Alaska -- Antiquities; Eskimos; Eskimos -- Anthropometry; Indians of North America -- Alaska; Indians of North America -- Yukon
It is 9 p. m. My man comes again, we have a modest supper, he
some left-over meat and I again the smoked fish, which I feel is
strengthening me as well as agreeing with my stomach, and then
to rest, quite earned to-day. Seldom have done as much in a day.
Thirty-three graves collected, with over twenty nearly complete
skeletons, and all restored so that I had to take considerable care not
to go again into some already emptied. But this place should be dug
over. The tundra in a few years swallows up everything on the surface.
It literally buries or assimilates bones and all other objects, the
moss and other vegetation with probably blown dust covering them very
effectively. Finding anything below the surface and that even a foot
or more, as was actually experienced, means something quite different
under these conditions than it might elsewhere.
Monday, July 12. Slept fairly well and feel refreshed, but the eye
still badly swollen. The Eskimo believe, I think, I got it from the
bones. Yet they are quite sensible--a marked mental difference between
them and the Yukon Indians.
Breakfast before 7--cereal, raw smoked fish, and coffee. Then pack.
At the store buy empty gasoline boxes, but no nails to be had, and no
packing. Lunch at 1--macaroni, raw smoked fish, sauerkraut, coffee;
then pack again, fix boxes, break old ones to get nails, even pull a
few unnecessary ones from the boards of the house, go see my man's
wife, a hopeless consumptive, and at 6 through with all except
cleaning. Another fair work-day, 12 tightly packed boxes. Then clean
up, burn rubbish, and ready for departure early to-morrow.
Supper--macaroni, raw smoked fish, greengage plums, a little
sauerkraut, and coffee. Then a little walk outside, watch Eskimo women
and children jump the rope (hilariously, but awkwardly), and go in to
catch up with my notes. Nobody scowls at me, so that although they
probably fear me as a "medicine man" they are not at all resentful for
what I did yesterday. They are grown-up children, much more tractable
than the Indians. But otherwise they show so much in common with the
Indian that the more one sees of them the more he grows drawn to the
belief of the original (and that not so far distant) identity of their
parentage. It seems the Eskimo and the Indian are after all no more
than two diverging fingers of one and the same hand; or they were so
a bit farther back. Mental differences there are, yet these are no
more than may be found in different tribes of the Indians or different
groups of other races.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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