. Alaska and its resources. ools are made ofivory or bone. The annexed sketch represents anivory knife used for skinning animals and cutting upfish. They are represented as very active and ener-getic, fond of festivals and dances, and travelling agreat deal in winter with dogs. They rely principal-ly on deer and fish for their food. They are particu-larly fond of small white beads and tobacco. Someof their casines, or dance-houses, are said to be amongthe largest structures of their class in Russian Amer-ica. They call themselves Nushergagmut, and arethe Kijataigmitt of Holmberg, Tlie Kiiskwog
. Alaska and its resources. ools are made ofivory or bone. The annexed sketch represents anivory knife used for skinning animals and cutting upfish. They are represented as very active and ener-getic, fond of festivals and dances, and travelling agreat deal in winter with dogs. They rely principal-ly on deer and fish for their food. They are particu-larly fond of small white beads and tobacco. Someof their casines, or dance-houses, are said to be amongthe largest structures of their class in Russian Amer-ica. They call themselves Nushergagmut, and arethe Kijataigmitt of Holmberg, Tlie Kiiskwognmts. — These inhabit both shores of KuskoquimBay, and some little distance up that river. They differ littlefrom the last-mentioned, except in their vocabulary. Baer hasstated that some of the more southern tribes of Innuit have inter-married with the Indians, and that an intermixture of words hastaken place between the two languages. The first statement isquite unsupported by the facts, and the latter is probably due to. Ivory knife. 406 ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS. a miscomprehension of his informant, who probably mistook thetrading jargon, in use among all western Innuit who have anytrade with the Indians, for the true language of the former. Atall events, I have so far found no traces of Indian words in thenumerous Innuit vocabularies which I have examined, nor viceversa. In regard to this tribe he also makes some assertionswhich are not borne out by the accounts which I have receivedin regard to them, from Russian traders who had spent years onthe Kuskoquim, especially Ivan Lukeen, who is elsewhere men-tioned, I refer to the statement that all the adult able-bodiedmales sleep in the casine, or dance-house, and that the only womenwho are admitted to the same place during festivities are thosewho have been especially initiated. I have good reason to believethat the customs of this tribe closely resemble those of the Nor-ton Sound Innuit, which are elsewhere described, and that
Size: 1086px × 2302px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookpublisherbosto, bookyear1870
