The Nome nugget., 1901-12-14
tAn Interesting Race Tfat Us Fast Dying Out.
THE SAME LANGUAGE
The Crcenlander Speaks in,the Same Tongue as Does stiie kings Island Native-Treditions Tell of Bloody Internecine Wars and Cannlbalism

themselves, oEe, of the most interesting people on. the globe are dying out fast. Once they occupied -innumerable vil- lages on the shores of l3ering sea and along the coast of the Arctic ocean, from North Cape of Siberia to Green lands icy mountains. The traveller along the north shores of Alaska will .come acresstruins after. ruins of desert ed villages, and immense graveyards will tell him and bear witness of the abundant human life they once teemed' with. The Lnnuit language is the same from one end>Of their shores to the Other.' The GEeenland highlander .foDnd by Parry north of the Humboldt glacier, in village which had been isolated past its inha bitants' traditions, talks the same tongue as the Kings island native, here on,our shore. Their lore .abounds in tales of wanderings and of continuous struggles with the harsh elements of thenorth and in stories of bloody internecine wars, of cannibalism and of the vengeance of their. gods or devils. Plainly today the race carries the death mark; but withal they are philosophers, who cheerfully meet the .vicssitudes of their ardDOus lives, and who have~no fear of death.
 Not alone in Siberia, where the war like Chowchnan or .reindeer nomads hated and despised the Eskimo and considered them legitimate prey, but continuous struggle and steady fight ing between the coast natives and the natives of the interior. Although of tribal affinity, the inland natives used to consider themselves far superior to their cousins, the blubber hunters of the coast. Grown rich with fur trap ping and trading and lusty in hunting the countless caribou and bears and all .other game the interior abounded in, they kept the coast natives rigidly from their hunting grounds and in 9 state of oppression and terror confined to their coast villages. Of course they depended on them for their stores of oil and blubber, of which they con- -sumed large amounts. Sometimes.they would acquire these from them by trading. Then the acquisition of a steel knife or kettle would cost a coast native.a years labor of catching and hauling blubber. But, as, rule, they would simply enter the coast vil- 4lage and help themselves, and take what they wanted. Resistance would generally be quickly followed by large organized raids on the foolhardy vil- .massacred, and their wives and chil- 4dren led off into captivity, to become drudges for the rich inland native.
 So it came about that when the whalers first arrived in these waters they found the coast Eskimos prac- tically still in the stone age, using stone knives, stone hammers, etc., awhile the interior natives were in pos session of all kinds of steel tools, guns and other modern implements. Ex- .eepted, however, must be the large settlements. on the Beripg straits. The
 warlike inhabitants of these had con- stituted themselves as middlemen in the intercontinental traffic, and their villages had grOwnrich and strong in this lucrative trade. They carried on regular piracy for years. They would band together, launch their large skin canoes and try to take by surprise and ito plunder some off lying coast village. The poor Kings islanders would keep day in and day out watchmen on the highest pinnacle of their.steepand bar .ren rock, who would. d.anxiously scan the horizon in the direction.of Cape Prince of Wales for 6 fleet of marauders. If the alarm should be given the in- Inhabitants. one and all, old and young, would retire into large cave with a .yery narrow entrance, which exists on 4rhc island and in which th@y Always Lept abundant stores of ,blubber and meats.
 With the coming of the many whal- ting vessels into these northern waters ,a now era commenced for the coast na- z dives. From these they soon received tools aud weapons which put them on a devel footing with their overbearing cousins of the. interior. All kinds Of .new-fangled foods and goods they also got from the vessels, and above all whisky became plentiful with them,
 and the inland natives began to envy ahem and to respect them. Every once
 in while whaler would get wrecked on their shores, and the coast villages
 would join together and keep the in'