Volume 11, 1958 - The Arctic Circle - Home

VOL, XI No, 4
THE ARCTIC CIRCULAR
68
It was my good fortune to be nown from Sugluk to
Deception Bay by a helicopter of the C ,G,S. Labrador to examine
a site found by the Rev. David Ellis of Sugluk, who helped me
with the excavation, Although stone caches and several stone
houses were recorded, not a shred of animal bone or artifact
was found. The site, therefore, cannot be dated at present,
Anthropclogical field work at Great Whale River and Povungnituk,
By Asen Balikci
In 1957 and 1958 I was sent north by the Human History
Branch of the National Museum of Canada to study the cultural
changes that have taken place durinG the past fifty years among
the Eskimo inhabitants in the Great Whale River and Povungnituk
areas. From a description of the traditional elements that have
been replaced by new ones and from the transformation of whole
aspects of socio-culturallife, it is hoped to discover processes
or tendencies of socio-cultural chanGe along the east coast of
Hudson Bay. Such a study involves not only the mechanical
replacement of traits but also internal factors of change such as
redistribution of population, new group formation, inter-and intragroup
tension, messianic -nativistic movements, and changes
in kinship relations, The compa.rative nature of the study, which
is based on data from several neighbouring communities, makes
it possible to separate the processea of change from the primary
data.
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I
The first field work towards this study was done in
1957 at Great Whale River, a settlement where background data
was available from the study made by J ,J, Honigmann during
the summers of 1950 and 1951. The initial phase of the study
inVOlved an examination of the new interactional system resulting
from the arrival of a large number of white workers. The
effects of the employment opportunities which brought white men and
Eskimos into daily contact have be~n discussed in a paper to be
published by the National Museum. They are as follows:
1. Concentration at Great Whale River of most Eskimo
groups traditionally spread alone the coast between
Cape Jones and Richmond Gulf and a consequent
disorganization of the local migl'ationa.
. ,
1. "Relations inter-ethniques a 1a Grande Riviere de la Baleine
baie d'Hudson, 1957."