Note 294 — Chapter II · HUNTERS AND FISHERS.

4º. Trade and industry. Rink states that the Eskimos make long journeys for the purpose of interchanging such commodities, as are found in some districts only and yet are necessary to all the tribes. The trade is carried on from Asia to Hudson Bay294. The Greenlanders mutually exchange the articles they need. With some of them bartering is quite a passion; they often exchange useful things for worthless trifles. They have a kind of annual fair, at which the inhabitants of several districts interchange the products of their country. “A great article of commerce are vessels made of soapstone, which are not found in all parts of the country; and, as the Southern Greenlanders have no whales and the Northern no wood, there come, all through the summer months, from the South and even from the East of the country many boats with Greenlanders from 100 to 200 miles, to Disko, bringing new kyaks and women’s boats with the necessary implements. They receive in exchange horns, teeth, bones, whale-bones and whale-tendons, part of which, on their homeward voyage, they sell again”295. Among the Central Eskimos “two desiderata formed the principal inducement to long journeys, which sometimes lasted even several years: wood and soapstone. The shores of Davis’ Strait and Cumberland Sound are almost destitute of driftwood, and consequently the natives were obliged to visit distant regions to obtain that necessary material. Tudjaqdjuaq in particular was the objective point of their expeditions. Their boats took a southerly course, and, as the wood was gathered, a portion of it was immediately manufactured into boat ribs and sledge runners, which were carried back on the return journey; another portion was used for bows, though these were also made of deer’s horns ingeniously lashed together. A portion of the trade in wood seems to have been in the hands of the Nugumiut, who collected it on Tudjaqdjuaq and took it north. Another necessary and important article of trade, soapstone, is manufactured into lamps and pots. It is found in a few places only, and very rarely in pieces large enough for the manufacture of the articles named.… The visitors come from every part of the country, the soapstone being dug or “traded” from the rocks by depositing some trifles in exchange. In addition to wood and soapstone, metals, which were extremely rare in old times, have formed an important object of trade. They were brought to Baffin Bay either by the Aivillirmiut, who had obtained them from the Hudson Bay Company and the Kinipetu, or by the Akuliarmiut. Even when Frobisher visited the Nugumiut in 1577 he found them in possession of some iron. The occurrence of flint, which was the material for arrow-heads, may have given some importance to places where it occurs. Formerly an important trade existed between the Netchillirmiut and the neighbouring tribes. As the district of the former is destitute of driftwood and potstone, they are compelled to buy both articles from their neighbours. In Ross’s time they got the necessary wood from Ugjulik, the potstone from Aivillik. They exchanged these articles for native iron (or pyrite), which they found on the eastern shore of Boothia and which was used for striking fire. After having collected a sufficient stock of it during several years, they travelled to the neighbouring tribes”296. The Eskimos of Alaska are also very commercial. “On the shore of Bering Strait the natives have constant commercial intercourse with Asia.… They frequently meet at the Gwosdeff Islands, where the Tschuktschi bring tobacco, iron, tame-reindeer skins, and walrus-ivory; the Eskimos giving in exchange wolf and wolverine skins, wooden dishes, seal-skins and other peltries. The Eskimos of the American coast carry on quite an extensive trade with the Indians of the interior, exchanging with them Asiatic merchandise for peltries”297. We see that most of the Eskimo trade is bartering of raw products. This agrees with what Rink remarks, viz. that there is no division of labour; each group that has a tent or boat is entirely self-dependent298.