As certain words are spoken in a voice scarcely louder than a whisper, I did not believe it possible that they could understand each other at so great a distance, until I saw the people on the opposite shore doing what they were bidden by those with me.
When the women get together it is amusing to observe the eagerness of the old crones endeavoring to make their voices heard above the rest. The clerk, while trading with them, often teases them until the entire number turn their voices on him, and the only relief he has is to expel them all from the store and admit one or two at a time, while the remainder throng the windows and shout at the top of their voices.
During the spring, when flocks of Canada geese are winging their way northward, the Indians will imitate their notes so closely that the birds do not discover the source until too late. Some of the party make one note, while the others imitate the other note. It seldom fails to beguile the geese to the spot.
Owing to the impossibility of getting a reliable person to teach me the language of these people I was able to procure but few words. The number obtained, however, is sufficient to prove that the people of this region, excluding the Innuit and whites, belong to the Cree branch. The Mountaineers and Little Whale river Indians belong to the same stock, and the difference in their language is due wholly to environment.
The Indians and Innuit of this region are more or less directly in contact. At Fort Chimo it is especially so. Here, as elsewhere, they do not intermix, an Indian never taking an Innuit wife or the Innuit taking a squaw for a wife. I knew of one instance where a Naskopie went to dwell with some Innuit camped near the mouth of the Koksoak, but after remaining away for a few days he returned to his own people.
[ SPECIAL ACCOUNT OF THE PEOPLE AROUND FORT CHIMO.]
[ THE KOKSOAGMYUT.]
The Eskimo with whom I was brought in contact at Fort Chimo were those belonging to that immediate vicinity. They term themselves Koksoagmyut, or people of the Koksoak or Big river.
The people who apply this name to themselves do not number more than a score and a half. There are but four families, and among these are some who belong to other localities, but now dwell with the Koksoagmyut. They consider themselves a part of the people dwelling as far to the north as the western end of Akpatok island, and to the east as far as George’s river. The Eskimo dwelling between those points have similar habits, and range indiscriminately over the hunting grounds of that locality, seldom going farther southward than the confluence of the Larch river or the North river with the Koksoak.
[Among these few natives] now inhabiting the Koksoak valley we find the men to be above the stature usually ascribed to the Eskimo. All but one of the adult males are above 5 feet 8 inches. The smallest man is little more than 5½ feet tall. All are well proportioned and present an exceptionally good physique. The females are also well proportioned, and, in fact, appear to compare well with females of civilized countries as far as their stature is concerned. The lower extremities of both sexes really are shorter than the general appearance would indicate, and thus the body is somewhat longer. The great individual variation in the proportional length of the legs is doubtless the result of the way infants are carried in the hood on the backs of the mothers. In this constrained position the limbs were obliged to conform to the shape of the body on which the child, in a manner, grew. While the limbs are not decidedly curved, yet they are not so nearly under the body as those of the whites. In walking, the inner edges of the feet often touch each other, and, in a manner, tend to cause the boots to slip outward on the feet.