A "Melanesian" Eskimo?Author(s): Douglas OsborneSource: Arctic Anthropology, Vol. 17, No. 1 (1980), p. 90Published by: University of Wisconsin PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40315969 .

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NOTES AND QUERIES

A "ME LANES I AN" ESKIMO?

Douglas Osborne

In the summer of 1938 I was with a small archaeological party in Aklavik on the upper Mackenzie Delta (Bliss 1939, Osborne 1952). Here we observed, several times, a young woman who was obviously partly Negroid. She dressed and spoke Eskimo, and was married and had a small child; she was culturally Eskimo. I assumed that she must be of American Negro derivation and was intrigued by the implica- tions. I asked around and eventually talked with a Hudson's Bay Company trader who had been acquainted with the area for twenty years or more. According to him, her father, then dead, was a "Negro man from the South Pacific." Like many other "Kanaka" (Polynesians and Melanesians) he was a sailor, who had been employed on a ship that had put in at the Herschel Island, Point Barrow area. Here, difficulties with his officers were severe enough to cause him to jump ship. He then went to live with the Eskimo, and married and raised a family. My informant said that as far as he was aware, the man was a well inte- grated member of the Eskimo community. He was not interested in initiating contacts with the white community of traders and trappers within his range, although one would surmise that he spoke some English.

It is most unfortunate that we could not document the man's experience, for a person who had made such a drastic cultural-areal move has much anthropological interest. Per- haps others have knowledge of him to contri- bute to the record. If so, I would be pleased to receive communications at: 3^2 Rowena Drive, Los Alamitos , Calif. 90720.

Bliss, Wesley L.

1939 Early Man in Western and North- western Canada. Science 89(2312): 265-266.

Osborne , Douglas

1952 Late Eskimo Archaeology in the Western Mackenzie Delta Area. American Antiquity l8(l): 30-39.

AN AMERICAN EX-SLAVE IN THE CANADIAN NORTH, 1870s-80s:

A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Richard Slobodin

Tom, surname unknown to my informants, was a Black ex-slave from the American South who sojourned among the Peel River and Crow River - Kutchin in the late l8TOs and l88Os , working occasionally for the Hudson's Bay Company. He was also an unofficial preacher. Reputed to be gigantic in stature and strength and remarkable for his kindness and charity, Tom became a legend.

I am attempting to trace his travels north- ward and to learn whatever I can about his identity and activities. This is a request to Athapaskanists and other researchers among peoples of the former western and northern Canadian frontier. If in fieldwork or histor- ical research you have run across any trace of a man who might have been Tom, I would appreciate learning of it.

Please note that there were other Black men on the Canadian frontier during the period in question who were remarkable for size, strength, and unusual personality, for example, John Ware and Daniel Williams, neither of whom could have been Tom. However, any information or allegation, verified or not, which seems remotely relevant would be much appreciated. Please write to me at the Department of Anthropology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 1+L9 Canada.

FOLK BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION: A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Cecil H. Brown

I am presently assembling cross -language data on folk systems of plant and animal classifi- cation. My research is primarily, although not exclusively, concerned with life-form classes comparable in breadth of inclusion to categories in English labeled vine, tree, bird, bug, etc. Several types of information are requested: (l) Descriptions of native systems of plant and/or animal classification (especially life-form classes and labels) no

Arctic Anthropology XVII- 1, 1980 90

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