskimo Qâvigarssuaq (Miteq) and we journeyed together to Yathkyed Lake or Hikoligjuaq. We spent a month there, after which Knud Rasmussen spent the rest of the summer at Chesterfield Inlet, Bangsted and I at Baker Lake, to return to our headquarters on Danish Island in the autumn. In March 1923 I came again to Chesterfield Inlet with the West Greenlander Jacob Olsen. In order to become acquainted with the coast group of the Caribou Eskimos we followed the coast from there to Eskimo Point. At this place and also on Sentry Island ​we remained until the ice broke up in the first days of July, whereupon we travelled by whale boat on along the coast to Churchill. In 1924 Helge Bangsted once more visited Baker Lake and the coast south of Chesterfield Inlet.^[48]

Phonetic writing. In the following description I have, as far as possible, indicated each culture element by its Eskimo name in the dialect spoken by the largest group among the Caribou Eskimos, i. e., the Pâdlimiut. Only when an element exceptionally does not occur among them has another of the dialects been used, and in such cases this is expressly indicated. Besides, all the dialects are so similar to each other in every repect that the difference between them is quite insignificant.^[49]

The phonetic system used is practically the same as that employed by Thalbitzer,^[50] which again means that it closely resembles that used by l'Association phonétique internationale. The value of the various signs appears from the following table, although regarding the finer nuances in the pronunciation reference is made to my work on the phonetics of the dialects of the Central Eskimos.^[51]

​In further explanation I need merely remark that c stands for a palatalised t, ƀ a labialised b, ç a palatalised g, and ʃ and ʒ the sounds corresponding to s and z, furnished with what the Germans call Rauschlaut. A long sound is indicated by a · after the sign. When the stress does not fall upon the last syllable this is indicated by a ' before the sound in question. All words spelt with phonetic writing have been set up in angular brackets [ ].