National Republican., 1883-03-09
rcuourcurE HABITS.
A Chat with Captain Berry About the
Queer DwelIers In the Far North.

A Chat with Captain Berry About the
Queer DwelIers In the Far North.
Captain Berry, of the navy, who COM
manded the Rodgers on her fated Arctic voyage,
came over from New York yesterday by order
of the secretary of the navy, and is at the
Ebbitt house. In conversation with an old
| friend the talk turned on the Madagascar
people here and the curosities of races.
IL is curious" said Berry, "this question
Of color. Some people have a notion that the
blacks and dark-sknned people all come from
tropical countries, but the natives Of Peru
were not very dark the natives in Mexico
were light; then further north the Indians
are still darker and when the Esquimaux are
reached they are found to be much darker
than the North American Indians.
yes; and, SO far as anybody knows, they
have been in their cold country for thousands
of years." Clipped in the companion.
Z" For thousands Of years---yes and there
are evidences that they came from still fur
ther north"
"Do they seem to know anything about their
ancestors2"
"Not much. They care very little for the
past or for the future. L tried to talk with
them about the skeletons of animals found in
the caves, but they seemed to know nothing
| about them. They were wonder-stricken at
the description of the mammoth, some tusks
of which l brought away from Wrangel
Island. One bright fellow saw us looking ut
book of pictures of animals, and he would
come day after day and ask to look at the
book. He was delighted to look at the pic
lures of the bears of his own climate, and
would laugh immoderately as he returned to
them"
"Thcn they have their ideas Of funny
things, as well as other folksW
N 1 r r
the Tchoutchees-the northernmost people l
saw-were telling me about expeditions they
made to find collections Of small roots which
the rats or Jennings of that country dig aud
gather in heaps for winter eating, and /
asked them what became of the rats after
their supplies had been stolen. They laughed
and laughed, thinking 1t very funny that
anybody should ever think of the rat in the
transaction"
"Then these people do get something of a
vegetable sort TO eatP
"They get these little roots, which they
steal from the Jennings, and they save the
seawecd they find in the stomach of the seal
and eat that"
"Did they try to speak English words?"
"The men-a few of them-would try,
though none of them could speak word
which had the sound in it. They would
speak my namo accurately-that Is, the men
would, but the women invariably pro-
nounccd it as though it were spelled Bozzy.
One fellow, the same ono who came so
many times to SEQ the pictures Of animals,
learned to speak great many English words,
but he would fairly sweat under the difficulty
OF the effort when he tried to say flannel"
He would pick up words by asking AZ he
came across articles new to him, Whats
namep He could say cotton, calico, and all
| the letters but the fs. The nearest he could
come to flannel was TO say "plannel," using
| the n for T. & SOmn Children do.
Capt. Berry said this fellow never tired of
| handling the compass and spyglass, and he
! learned to know their uses with astonishing
facility. He was delighted when Berry
promised to send him one of each, and said
| that hunting parties were sometimes lost be-
cause they lost all idea in a storm as to which
way they were going. The glass, he said,
would help him to tell whether the black
| specks seen far away on the ice were seal or
not and save miles of walking. He will get
his compass and spyglass when the whalers
go north in the spring.
Capt. Berry related how the two boys of
this particular Tchoutchee We're very polite
little fellows, and would always rIse when
any one not belonging to the family came in,
and he said the people had words OF salutation
which they always used when they met. he
was surprised to find these evidences of polite
ness among people the mostremote and isolated
from any civilizing influences. The women,
the men, though inside their houses they strip
down to one garment about the loins, taking
oil their iurs; and the women take pride in
keeping their houses what they regard as clean,
though it would not pass for cleanliness
anywhere else. They have no idea Of accu-
mulating for the future, and are primitively
communistic about their food. If one family
has meat and the other families in the village
have none, they all eat Of the supply until il
is gone or they can get more, and II one viii
lage has food and another none the hungry
ones come over and cut with those who have
something. They live on from hand to mouth
and there are evidences of annihilated viii
lagos where, it is reasonable to suppose
something has occurred to prevent the getting
of meat, and so all have starved to death.
1t is no more than fair to state that these
interesting facts came out in conversation
in which the narrator had no suspicion that
any of the incidents that he related would
get into print, but they are none the lesi
readable ior coming informally in this way