Two great Chiefs or Ackhaiyoot have complete authority in directing the movements of the party and in distributing provisions.  The Attoogawnoeuck or lesser chiefs are respected principally as senior men.  The tribe seldom suffers from want of food if the chief moves to the different stations at the proper season.  They seem to follow the eastern custom respecting marriage.  As soon as a girl is born the young lad who wishes to have her for a wife goes to her father’s tent and proffers himself.  If accepted a promise is given which is considered binding and the girl is delivered to her betrothed husband at the proper age.

They consider their progenitors to have come from the moon.  Augustus has no other idea of a Deity than some confused notions which he has obtained at Churchill.

When any of the tribe are dangerously ill a conjurer is sent for and the bearer of the message carries a suitable present to induce his attendance.  Upon his arrival he encloses himself in the tent with the sick man and sings over him for days together without tasting food; but Augustus as well as the rest of the uninitiated are ignorant of the purport of his songs and of the nature of the Being to whom they are addressed.  The conjurors practise a good deal of jugglery in swallowing knives, firing bullets through their bodies, etc., but they are at these times generally secluded from view and the bystanders believe their assertions without requiring to be eye-witnesses of the fact.  Sixteen men and three women amongst Augustus’ tribe are acquainted with the mysteries of the art.  The skill of the latter is exerted only on their own sex.

Upon the map being spread before Augustus he soon comprehended it and recognised Chesterfield Inlet to be the opening into which salt-waters enter at spring tides and which receives a river at its upper end.  He termed it Kannoeuck Kleenoeuck.  He has never been farther north himself than Marble Island, which he distinguishes as being the spot where the large ships were wrecked, alluding to the disastrous termination of Barlow and Knight’s Voyage of Discovery.* He says however that Esquimaux of three different tribes have traded with his countrymen and that they described themselves as having come across land from a northern sea.  One tribe who named themselves Ahwhacknanhelett he supposes may come from Repulse Bay; another designated Ootkooseekkalingmoeoot or Stone-Kettle Esquimaux reside more to the westward; and the third the Kangorrmoeoot or White Goose Esquimaux describe themselves as coming from a great distance and mentioned that a party of Indians had killed several of their tribe in the summer preceding their visit.  Upon comparing the dates of this murder with that of the last massacre which the Copper Indians have perpetrated on these harmless and defenceless people they appear to differ two years; but the lapse of time is so inaccurately recorded that this difference in their accounts is not sufficient to destroy their identity; besides, the Chipewyans, the only other Indians who could possibly have committed the deed, have long since ceased to go to war.  If this massacre should be the one mentioned by the Copper Indians the Kangorrmoeoot must reside near the mouth of the Anatessy, or River of Strangers.