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tion (fig. 6). When they left the Iglulingmiut, the expedition 112 members also took with them a story that expressed the harsh climatic conditions in which the Canadian Eskimo lived (fig. 5): Some years ago, Atakutaluk, one of the wives of the great hunter Ituksarsuaq, had survived starvation by eating her husband and their three children. The whole family had gone reindeer hunting to the center of Baffin Island but the hunt had failed and snowstorms had prevented them from leaving their temporary residence. In order to survive this life-threatening situation, they had to slaughter and eat their dogs, but the survivors then had to eat the family members that had died from starvation. When Atakutaluk, as the only surviving member of the family, was eventually found starving in an igloo, she was just skin and bone. Asked where her family was, she simply pointed to a pile of gnawed bones. Without any visible emotion she said that her youngest child had tasted like salmon (Mathiassen 1926: 41). From an archaeological perspective, the most important of the dig sites for the expedition was the ruins of a large settlement at Naujan Lake on the north coast of Repulse Bay, itself at the northern extreme of Hudson Bay. According to the local Eskimo, it was thought to have belonged to a culture called Tuniit, which was credited with strange supernatural abilities. Because the spring thaw was unusually late that season, the ruins were covered by snow and the earth was frozen as work progressed. Mathiassen and his men had to start each day by removing the snow to allow the sun to defrost the ground. It was a slow process that allowed them to dig only a few centimeters through the layers each day. Though their finds were mostly broken and unremarkable utensils made from stone and bone, the archaeologists found it significant that the objects they were uncovering were quite different from the ones in use by the living Eskimo of the region. The location and depth at which these artifacts had been found were carefully recorded in order to glean their full scientific value. The process became increasingly challenging since the deeper they dug, the more nauseating the smell of thawed blubber and rotting organic matter became because the ground had been frozen for centuries. After two months of hard work, Mathiassen’s excavation had FIG. 5 (far left): Atakutaluk, the subject of an Iglulingmiut story. Black-and-white photographic print. The National Museum of Denmark, Ethnographic collection, inv. 5-thuleb-0947. © The National Museum of Denmark. Denmark. FIGS. 6a and b (left): Woman’s outer coat. Iglulik, Repulse Bay, Nunavut. Collected by Therkel Mathiassen, 1922. Reindeer hide. H: 148 cm. The National Museum of Denmark, Ethnographic collection, inv. 34.592. © The National Museum of Denmark. FIG. 7 (right): Anthropomorphic figure. Iglulik, Pingerqalik, Melville Peninsula, Nunavut. Excavated in 1922. Wood. H: 5.4 cm. The National Museum of Denmark, Ethnographic collection, inv. P27.678. © The National Museum of Denmark.


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