Chapter XVIII: Appendix

After the preceding paper was in type some additional information was received from whalers who returned from Cumberland Sound in the autumn of 1887. In the following notes I give the substance of these reports:

NOTE 1.

Page 467. Since 1883 the whalers have been more successful, and consequently more ships visit the sound. In the present winter--1887-’88--one American and two Scottish whaling stations are in operation in Cumberland Sound; a new station was established in Nugumiut two years ago, and the Scottish steamers which used to fish in Baffin Bay and the northern parts of Davis Strait are beginning to visit Cumberland Sound and Hudson Strait. The whaling in Baffin Bay shows a sudden falling off and it seems that the number of ships will be greatly reduced. This cannot be without influence upon the Eskimo, who will probably begin again to flock to Cumberland Sound and Nugumiut.

NOTE 2.

Page 538. In 1884 and 1885 a lively intercourse existed between Padli and Cumberland Sound, and in the spring of the latter year the dog’s disease broke out for the first time on the coast of Davis Strait, and spread, so far as is known, to the northern part of Home Bay.

NOTE 3.

Page 574. A peculiar game is sometimes played on the ice in spring. The men stand in a circle on the ice, and one of them walks, the toes turned inward, in a devious track. It is said that only a few are able to do this in the right way. Then the rest of the men have to follow him in exactly the same track.

One of their gymnastic exercises requires considerable knack and strength. A pole is tied with one end to a stone or to a piece of wood that is firmly secured in the snow. A man then lies down on his back, embracing the pole, his feet turned toward the place where the pole is tied to the rock. Then he must rise without bending his body.

In another of their gymnastic exercises they lie down on their stomachs, the arms bent so that the hands lie close together on the breast, palms turned downward. Then they have to jump forward without bending their body, using only their toes and hands. Some are said to be able to jump several feet in this manner.

NOTE 4.

Page 582. In the Report of the Hudson Bay Expedition of 1886, p. 16, Lieut. A. Gordon remarks that the same custom is reported from Port Burwell, near Cape Chidleigh, Labrador. He says: “There lived between the Cape and Aulatsivik a good Eskimo hunter whose native name is not given, but who was christened by our station men ’Old Wicked.’ He was a passionate man and was continually threatening to do some bodily harm to the other more peaceably inclined natives. * * * His arrogance and petty annoyances to the other natives became at length unbearable. It appears that these unfortunates held a meeting and decided that Old Wicked was a public nuisance which must be abated, and they therefore decreed that he should be shot, and shot he was accordingly one afternoon when he was busily engaged in repairing the ravages which a storm had made in his ‘igdlu’ or snow house. The executioner shot him in the back, killing him instantly. The murderer or executioner (one hardly knows to which title he is more justly entitled) then takes Old Wicked’s wives and all his children and agrees to keep them * * * so that they shall be no burden on the company.”

The fact that the custom is found among tribes so widely separated will justify a description of those events which came under my own observation. There was a native of Padli by the name of Padlu. He had induced the wife of a Cumberland Sound native to desert her husband and follow him. The deserted husband, meditating revenge, cut off the upper part of the barrel of his gun so that he could conceal it under his jacket. He crossed the land and visited his friends in Padli, but before he could accomplish his intention of killing Padlu the latter shot him. When this news was reported in Qeqerten, the brother of the murdered man went to Padli to avenge the death of his brother; but he also was killed by Padlu. A third native of Cumberland Sound, who wished to avenge the death of his relatives, was also murdered by him. On account of all these outrages the natives wanted to get rid of Padlu, but yet they did not dare to attack him. When the pimain of the Akudnirmiut in Niaqonaujang learned of these events he started southward and asked every man in Padli whether Padlu should be killed. All agreed; so he went with the latter deer hunting in the upper part of Pangnirtung, northwest of Padli, and near the head of the fjord he shot Padlu in the back.

In another instance a man in Qeqerten had made himself odious. After it was agreed that he was a bad man an old man of Qeqerten, Pakaq, attacked him on board a Scottish whaler, but was prevented from killing him.

NOTE 5.

Page 594. The following performance was observed in Umanaqtuaq, on the southwestern coast of Cumberland Sound, in the winter of 1886-’87: An angakoq began his incantations in a hut after the lamps were lowered. Suddenly he jumped up and rushed out of the hut to where a mounted harpoon was standing. He threw himself upon the harpoon, which penetrated his breast and came out at the back. Three men followed him and holding the harpoon line led the angakoq, bleeding profusely, to all the huts of the village. When they arrived again at the first hut he pulled out the harpoon, lay down on the bed, and was put to sleep by the songs of another angakoq. When he awoke after a while he showed to the people that he was not hurt, although his clothing was torn and they had seen him bleeding.

Another angakoq performed a similar feat on the island Utussivik in the summer of 1887. He thrust a harpoon through his body and was led by about twenty-five men through the village. It is said that he imitated the movements and voice of a walrus while on the circuit.

Still another exhibition was witnessed by the whalers in the fall of 1886 in Umanaqtuaq. An angakoq stripped off his outer jacket and began his incantations while walking about in the village. When the men heard him, one after the other came out of his hut, each carrying his gun. After a while the angakoq descended to the beach; the men followed him, and suddenly fired a volley at him. The angakoq, of course, was not hurt, and then the women each gave him a cup of water, which he drank. Then he put on his jacket, and the performance was ended. The similarity of this performance with part of the festival which is described on pp. 605 et seq. is evident.

NOTE 6.

Page 606. The same feast was celebrated in 1886 in Umanaqtuaq, in Cumberland Sound, where all the Talirpingmiut had gathered. The witnesses of this festival describe it exactly in the same way as I described it above. One thing ought to be added, which I did not mention because it seemed to me accidental, but as it was repeated in the same way in 1886 it must have some meaning. I noticed that the Qailertetang, after having invoked the wind, hop about, making a grunting noise and accosting the people. When doing so they are attacked by the natives and killed. According to the description of the whalers they imitate sometimes deer, sometimes walrus. Perhaps this fact gave rise to Kumlien’s description of the “killing of the evil spirit of the deer.” It is remarkable that in 1883 in Qeqerten and in 1886 in Umanaqtuaq the festival was celebrated on exactly the same day, the 10th of November. This can hardly be accidental, and does not agree with the idea sometimes advanced, that the festival refers to the winter solstice. Unfortunately Hall (I, p. 528) does not give the dates of the festival in Nugumiut. On the western coast of Hudson Bay a festival in which masks were used was celebrated about the end of January, 1866 (Hall II, p. 219), but it is hardly possible to draw conclusions from Nourse’s superficial account of Hall’s observations.

NOTE 7.

Page 615. It may be of interest to learn that in 1885 and 1886 two instances of this kind occurred in Cumberland Sound. There was a very old woman in Qeqerten by the name of Qaχodloaping. She was well provided for by her relatives, but it seems that one of the most influential men in Qeqerten, Pakaq, whom I mentioned above (p. 668) as the executioner of a murderer, deemed it right that she should die. So, although she resisted him, he took her out of her hut one day to a hill and buried her alive under stones. Another case was that of an old woman whose health had been failing for a number of years. She lived with her son, whose wife died late in the autumn of 1886. According to the religious ideas of the Eskimo, the young man had to throw away his clothing. When, later on, his mother felt as though she could not live through the winter, she insisted upon being killed, as she did not want to compel her son to cast away a second set of clothing. At last her son complied with her request. She stripped off her outside jacket and breeches, and was conveyed on a sledge to a near island, where she was left alone to die from cold and hunger. The son who took her there did not use his own sledge nor any other Eskimo sledge for this purpose, but borrowed that of the Scottish whaling station.

INDEX

Adlet and Qadlunait, origin of the 637
Adlet or Erqigdlit 640
Aggomiut Eskimo tribe, situation and subdivisions of 442-444
Agutit Eskimo tribe, situation of 450, 451
Aivillirmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 445-450
Akudnirmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 440-442
Akuliarmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 421
American Museum of Natural History, acknowledgments to 409
figured specimens from 472, 517
Anderson and Stewart, cited 458, 459
Ardnainiq, fabulous tribe in Eskimo tradition 640

Back, cited 485
Baffin Land, description of 415, 416
distribution of tribes in 421-444
traditions of, with comparisons 641-643
Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie etc., Verhandlungen der,
cited 409, 616
Bessels, Emil, cited 412, 460, 486
Boothia Felix and Back River, tribes of 452-459

Collinson, cited 503
Cranz, D., cited 412, 586, 590
Cumberland Sound, description of settlements of 428-440

Davis Strait Indian tribes, snow houses of 541-544
Dease and Simpson, cited 458
Dogs and sledges of Eskimo 529-538

Eenoolooapik, cited 410, 425, 464
Egede, H., cited 412
Ellesmere Land, natives of 459, 460
Emigration of the Sagdlirmiut 616-620
Erdmann, F., cited 412, 597

Fishing, Eskimo methods of 513-516
Flight to the moon 598, 599
Frobisher, M., cited 410, 469, 558
Frobisher Bay, use of, by Eskimo 423

Geography, Eskimo knowledge of 643-647
Gilder, W. H., cited 411, 456, 457, 458, 459, 466, 498, 522
Glossary of Eskimo terms 663-669
Gordon, A. R., cited 412, 463

Hall, C. F., acknowledgments to 409
cited 411, 422, 432, 442, 443, 444, 445, 446, 447, 448, 449, 450,
452, 456, 457, 459, 462, 463, 464, 486, 499, 503, 509, 547,
578, 583, 589, 594, 595, 596, 601, 602, 606, 607, 608, 611,
614, 615, 639
Harpoons of Eskimo, mode of constructing 489-494
Hudson Bay, tribes of western shore of 444-452
Hudson Bay district, geographic description of 414-418
Hudson Bay Indians, snow houses of 547
Hunting, Eskimo methods of 471-513

Igdlumiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 463
Igdlungajung, fabulous tribe in Eskimo tradition 640
Igimarasugdjuqdjuaq the cannibal 633, 634
Iglulik Eskimo tribe, snow houses of 546, 547
Iglulirmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 444
Ijirang, fabulous people in Eskimo tradition 640
Inuarudligang, fabulous tribe in Eskimo tradition 640
Inugpaqdjuqdjualung 638
Inuit race, divisions of 420
Ititaujang 615-618
Itivimiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 463

Kadlu the thunderer 600
Kalopaling 620, 621
Kangivamiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 463
Kayak, construction of 486-489
Kingnaitmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 424
Kinipetu or Agutit Eskimo tribe, situation of 450, 451
Kiviung 621
Kleinschmidt, Eskimo orthography of 413
Klutschak, H. W., cited 411, 448, 449, 451, 457, 458, 459, 466,
502, 509, 510, 516, 552, 553, 570, 582, 595, 596, 614, 615
Kouksoarmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 463
Kumlien, L., acknowledgments to 409
cited 412, 471, 474, 475, 482, 483, 524, 549, 550, 567, 589, 596,
606, 607, 610

Lepsius, cited 413
Lyon, G. F., cited 410, 451, 463, 487, 497, 511, 579, 585, 586,
587, 588, 589, 590, 592, 593, 610, 612, 613, 614, 615

M’Donald, A., cited 410
M’Clintock, Captain, cited 411, 455, 456, 458
Manufactures, Eskimo 516-526
Mason, O. T., acknowledgments to 409
Mintzer, W., acknowledgments to 409
Moravian missionaries, cited 463
Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin, acknowledgments to 409
figured specimens from 472, 473, 474, 477, 479, 480, 481, 483,
486, 487, 488, 496, 508, 513, 514, 515, 518, 519, 520, 523,
531, 532, 554, 555, 556, 557, 565, 566, 567, 568, 569, 570,
571, 576, 613, 634, 644
Music and poetry of the Eskimo 648-658

Narwhal, origin of the 625-627
National Museum, acknowledgments to 409
figured specimens from 474, 479, 480, 481, 487, 488, 489, 490,
492, 493, 494, 495, 496, 502, 503, 504, 505, 506, 507, 512,
513, 515, 516, 518, 521, 522, 523, 524, 525, 526, 530, 531,
532, 535, 539, 555, 556, 559, 560, 563, 565, 566, 576
Navigation, Eskimo proficiency in 643
Netchillirmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 452-458
Northeastern America, geography of 414-418
North Greenlanders 460
Nourse, cited 452
Nugumiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 424

Oqomiut Eskimo tribe, situation and subdivisions of 424-440
Origin of the Adlet and the Qadlunait 637
Origin of the narwhal 625-627

Padlimiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 440-442
Parry, W. E., cited 410, 443, 444, 447, 451, 458, 464, 474, 475,
478, 487, 492, 494, 502, 509, 510, 517, 523, 533, 544, 545,
547, 552, 556, 557, 558, 559, 572, 574, 603, 614
Penny, cited 425
Petermanns Mitteilungen, cited 409 _note_
Petitot, É., cited 412, 516
Pilingmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 444
Poetry and music of the Eskimo 648-658

Qailertétang, fabulous people in Eskimo tradition 640
Qaudjaqdjuq 628-633
Qaumauangmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 421, 422
Qingnamlut Eskimo tribe, situation of 424

Rae, John, cited 411, 445, 446, 448, 450, 451, 452, 455, 459, 478,
485, 510, 597
Religious ideas of the Eskimo 583-609
Rink, H., cited 411, 420, 580, 586, 587, 590, 591, 598, 599
acknowledgments to 412
Ross, J., cited 410, 451, 453, 454, 455, 456, 458, 469, 471, 478,
485, 508, 552, 553, 579

Sagdlirmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 444
Sagdlirmiut of Southampton Island 451
Saumingmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 424
Schwatka, F., cited 445, 457, 458, 459, 464, 465, 470
Science and the arts among the Eskimo 643-658
Seal hunting, Eskimo method of 471-501
Sedna and the fulmar 583-587
Sedna feast 594
Sikosuilarmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 421, 463
Simpson, J., cited 411, 597
Simpson, T., cited 410, 458
Singing house of Eskimo 600-602
Sinimiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 451
Sledges and boats, description of Eskimo 527-538
Smith Sound, Eskimo tribes of 459, 460
Snow houses, of Davis Strait Eskimo 541-544
of Iglulik Eskimo tribe 544
of Hudson Bay Indians 547
Social life and customs of Eskimo 574-578
Spicer, J. O., acknowledgments to 409
cited 489, 511, 587, 588, 611
Sturgis, A., acknowledgments to 409
cited 491

Talirpingmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 424
Tents of Eskimo, mode of construction of 551-553
Tornait and angakut 591-598
Tornit, the 634-636, 640
Trade and intercourse between Eskimo tribes 462-470
Tununirmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 442-444
Tununirusirmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 442-444
Turner, L. M., cited 420, 462, 520, 565, 567, 608 _note_

Udleqdjun 636, 637
Ugjulirmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 458
Uissuit 621
fabulous people in Eskimo tradition 640
Ukusiksalirmiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 458
Ungavimiut Eskimo tribe, situation of 463

Warmow, cited 425, 583

* * * * *
* * * *

Errors and Inconsistencies (noted by transcriber)

The word “invisible” means that there is an appropriately sized empty space, but the letter or punctuation itself is missing.

_List of Illustrations_
437. Niu´tang, with floats [Niū´tang]

_List of Sources_

Her Majesty’s Discovery Ship “Plover.” (Cited, Simpson.)
[_closing parenthesis missing_]
author of ‘Grönland geographik og | statistick beckrevest,’ etc.
[_missing close quote_]
[_spelling as shown, but the book’s correct subtitle is
‘Grönland geographisk og statistisk beskrevet,’ etc._]
David Cranz | Historie | von | Grönland ...
[_in this and the following citation, all umlauts are printed
as small “e” above the primary vowel_]

_Orthography_

dtl--ṯ of Lepsius’s standard alphabet.
[_probably an error for tl alone: dtl does not occur_]

_Primary Text_

being immediately stored for future use (p. 269).
[_opening parenthesis missing_]
since the preceding fall (p. 260). [(p. 260.)]
(see, also, Fig. 393) ... (tikagung; see, also, Fig. 418)
[_punctuation unchanged_]
FIG. 417. Large kayak harpoon for seal and walrus
[_“l” in “seal” invisible_]
FIG. 434. Nuqsang or throwing board, (_a_ front and (_b_ back view.
[_printed as shown_]
FIG. 435. ... (From a photograph.)
[_closing parenthesis missing_]
DEER, MUSK OX, AND BEAR HUNTING.
[_final . missing or invisible_]
FIG. 441. ... (National Museum, Washington. 10270.)
[_closing parenthesis missing_]
At some places wears are built
[_spelling “wears” unchanged_]
with a bit of bone, asbestus, or wood
[_spelling “asbestus” unchanged_]
or, more frequently, are steadied by stones.
[_final . missing_]
FIG. 500. ... (From a drawing by L. Kumlien.)
[_closing .) missing_]
FIG. 507. ... (Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin. IV A 6850.)
[_closing ) missing_]
... threads of leather hanging down from it. This ornament is not
uncommon also in the outer jackets of the men. When seal-hunting ...
[_punctuation transposed at consecutive line-ends:_
... leather hanging down from it-
... jackets of the men. When seal.]
but use to a great extent amulets (arngoaq)
[_armgoaq_]
a man sits on the bed-platform, [platorm]
stamping rhythmically with the feet [rythmically]
Every one is screaming, running, jumping, spearing, and stabbing
[_“i” in “running” invisible_]
After awhile the old woman became jealous
[_spacing of “awhile” unchanged_]
Qangatirgakulung uaijuvara. [_printed without space_]
in a major ninth (No. V), one [ninth No. (V), one]

_Glossary_

#Arng´oaq#, amulet. [#Arm´goaq#]
#Kang´o#, a species of goose. [#Kan´go#]