Alaska -- Antiquities; Eskimos; Eskimos -- Anthropometry; Indians of North America -- Alaska; Indians of North America -- Yukon
There was apparently not much basketry along the river, the place of
the baskets being taken by the birch-bark dishes of the Indian and the
kantág or ingeniously made wooden dish of the Eskimo part of the river.
Canoes among the Yukon Indians were mainly of birch bark, while the
Eskimo had mainly skin canoes.
11. Neither the Indians nor the Eskimo of the Yukon practiced
deformation of the head or of any other part of the body, or dental
mutilation. The Indians as well as the Eskimo occasionally pierced the
septum of the nose, for nose pieces, while the Eskimo cut on each side
a slit in the lower lip for the introduction of labrets. The Eskimo cut
their hair short in a characteristic way, reminding strongly of certain
monks; the Indians left their hair long. But at Anvik the Indians both
cut their hair and wore labrets. They also used the wooden dish.
12. From all the preceding it appears that there must have been long
and intensive contacts between the Yukon Eskimo and Indians; that,
through war or in peace, they became mutually admixed; and that there
were mutual cultural transmissions.
13. No further light for the present could be gained on the origin,
antiquity, or early migrations of the Yukon Indian. It was determined,
however, that he represents but one main physical type, and that this
type is the same as that of the Indians of the Tanana and most other
Alaskan Indians of the present time.
14. Exceptional skeletal remains were washed out from the bank at
Bonasila. They are of Indians (?), but appear to be not those of the
Yukon Indian of to-day. They present a problem which is to be solved by
further exploration of the site.
15. The Eskimo of the lower parts of the river are in general better
preserved and more coherent than the Indians. They are more tractable
people and are taking more readily to work and civilization.
16. These Eskimo show, in the majority of cases, fairly typical Eskimo
physiognomies. But their heads are not as those of the northern and
eastern members of the race. The head is less narrow, less high, and
has but now and then a suggestion of the scaphoid form that is so
characteristic of the Greenland, Labrador, or northern Eskimo cranium;
also, the angles of the jaws are less bulging and the lower jaws
themselves do not appear so heavy.
17. The Yukon Eskimo burials are in all essentials much like those
of the Indians up the river. Here again a cultural connection is
very evident, in this case there having in all probability been an
adaptation of methods by the Eskimo from the Indians.
18. Archeological prospects along the delta flats occupied by the
Eskimo appear very limited.
ST. MICHAEL
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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