The First People on Qikiqtaruk Never Grow

As Albert Oliver was told by his parents:

They say the first people on Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island) never grow. The very first people there. The first people that went there were the Tuyukmiurat. […] They were there all the time because they were Qikiqtaqruk people. […] At that time they never grew. […] That was their land, those people there. (A090-114:3)

Tuyumiat was their name. […] The people lived there all the time like Old Roland, Jean Tardiff’s stepfather, he’s one of them there, the tribes. The people never really grow, not like some places [where] the families have children or more people come or others have children. […] Not too many people there. That’s what my parents told me. (A090-11A6-7)

Notes

Excerpt from Nagy, Murielle Ida. 1994:26. Yukon North Slope Inuvialuit Oral History. Yukon Tourism, Heritage Branch.

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