Eskimo Bird Names at Chesterfield Inlet and Baker Lake, Keewatin, Northwest Territories

Abstract

The list below was compiled during a stay of about two months, 27 May to 21 July 1967, at Chesterfield Inlet and during a few days spent at Baker Lake in the course of the homeward journey. At Chesterfield Inlet my principal native informants on bird names were Krakok, a man about forty-five years old who had lived part of his earlier life at Daly Bay (about 50 miles further north) and a twelve-year-old boy Koluar, who early in his childhood had been brought from Iglulik to Chesterfield by his father and who often accompanied me on bird-watching walks. Koluar, through his father, had learnt some Iglulik versions of bird names but also knew those in use locally. The Baker Lake names were collected from a man about fifty years old, Kchlaiyuk, with one of his sons acting as interpreter. According to Boas these people belong to the tribe he called the Kinepitu or Agutit. I conceive the principal virtue of the list here given to lie in the explanations of the basic meaning of the native names for which I am indebted to the scholarship of Father E. Fafard, O.M.I. [Oblates of Mary Immaculate] From the meanings of the bird names it will be evident that in the case of many only the context in which they are used would make it clear that a bird is referred to. ...