Alaska -- Antiquities; Eskimos; Eskimos -- Anthropometry; Indians of North America -- Alaska; Indians of North America -- Yukon
8. The line of demarcation between the Indians of the Yukon and the
Eskimo, outside of language, is indefinite. Traces of old Eskimo
admixture are perceptible among the Indians far up the river, and the
cultures of the two peoples in many respects merge into each other;
while among the Eskimo of the lower river and farther on there are
physiognomies that it would be hard to separate from the Indian.
Whether all this means simply extensive past mixture, or whether, as
would seem, the Alaska Indians as a whole are nearer physically to the
Eskimo than are the tribes in the States, remains to be determined.
Among the Athapascan Mescalero Apache, who have reached as far south as
New Mexico, a somewhat Eskimoid tinge to the face, especially in young
women, was by no means very unusual 25 years ago when I studied this
tribe. This problem will be touched upon again in this volume.
9. All along the Yukon, from near Tanana (Old Station) to the mouth
of the river, in the Indian and in the Eskimo region, there prevailed
the same type of winter house, namely, a largely subterranean room
with a subterranean tunnel or corridor entrance; and also a similar
type of summer dwelling, formerly a skin, now a canvas, tent. The
winter dwellings were built within of stout posts and covered with
birch bark and sod, looking from outside much like the present-day
Navaho hogan; while the pits left by them remind one of the
southwestern "pit dwellings," the kashims of the Pueblo kivas. As a
hogan, so these largely subterranean dwellings along the Yukon had a
smoke-air-and-light hole in the center of the top, a fireplace in the
middle of the floor, and benches (of heavy hewn planks in the north)
along the sides. Each village, furthermore, had at least one larger
structure of similar nature, the "kashim," or communal house. All this
may still be traced more or less plainly on the dead sites along the
Yukon, and houses as well as a kashim of this type were seen at Kotlik
and Pastolik, at the mouth of the river.
10. The native industry of the river presents also much similarity,
though there are differences.
Pottery, of much the same type and decoration, was made at least as far
as the lower middle Yukon.
Stone implements were made and used all along the river, and were much
alike. But the double-grooved, cupid-bow ax of the Yukon Indian, hafted
in the center and used for chipping rather than cutting, is lower down
replaced by the same ax, in which one end has been broken off (or
has not been finished), and which is hafted as an adze; or by oblong
quadrilateral flat axes which have not been found up the river.
The peculiar and apparently very primitive stone industry of Bonasila
is, it seems, just a development of local conditions--nature of most
available stone, and essentially hunting habit of the people that
resulted in many skins which called for numerous scrapers. Nevertheless
the site deserves a thorough further exploration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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