THE LIBRARY OF YORK UNIVERSITY - _ Date Due »Cim, Aug i ~ RENEWED C AUGbJ 1 1992 (ap Æ 21W FA'tf sc 1 ICS JAN 6 1993 4 s — Mrrt * 06 1995 - ^ tim sCft: sc FA y APR 16 1993 J(Æ s~ — '9Wj scc —RENEWED / «x < " ?99f - _ * : tt! 2sc Gift JUL 1 2 19Vi : > d — OCT 1995 see * l» - APR 27m i)L 1 York Form — Cooper Graphics — v., ffte FOAM 109 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/intellectualcultOOrasm REPORT OF THE FIFTH THULE EXPEDITION 1921—24 THE DANISH EXPEDITION TO ARCTIC NORTH AMERICA IN CHARGE of KNUD RASMUSSEN, ph. d. VOL. VII. NO. 1 INTELLECTUAL CULTURE OF THE IGLULIK ESKIMOS BY KNUD RASMUSSEN GYLDENDALSKE BOGHANDEL, NORDISK FORLAG COPENHAGEN 1929 Edited with the Support of the Ministry of Education. Translation Expenses defrayed by the Rask-Ørsted Fund. Translated by W. WORSTER from the Danish original. PRINTED IN DENMARK GYLDENDALS FORLAOSTRYKKERI KØBENHAVN TO MY FRIEND WILLIAM THALBITZER PROFESSOR OF ESKIMO LANGUAGE AND CULTURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN General Plan and Methods of Work. The work of the Fifth Thule Expedition was divided up between us so that Kaj Birket-Smith and Therkel Mathiassen dealt with the material aspects of the Eskimo culture, while I took the intellectual side. My principal objects of study under this head comprised: 1) The natives in the vicinity of our headquarters at Danish Is- land, or in other words, the Aivilingmiut, Iglulingmiut and the immi- grant Netsilingmiut. The Aivilingmiut and Iglulingmiut constitute, together with the Tununermiut at Ponds Inlet, the Iglulik group. 2) The Inland Eskimos of the Barren Grounds, which we have agreed to call the Caribou Eskimos. 3) The Netsilingmiut. Ilivilermiut and Utkuhikjalingmiut, who are akin by intermarriage, and occupy, roughly speaking, the region between Bellot Strait, Back River and Adelaide Peninsula. 4) The Umingmaktormiut, between Kent Peninsula and Bathurst Inlet. 5) The Mackenzie Eskimos. 6) The Alaskan Eskimos, especially comprising the inland tribes between Colville and Noatak River, Point Hope, Nome, the islands in the Bering Strait and finally the fairly isolated population on Nunivak, south of the Yukon Delta. It may be as well here further to explain that the terms used for the various tribes and settlements are to be understood as follows: Iglulingmiut, plural of Iglulingmio, a man or woman from Iglulik, an island in Fury and Hecla Strait. Amitjormiut, plural of Amitjormio, one living at Amitjoq (some- times also pronounced Amitsoq), a name for Melville Peninsula. The territory here more particularly concerned is that between Usugårjuk and Lyon Inlet. They are part of the Iglulik tribe in the wider sense of the word. Aivilingmiut, plural of Aivilingmio, one living at Aivilik, the old name for the region round Repulse Bay. Netsilingmiut, plural of Netsilingmio, one living at Netsilik. the original name for the great lakes of Boothia Isthmus. The term Netsilingmiut however is now used for all coming from the eastern 10 part of the Northwest Passage territory, many of these having for several generations taken up their quarters at various points between Lyon Inlet and Chesterfield Inlet. Saglermiut, plural of Saglermio, one living on the island of Sagleq. i. e. Southampton Island. These are for the most part former mem- bers of the Aivilingmiut, and a few Iglulingmiut, who, attracted by the favourable conditions for hunting, settled here early in the 20th century, after the original Saglermiut had become extinct. Finally may be mentioned the Igluligårjungmiut, or dwellers at Igluligarjuk, the native name for Chesterfield. These are not a tribe but consist of a mixture of the groups already mentioned with a further contingent of Inland Eskimos from Baker Lake and Kazan River. There is no very marked difference between the Aivilingmiut and the Iglulingmiut. The dialects are so alike that it is difficult for a stranger to tell the difference. There is a more pronounced dissimi- larity, however, between these dialects on the one hand and that of the Netsilingmiut on the other, the latter having a more emphatic sibilant than the former. The pronunciation of the Greenland "s" sound itself, however, which sometimes becomes h, sometimes j, is often so much a matter of accident and individual peculiarity, that it is hard to lay down any thoroughly consistent method of spelling for words in which the letter occurs. Reference may here be made, for further information, to Birket-Smith's Five Hundred Eskimo Words Vol. Ill, No. 3 of this series. The above-mentioned distribution of our work among our party whereby Mathiassen and Birket-Smith took the entire material cul- ture and I attended to the intellectual has, of course, the advantage — which indeed was the reason for the arrangement — that it gave each one more time to go into details than would have been the case had one had to consider both aspects together. On the other hand, I feel obliged to point out one difficulty involved by such an arrange- ment, in keeping the intellectual culture distinct from the material. It will always be natural for an explorer first to describe the geograph- ical environment of any particular tribe or people, and the material culture whereby they maintain themselves in the struggle for exist- ence, the two being closely connected; and with these factors to start from, one can then later endeavour to show forth the manner of their intellectual life and its manifestations. It seemed to me therefore that it might be helpful to the general understanding of the position if I were to give, by way of introduc- tion, a few brief sketches of the conditions under which I first en- countered the people whom I shall endeavour in the following pages to describe. These brief sketches should thus give their views of 1 1 everyday life and their attitude towards life and destiny. I hope that such an introduction may contribute towards a more intimate appre- ciation of the material and problems subsequently to be dealt with. It was necessary for me first of all to gain the complete confidence of my Eskimo collaborators before I could begin the work at all. And this was only to be achieved by sharing their daily life, living with them under precisely the same conditions as they themselves. That I was able to do so with complete success was due to the fact that I cotrid speak their language, and, from my knowledge of their kins- folk in Greenland, was already familiar with their ideas and habit of mind. And it has always been one of my main objects, in the portrayal of primitive culture, to get the natives' own views of life and its problems, their own ideas expressed in their own fashion. This was often quite as important to me as eliciting new elements in their religious and spiritual life. I therefore think it will not be out of place to commence this book with an account of my method of work and the manner in which I first gained the confidence of my Eskimo collaborators. I. Eskimo Life: Descriptions and Autobiographies. Our first meeting with the Aivilingmiut near Repulse Bay. Our first encounter with these natives took place on the 4th of December 1921. More than two months had passed since our arrival at Danish Island, and up to now we had not set eyes on a single human being of the tribes we had come all this way to visit. Work of various kinds had kept us busy at headquarters, and the state of the ice had hitherto precluded excursions of any length. By the end of November, however, all the fjords were frozen hard enough for us to set out for Repulse Bay, where we knew there should be one of the Hudson Bay Company's trading stations. We could there ob- tain information as to the distribution of the population between Iglulik and Chesterfield Inlet. Peter Freuchen, the Polar Eskimo Nasaitsordluarssuk and I were at last on our way to the north-west in search of natives. We had followed the northern coast of Vansittart Island through the mouth of Gore Bay, and making a wide detour where the strength of the current prevented the formation of winter ice, had gone overland past the south-western coast of Melville Peninsula; we were now on the sea ice in Haviland Bay. We had had an accident to one of the sledges, which had suffered damage among the pressure ridges, and Freuchen and Nasaitsordluarssuk were consequently a little way be- hind. It was about noon, the red of the sun tinged the horizon out towards Rowe's Welcome. The sky was perfectly clear, and it was bitterly cold. A faint breeze blowing right in my face stung so that I could hardly keep my head to the front as I drove. It was fine, level fjord ice underfoot; we were some distance from the edge of the ice, which was just visible with its pressure ridges to the south, and as the way was clear ahead, I had turned my back to the wind for a moment, to thaw my face. I had only been sitting like this for a moment, when I started up at a sudden sound. I had heard it quite distinctly, and the dogs too must have noticed; they began to sniff eagerly about, 13 and I was thus sure I had made no mistake. The sound I had heard was that of a shot fired not far off; there was no mistaking it. I glanced back towards my companions, thinking they had fired as a signal to me to wait.