Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/191

172 be known how it is that oral history is preserved among the Innuit people of the North. On the day following this conversation, several old Innuits arrived from different places; among them were Ugarng, with his two wives and child; "Bob," his wife "Polly," and children; "Johnny Bull" and Kokerzhun, and Blind George, with his darling girl Kookooyer. Ugarng had left his mother, old Ookijoxy Ninoo, at Cornelius Grinnell Bay, so that I was unable to obtain from her any additional information concerning the relics I had found; but the others all confirmed the story already given to me about the white men, and what they had left behind. The testimony of Blind George was particularly interesting from the circumstances under which he gave it. Being unable to see, he by signs and motions mapped out the position of various places in Countess of Warwick's Sound, where these things had been noticed by him before losing his sight. Placing his hand on his own person, he said, "Oopungnewing;" then placing it on a corner of a sea-chest in the main cabin, where we were, he continued, "Niountelik;" then pointing with his finger to a spot on the table, he said, "Twer-puk-ju-a," to another, " Kodlunarn," to another "Tikkoon." Before he could place all to satisfy him, he went back and repeated his steps frequently, at last accomplishing the geographical feat satisfactorily to himself and quite to my gratification. He also identified the specimen of "heavy stone" I placed in his lap by lifting it up and touching his lips to it; he felt its indentations and roughness, weighed it in his hand, and said "all same" as he once saw at Kodlunarn. He then, without any leading questions, described the trenches made by the white men; and his testimony was confirmed by Tweroong, who also added that old Innuits said the ship was built from wood left on the island for an igloo—a word applied not only to their own snow-houses, but to the dwellings of civilized men generally.

The information thus obtained, though satisfactory, still made me desirous for more; and as at that time the number