Читать книгу Anthropological Survey in Alaska - Aleš Hrdlička - Страница 16

Table of Contents

1.00 p. m. Kaltag in view—a small modern village on right bank, less than half the size of Nulato; a nearly compact row of log and plank houses. Nothing of any special interest seen from distance, and but little after landing. The old village used to be somewhat higher up the river.

There is an old abandoned site also just opposite the present Kaltag. Another site, "Klenkakaiuh," is, I am told, in the Kaiuh slough south of Kaltag, in a straight line about 10 miles, but no one there; and several other old villages in that region along that slough—same Indians as those of Kaltag. All of Kaltag go there on occasions, but do not live there permanently any more.

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY FORTY-SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT PLATE 1

a, "Old Minto" on the Tanana. Indian village. (A. H., 1926)

b, Present Nulato and its cemetery (on hill to right of village) from some distance up the river. (A. H., 1926)

c, The Greyling River site, right bank, 22 miles above Anvik; site and graveyard (male skeleton) from top of knoll. (A. H., 1926)

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY FORTY-SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT PLATE 2

a, View on the Yukon from above Kaltag. (A. H., 1926)

b, Indian burial ground, Middle Yukon. (A. H., 1926)

c, Anvik, from the mission. (A. H., 1926)

At Kaltag Eskimoid features already predominate and some of those seen are fully like Eskimo.

There is a tradition of an Asiatic (Chukchee) attempt at Kaltag once.

Later in the afternoon photograph some natives and go with Mr. Müller, the storekeeper, and Mr. McLeod, the intelligent local teacher, on the latter's boat, "hunting" along the banks up the stream. Meet an old Indian (Eskimo type) paddling a birch-bark canoe, said to be the only canoe of that sort now on the Yukon. About three-fourths of a mile above the village see caved bank and find a skull and bones—"split" old burial of a woman.

A canoe coming, so we all go farther up the beach, pretending to examine stones. It is only the boy who brought me, however, going home with some planks, and he grins knowingly.

After that we locate three exposed coffins, two undisturbed and covered with sod. These two, for fear of irritating the natives, are left. But the third is wrapped only in birch bark. It was a powerful woman. With her a bone tool and a white man's spoon. With the burial that had tumbled out of the bank there were large blue and gray beads and three iron bracelets—reserved by the teacher.

I gather all the larger bones and we put them temporarily in a piece of canvas. It is hard to collect all—the men are apprehensive—it might be dangerous for them if detected. Everything smoothed as much as possible, and we go across the river to examine two fish nets belonging to the trader. One of these is found empty; but the other contains five large king salmon, 15 to 20 pounds each, three drowned, two still alive. The latter are hooked, hoisted to the edge of the boat, killed with a club, and, full of blood, thrown into the boat—great, stout, fine fish. To secrete our other findings from the natives the storekeeper gets a large bundle of grass and ties it to my package. We shall be bringing "medicine."

Arrive home, only to learn that against our information the river boat has left Tanana on schedule time, is now above Koyukuk, and is expected to arrive at Kaltag before 8 p. m. Hurriedly pack, a few more photographs, supper, and the smoke of the steamer begins to be visible. In a little while she is at the bank, my boxes are brought down, a greeting with old friends on the boat—the same boat (Jacobs) on which I went from Nenana to Tanana—and we start off for Anvik.

Mr. Müller, the trader at Kaltag, German by birth, has a young, fairly educated Eskimo wife, a good cook, housekeeper, and mother of one child. The child is an interesting white-Eskimo blend.

In his store Mr. Müller showed me a good-sized heavy bowl of red stone with a figure seated in a characteristic way near one end. The specimen was said to have come from an old site on the Kaiuh and is of the same type as that at the museum in Juneau and the two in the east, one at the Museum of the American Indian, New York, and the other at the University Museum, Philadelphia. Regrettably Mr. Müller would not part with the specimen. (See also p. 34.)

The natives of Kaltag, so far as seen, are more Eskimoid than those of any of the other settlements farther up the river.

Fine evening; sit with a passenger going to Nome, until late. Learn that the boat to St. Michael is waiting for this boat and will go right on—not suitable for my work. Also we are to stop but a few minutes at Anvik, where I am to meet Doctor Chapman, the missionary.

Sunday, June 27. About 5 a. m. arrive in the pretty cove of Anvik. Received on the bank by Doctor Chapman, the head of the local Episcopalian mission and school, and also the Anvik postmaster. The doctor for the present is alone, his wife and daughter having gone to Fairbanks, and so he is also the cook and everything. In a few minutes, with the help of some native boys, I am with my boxes in Doctor Chapman's house, and after the boat has left and the necessities connected with what she left attended to we have breakfast. I am soon made to feel as much as possible "at home," and we have a long conversation. Then see a number of chronic patients and incurables; attend a bit lengthy service in Doctor Chapman's near-by little church; have a lunch with the ladies at the school; visit the hill graveyard. They have reburied all the older remains and there is nothing left. Attend an afternoon service and give a talk to the congregation of about half a dozen whites and two dozen more or less Eskimoid Indians on the Indians and our endeavors; and then do some writing, ending the day by going out for about a mile and a half along the banks of the Anvik River, looking in vain for signs of something older, human or animal. (Pl. 2, c.)

There are many and bad gnats here just now—how bad I only learned later, when I found my whole body covered with patches of their bites; and also many mosquitoes, which proved particularly obnoxious during the lunch. As the doctor is alone, the three excellent white ladies of the school, matron and teachers, invited us, as already mentioned, to lunch with them. We had vegetable soup, a bit of cheese, two crackers each, a piece of cake, and tea. But I chose an outlandish chair the seat of which was made of strips of hide with spaces between; and from the beginning of the lunch to its end there was a struggle between the proprieties of the occasion and the mosquitoes that kept on biting me through the spaces in the seat. Chairs of this type, and I finally told that to the ladies to explain my seeming restlessness during the meal, should be outlawed in Alaska.