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AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY,
Central Park, (77th St. & Central Park, West.)
DEPARTMENT or ANTHROPOLOGY.
NEW YORK,
Capt. George Comer,
East Haddam, Conn.
May 9, 1900
My dear Captain
I am very glad to say that Mr. Jesup has consented to appropriate the sum of $550 for further collections from hudson Bay. If you care, therefore, to make additional collections, particularly on Southampton Island, and if you should have a chance to do so at Igloolik, I should be very glad to purchase the same on your return. You know, of course, what you bought this last year ; but in order to make sure, I will send you a copy of our catalogue. Anything that you may find among the Kinipetoo and Ivilik, and that is not contained in your previous collection, will be very desirable, but I cannot very well give you any list, because I think you covered all points that I know any thing about. I should like to call your particular attention, however, to games of children and adults, and to ask you to make sure to get a complete series of these. Following is a list of things that I should like to have.
Southampton Island. Your collection from Southampton Island is very fragmentary, and every thing that you can add to it will be very welcome, particularly also some more of their stone and whalebone implements, and, what is more important, their clothing. Do not consider that any thing of that kind is too dirty to bring along. We can clean it there. If you have the time and opportunity, I would ask you to follow, among the Southampton Island natives, the sa method of collecting as you did among your people on the west coast of Hudson Bay, so that you will get a complete collection from these people. If you should have any visitors from Netchilik, please try to get their clothing too, and any thing that they may have from their own country. I do wish you would visit the Igloolik and get a lot of stuff there. If you should happen to go that way, you might also have a chance of seeing some of the Pond's Bay people and get material from them.
If you have an opportunity to send any of the material back this year, I should be glad if you do so. It would make it easier for me to prepare for publication the notes that you gave me last year. Please do not forget that I should like to have a few more sets of leggings with the feet on, of women from the west coast of Hudson Bay, and also the shoes belonging to them.
In the course of this winter I received from Jimmy Hutch a great many notes from Cumberland Sound, which I am certain will be of interest to you. I intend to have all this material copied out, and since I cannot print it before your departure, I want to give you a copy of the same to take along. I hope it will help you to get a good many more traditions and a good deal more information in regard to the customs and beliefs of the people. I am also sending you a little paper on the Smith Sound eskimo, which I think will interest you, and which may be of some help to you.
Hoping that you will be inclined to obtain these objects for me, I am
Yours very sincerely
(Signed F. Boas)
P.S. If you have time now, I should like to send Mr. Mayer, our sculptor, to East Haddam to give you some more instruction in the taking of plaster casts.
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