The Naming of Birds by Nunamiut Eskimo

T IS rare for people of two different cultures to have as good an opportunity of comparing their knowledge as Simon Paneak and I had when I was learning the Nunamiut Eskimo names for birds in the Anaktuvuk Pass region, interior arctic Alaska. The scientific list of birds of that region which I prepared provided me with a check on the completeness and accuracy of the Eskimo method of naming part of the local environment. Our relations were sufficiently close and prolonged so that we could both ascertain that we were designating the same birds by our Eskimo and English names. The English names of birds used in this study have been modified by convention of scientists to express taxonomic designations, and they are in no sense popular names. The Nunamiut names are those used by a small group of people to indicate birds in their environment. Having no knowledge of natural history in times or places outside their own small community's exper- ience, we should not seek in the Nunamiut names for the implications of scientific taxonomy. The Eskimo preserves his names without writing or museum to serve his memory. We who depend upon written records marvel at the persistence of stable knowledge which can be fixed in oral records, but we should recall that a large degree of stability is inherent in speech. Anaktuvuk Pass leads approximately north and south through the centre of the Brooks Range. About one hundred miles north of the arctic circle the southern border of these mountains extends from the Yukon Territory to the western arctic coast of Alaska. The mountainous band is about one hundred miles wide, with reported elevations around 10,000 feet in the east which gradually diminish toward the western coast. The northern limit of trees lies to the south of the watershed of the mountains. In the forested valleys summer rains are frequent, and deep snow remains uncompacted by wind, but in the treeless arctic mountains and on the tundra rainfall is light. The sparse snow is driven by fierce winds which bare large areas and compact the snow firmly where it lodges. In addition to the barrier of elevation, the climatic transitions of the mountain region are significant to life. Anaktuvuk Pass preserves some of the trough-like form given by the glaciers which shaped it. Near Summit it is a valley some four or five miles wide with lowest elevations about 2,200 feet. The deeply intersected mountain walls rise steeply to nearby peaks 6,000 feet in elevation. Through this valley many migrant birds pass northward in May and early June to settle in the mountain valleys and spread over the Arctic Slope to the coast. The birds are concentrated mainly at the lowest elevations, which in this treeless area favours their observation.