The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1883-04-06
TchOutchee Habits.

Captain Berry, of the navy. who com
manded the Rodgers on her fated. Arctic
voyage, came over from New York yes
terday 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 curioSities of races.
1T is curious" said Berry, 'this queS-
ton of color. Some people have notion
that the blacks and dark-skinned 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.
For thousands of years-yes; and
there are evidences that they cal2e from
still further north"
'.Do they seem to know anything about
their ancestors
y"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 thec
seemed to know nothing about them.
They were wonder-stricken at the de-
scription of the mammoth, some tuSks
of which brought away from Wrangel
Island. One bright fellow saw us look
ing at 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 pictures of the bears Of his
own climate" and would laugh immod-
eratelv as he returned to them"
Then they have their ideas of funny
things as well as other folks?'
40. yes. One day some of the women
of the Tchoutchees-the northernmost
people l saw-were telling me about
expeditions they made to find collections
of small roots which the rats or lem
mings of that country dig and gather in
heaps for winter eating and asked them
what became of the rats after their sup
plies had been stolen. They laughed and
laughed. thinking it very funny that any,
body should ever think of the rat in the
transaction" >.-.h.--',-. -.
Then these people do get something
of a vegetable sort to eat?''
They get these little roots, which
they steal from the jennings, and they
save the seaweed they find in the stom-
ach of the seal and eat that"
Ibid they try to speak English
words?"
The men-a few of them-would
try, though none of them could speak a
word which had the sound in it. They
would speak my name accur;Sely-that
is. the men would. But the women in
variably pronounced it as thought were
spelled Bezzy.
Lone fellow-the same one who came
so many times to see the pictures of ami
mal-learned to speak great many
E&rlish 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 as he came across arti-
cles new to him: What's name| He
could say cotton, calico and all the let
tiers but the is. The nearest he could
come to flannel was to say plan
nel,' using the p for as some children
do"
Captain Berry said this fellow never
tired of handling the compass and spy
glass, and he learned to know their uses
with astonishing facility. He was de-
lighted when Berry promised to send
him one of each, and said that hunting
parties were sometimes lost because they
lost all idea in a storm as to which way
they were going. The glass, he said,
n
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.
Captain Berry related how the two
boys of this particular Tchoutchee were
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 al