Knud Rasmussen 113 revealed some 3,000 ancient artifacts, among them a number of fine figures and ornaments carved from walrus ivory. On August 1, 1922, Mathiassen and his Greenland assistant, Jacob Olsen, were transported to Southampton Island, located between Hudson Bay and Foxe Basin, by Audlanaq, an Aivilik Eskimo, in order to excavate another ruined habitation site there. Audlanaq’s mother, Niviatsanaq, and her husband, the shaman Angutimarik, who lived on the island, had promised to help the visitors with food and whatever else they needed for their short stay. When they were finished with their excavations, Angutimarik was to sail them across Frozen Strait in his motorboat and return them to their base camp on Danish Island. On Southampton, Mathiassen found the ruins of fourteen different structures built by an extinct Eskimo culture once known as the Sadlermiut, which had lived isolated on the island. Among the 800 specimens that were excavated here were an extremely well-proportioned figure of a bear and a beautifully crafted comb carved from walrus ivory. These finds provided important information about the Sadlermiut, a people until then all but unknown to science. In an effort to avoid wintering on the island, after only two weeks Mathiassen asked Angutimarik to return to Danish Island, but increasing ice in Frozen Strait made this impossible. They also had to abandon an attempt to sail across Repulse Bay to the trading station of the Hudson’s Bay Company, from which they might be able to continue overland, as the eastern wind had compressed large ice floes from Foxe Channel into the bay. Forced to stay on Southampton, Mathiassen and Olsen were unwelcome guests of Angutimarik and Niviatsanaq, and the ensuing winter was hard with long periods of disease and very little hunting on the island. As the local shaman, Angutimarik needed to stay on the right side of both the spirits that control nature as well as the souls that give life to animals and objects. During a ceremony, it was revealed to him that the main cause for the many problems the island was facing was the two strangers, who had transgressed important taboos by excavating old ruins and hammering on the rocks with their geology hammers. These actions had FIG. 9: Comb. Iglulik, Repulse Bay, Nunavut. Collected in 1922. Walrus ivory. H: 7.4 cm. The National Museum of Denmark, Ethnographic collection, inv. P27.536. © The National Museum of Denmark. FIG. 8: Bear figure. Iglulik, Repulse Bay, Nunavut. Collected in 1922. Walrus ivory. L: 5.5 cm. The National Museum of Denmark, Ethnographic collection, inv. P27.679. © The National Museum of Denmark. FIG. 10: Bird figure with human torso, head, and broken wings. Aivilingmiut, Southampton Island, Nunavut. Collected in 1922. Walrus ivory. L: 4.1 cm. The National Museum of Denmark, Ethnographic collection, inv. P27.684. © The National Museum of Denmark. FIG. 11: Bird figure Aivilik, Southampton Island, Nunavut. Collected in 1922. Walrus ivory. L: 3.7 cm. The National Museum of Denmark, Ethnographic collection, inv. P27.682. © The National Museum of Denmark. FIG. 12: Bird figure. Iglulik, Repulse Bay, Nunavut. Collected in 1922. Walrus ivory. L: 4.3 cm. The National Museum of Denmark, Ethnographic collection, inv. P27.681. © The National Museum of Denmark. FIG. 13: Bird figure. Amnocant, Northwest Territories. Collected in 1922. Walrus ivory. L: 2 cm. The National Museum of Denmark, Ethnographic collection, inv. P27.683. © The National Museum of Denmark.
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