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Encounters Page 4
| Small Eskimo girl (Ihumalak), mouth of Coppermine River, Canadian
Arctic Expedition, June 1, 1916. |
| Date: |
1916 06 01 |
| Image: |
271 x 400 (16.5 K) |
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| Summer migration, Coppermine River, Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-16. |
| Date: |
1913 |
| Image: |
500 x 336 (25.1 K) |
|
| A migration of a whole community is a wonderful sight. In
the autumn, when the Eskimos are moving out to their sealing-grounds, they
have to start with their sleds before daylight in order to reach their destinations
before dark. Time is everything at that season of the year, and often half
the journey is made in twilight. In spring, on the other hand, there is
no need for haste, for the air is mild and pleasant, and the daylight as
long as the darkness has been in the winter.
- Diamond Jenness,
Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-1918 |
| Copper Eskimo Pasking, Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-16. |
| Date: |
1913 |
| Image: |
232 x 400 (17 K) |
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| Indians with captured mud hen, Ontario. |
| Date: |
1917 |
| Image: |
277 x 400 (19.2 K) |
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| The matter, however, that consumes the main bond of union
and interest in these groups is the family hunting territory, in which all
the male members share the right of hunting and fishing… Hunting outsides
of one's inherited territory was punishable occasionally by death…
Permission, however, could be obtained by a man to hunt in another's territory.
This happened frequently as an exchange of courtesies between families when
the game supply of one or the other became impoverished… When it was
necessary in travelling to pass through another family territory, permission
was generally sought at the owner's headquarters before passing on, and
if by necessity game had been killed to sustain life, the pelts were carried
to the owners or delivered to them by a friend. This gave the proprietors
the right in the future to do the same in the territory of their trespassers.
These arrangements were matters of tradition and were remembered in detail
by the families concerned.
- F.G. Speck,
Family Hunting Territories and Social Life of Various
Algonkian Bands of the Ottawa Valley, GSC Memoir 70, No. 8, Anthropological
Series, 1915 |
| Indian Camp in Ramparts. |
| Date: |
1919 |
| Image: |
500 x 294 (31.0 K) |
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| Anivyunna, singing, Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-1916. |
| Date: |
1913 |
| Image: |
229 x 400 (26.6 K) |
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| All the dances on the preceding day had been of the pisik
type, the dancer, that is, has also beaten the drum. But on this occasion
several of the aton type were given. Higilak began the change. On entering
the ring she rapped the drum a few times to get her song well started, then
handed the instrument to Allikammik and the stick to Kunana, and executed
a wild kin of jig, waving her arms in the air and swinging around on both
feet, only roughly in time with the music. Sometimes she would call on the
spectators to sing louder, and swell the chorus herself with her voice;
at other times she would utter whoops and shouts of joy, interspersed with
remarks to the singers, remarks such as, "Aren't we glad the Kanghiryuarmuit
have come."
- Diamond Jenness,
Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-1918 |
| Indian celebrations during Scottish games at Banff, Alberta. |
| Date: |
1927 |
| Image: |
500 x 343 (32.3 K) |
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| Wise old woman. |
| Date: |
1934 |
| Image: |
294 x 400 (32.1 K) |
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| Montagnais Indians, Seven Islands, Quebec. |
| Date: |
1933 |
| Image: |
268 x 400 (22.8 K) |
|
| Montagnais, note cap on woman to left which is made in red and blue seems
to be characteristic of the tribe. Cross is commonly worn on a cord around
the neck among these members of the tribe who are Roman Catholic, Seven
Islands, Quebec. |
| Date: |
1933 |
| Image: |
500 x 293 (30.5 K) |
|
| Indians (Montagnais) at annual Mission. Mackenzie, in centre, is the
newly elected chief, Seven Islands, Quebec. |
| Date: |
1933 |
| Image: |
500 x 301 (29.8 K) |
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| Voisey sisters showing intricate designs of Eskimo parka decorations,
Repulse Bay, Northwest Territories. |
| Date: |
1940 |
| Image: |
500 x 380 (37.7 K) |
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| The Rev. Mr. Girling tells me of a very touching custom that
he witnessed on two or three occasions. He was travelling along the coast
with an Eskimo from Bathurst Inlet when the native met his aged mother,
whom he had not seen for many years. The old woman lifted up the front of
her coat, exposing her breast, and her son reverently stooped down and touched
it with his lips.
- Diamond Jenness,
Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-1918 |
| Indians at Mastissini, Quebec. |
| Date: |
1884 |
| Image: |
500 x 377 (37.3 K) |
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| Indians camp, Shoal River, Manitoba. |
| Date: |
1889 |
| Image: |
500 x 344 (30.4 K) |
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| We soon found we were not the only ones waiting, and that
anxiously, for the arrival of the scows from the south. The entire population
at Fort MacMurray was in a state of famine. Supplies at the post, having
been insufficient for the demand, had become exhausted, and the Indians
who had come in to barter their furs where thus far unable to obtain food
in exchange, and were obliged, with their families, to subsist upon the
few rabbits that might be caught in the woods… At one Cree camp visited
I witnessed a most pitiable sight. There was a whole family of seven or
eight persons seated on the ground about their smoking camp-fire, but without
one morsel of food, while children, three or four years old, were trying
to satisfy their cravings at their mother's breast.
- J.W. Tyrell,
Across the Sub-Arctics of Canada: A Journey of 3,200
Miles by Canoe and Snow-Shoe Through the Barren-Lands, 1897 |
| Eskimo kayaks covered with caribou skin on Kazon River. |
| Date: |
1893 |
| Image: |
500 x 268 (10.9 K) |
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| Indian boys and pack dogs. |
| Date: |
1946 |
| Image: |
500 x 275 (36.3 K) |
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| The natives about Cumberland gulf and along the west side
of Hudson Bay, who are employed by the whalers, are gradually giving up
the use of the kayak, and now do their hunting and travelling with the whaleboats,
which are supplied to them by the whaling vessels. Each vessel at the end
of her voyage generally leaves all spare boats behind. These are distributed
among the natives, and the result is that nearly every family possesses
a boat. The Aivilliks and Kenipitus, of the west coast of Hudson Bay, still
make use of the kayaks for inland hunting, but the Cumberland people take
their whaleboats into the interior.
- A.P. Low,
The Cruise of the Neptune, 1903-1904 |
| The year begins with the lengthening days of January, and
this is usually a period of hard times, lasting for a couple of months…
The ice along the coast in January does not extend far from the shore, and
the seals keep in the open water, where they can only be killed by being
shot from the edge of the ice. This is a very uncertain subsistence for
the native, owing to the storms of the season, which either break the ice
from the shore, or crowd its edge with small floating cakes, forming an
impassable barrier to the open water. If a good supply of deer-meat has
not been laid during the fall, periods of starvation are now frequent…
the party, usually consisting of two or more families, travels slowly southward
along the shore ice, a woman often walking ahead of the dogs to encourage
them. The men wander about on the ice in search of seal-holes, and occasionally
secure a seal while on the journey. In the evening a halt is made, and the
men build a small snowhouse with blocks cut from a convenient bank. These
small houses, built only for the night, seldom exceed nine or ten feet in
diameter, and it is only when a considerable stay is expected that larger
houses are built.
- A.P. Low,
The Cruise of the Neptune, 1903-1904 |
| Total native population of Ellesmere Island, Craig Harbour. |
| Date: |
1937 |
| Image: |
500 x 339 (37.3 K) |
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| Arctic winter quarters. |
| Date: |
1964 |
| Image: |
500 x 368 (12.1 K) |
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| With the advent of June, the snow begins to melt, and soon
after the land becomes bare. This is a period of trial for the house-wife;
the warmth causes the roof of the snow-houses to leak, and they can only
be kept up by a daily patching with loose snow, while the ground is not
sufficiently bare for the erection of the summer tent; it becomes a constant
fight with the heat and water, terminated only by the roof falling in.
- A.P. Low,
The Cruise of the Neptune, 1903-1904 |
| Lake trout caught in net at foot of Port Epworth, Mingeouk
for scale, Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-1916. |
| Date: |
1913 |
| Image: |
239 x 400 (24.0 K) |
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|
| I never knew of any instance where a couple separated after
a child was born to them. It does occur, though very rarely. One reason
perhaps why it seldom happens is that the wife can still claim to be supported
by her husband. Even in childless marriages, if a man divorces his wife
and takes another, the first wife still has a claim on him.
- Diamond Jenness,
Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-1918 |
I travelled far
and the land stood up and spoke to me:
I am forgetting who I am,
but I still remember knowing.
So I filled my box of light
and carried her faces home.
They speak again
and now I hear
and know a little of who we are. |
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