31 (The Eskimo tribes)

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among the Ahts than slavery. The slave is at the absolute
disposal of his master in all things. The high consideration
in which rank or actual authority is held, is extraordinary.
The principal use made of the accumulation of personal chattels
is to distribute them periodically among invited guests. The
destruction of certain kinds of property serves the same purpose.
The person who gives away the most property receives the
greatest praise and in time acquires, almost as a matter of
course, but by the voice of the tribe the highest rank
obtainable by such means. This rank, however, is not of the loftiest
class; it is only for life and different from the ancient hereditary
or tribal rank. The head chief’s position is patriarchal, his
authority is rather nominal than positive.

Distribution and division.

If we comprise the Northern Indians under the chief groups:
the Northwestern, the Tinne and the Algonkin, the Eskimo must
be said to wholly encompass the Tinne from the seaside, while
in the west and the east they abut upon the other two nations.
On the west side they issue almost as a continuation from the
Northwest Indians having so to say like these half of their
subsistence from the land and half from the sea. Where the
territory of the Inland Eskimo borders on that of the Tinne
tribes, the transition between their respective villages is
likewise almost insensible to the foreign traveller. But by degrees
as towards the north and east the Eskimo pass to grow an
exclusively maritime and Arctic people, their relation to the
Indians takes a decidedly hostile character. Murderous fights
between them have been customary on the borders of the
Mackenzie R., and further towards the northeast corner of the
continent a sort of neutral ground divides them which for fear
they generally avoid to pass over.

When nevertheless we have suggested that the pressure by

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