Alaska -- Antiquities; Eskimos; Eskimos -- Anthropometry; Indians of North America -- Alaska; Indians of North America -- Yukon
We finish breakfast and the doctor goes to look for the man, but
everything deadlike, no one stirring anywhere. So I pack my stone
specimens from the river above and the bones from Kaltag, etc. It is
8 a. m. and then at last Harry Lawrence, our man, appears--having
understood to come about that time--and before long we start, in a
good-sized boat, up the Yukon.
Day mostly cloudy but fairly good; no wind. Must use mosquito mixture
all the time, even after I get on boat, but they quit later. Am
standing on the back of the boat against and over the "house" over
it--inside things shake too much and I can not see enough.
Passing by fish wheels--heaps of fish in their boxes--some just being
caught and dumped in. Picturesque bluffs passed yesterday seen to
be of volcanic stone, near basalt, not granite, with indication of
minerals. Passing close to vertical cliffs of fissured and fragmented
rocks 200 to 500 feet high--dangerous. Consolidated volcanic ashes with
inclosure of many bowlders--fine lessons in geology. Slides of soil
and vegetation here and there. Large spruces and altogether a richer
vegetation since this particular rock region was reached. There was
in fact a plain line of demarcation in the vegetation where the rocks
changed.
Sleepy. Afraid to doze and fall off, so go inside. But there the motor
thumps and shakes too much for a nap to be possible.
About 12 miles upstream from Anvik, on the north bank, the mineralized
rocks and tufa suddenly cease, to be superseded by a line, several
miles long, of sheared-off loess bluffs about 200 feet high. Here the
vegetation changes very perceptibly. Two mammoth jaws obtained from
these deposits have a few years ago been given to Mr. Gilmore, of the
United States National Museum.
22 to 23 miles up the river, north bank, a fine large platform and an
old native site. Many signs still of pit and tunnel houses. A little
farther upstream a hill with abandoned burials. Excavate a grave on a
promontory over the river--not very old--wet and not much left of soft
parts, but succeed in getting the skeleton. Fine middle-aged adult,
somewhat Eskimoid, about typical for this region. Carry down in a bag,
dry on the beach gravel. Lunch on beach; cheese, bread, coffee. The
site is known as that of the Greyling River. (Pl. 2, _b_.)
Start back a little after 3. Very warm day. River smooth. Sky looks
like there might be a storm later.
Hear of pottery--40 years ago it was still made at Anvik. Was black,
of poor quality. The women used to put feathers in the clay "to
make the pots stronger." When buried it soon rotted and fell to
pieces. In shapes and otherwise it was much like the Eskimo pottery.
Its decorations consisted of nail or other impressions, in simple
geometrical designs, particularly about the rim. It was rather gross,
but better pieces did occur, though rarely.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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