Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-07-25
ORIGIN OF INDIANS.
That They Were Siberians is Latest
Theory Announced.

That They Were Siberians is Latest
Theory Announced.
Up at the Museum of Natural His
tory, at Seventy ninth street ana Gen.
trail Park, West, Manhattan they are
busy unpacking, cataloguing ana ar
ranging a Siberian collection, brought
home by the Jesup Siberian expedition.
In a few weeks the collection, or as
much of it as there is room to show,
will be placed on exhibition there. 1t
is the result of three years of hard
work, of perils braved, of hardships
endured, of obstacles innumerable
overcome. For three years ago the
Jesup Siberian expedition, under the
auspices of the American Museum OF
Natural History, started out to explore
the northeastern corner or ASIA, ana,
If possible, to answer the VeXed ques-
tions of ethnologists whether or not
the same race originally peopled
Northern Asia and North America, and
what kinship, if any, exists between the
native Siberian races, the Eskimo and
the North American Indian. In the
face of the most determined and
treacherous opposition of the cars
government, which was ostenslbly AID
| ing the expedition while secretly using
| all it's great military and political ma
| chinery to block it at every turn, the
Jesup Siberian expedition accomplished
all it set out for and brought home the
most wonderfully exhibit of those tribes
| that the world has ever seen or is ever
| likely to see.
The collection is attracting wide
| spread interest among ethnologistS, and
| foreign museums are bidding eagerly
for such fragments of it as the Mu-
scum of Natural History does not see
it's way to use. Something of it's value
may be judged from the fact that
small collection of eighty-seven articles
from the Yakut tribes shown at the
Paris exposition attracted great atten-
ton and was finally bought for a good
round sum by the Berlin museum, while
the Natural history museum, only
able to show a small part of the visible
fruits of the Jesup expedition, includes
in that small part 100 exhibits bear
ing on Yakut life and customs.
The expedition under the leadership
Of Messrs. Waldemar Hitch Jochelson
and Waldemar Hermanovich Bogoras
worked it's way westward from the
Boring sea to the Lena river and COW
cred it's territory very thoroughly. OF
the 10000 articles which it brought
home only 10000 can be shown, for the
remaining 10000 there is no room. The
exhibit establishes beyond doubt the
fact that Arctic Siberia and North
America were originally settled by the
same race. that the North American
Indian was originally not an Ameri-
can product at all, but a wanderer
whose strange course took him, very
many years ago, from the farthest ST.
berian land. across Boring strait to
Alaska and thence south and east to
overspread an undiscovered country.
And that the Eskimo came down the
Arctic shores of America toward that
narrow gateway of the Pacific and long
after the Indian had crossed it from
west to east. the Eskimo crossed it
from east to west and superimposed
his civilization upon that of the In
dian. So that the sea coast borderland
of Alaska. and a little of the nearest ST.
berian land to it became, and to this
day remain, distinctly Eskimo. While
spreading out beyond that and inland
are tribes Monaghan in origin and es-
sentially Indian not alone in physical
chara cteristics. but in customs, and in
tradition and legend.
These two Russians, Jochelson and
Bogoras, in the employ of the Ameri-
can Museum of Natural History, at the
expense of Morris X. Jesup wandered
where white men have never before
penetrated-in pursuit of a, theory.
And their Wan1eringS We're of the
most varied. and their experiences ran
the whole gamut of human hardship
and excitement-all in the pursuit of
theory! But they have the satisfaction
of having run down their game.
They entered by way of the Boring
sea. and worked their way westward as
far as the Lena river region and south
ward almost to the northern provinces
of China. They nave brought home
exhaustive reports on the Chukchees,
linhabitating the extreme northeastern
peninsula of Asia; the Koriaks, south
of thees along the Boring sea and the
northern shores of the Sea of Oshkosh,
the Kamchadales of the kamchatka
peninsula, the Yukaghirs west of the
| Chukchees along the Arctic ocean and
the Yakut5 of the region drained by the
Lena river Many of these regions are
so remote and inaccessible, in some in
stances from 5000 to 5000 miles from the
nearest Russian post, that the people
have been cut off for centuries from
any knowledge of or contact with
civilization. Some of these commune
ties are probably the most aboriginal
on the face of the earth today. They
live in the most primitive fashion,;
they can neither read nor write; they
have no money. no religion, no gov
eminent. They live out their nomadic
lives in their own way, wandering
around with their reindeer herds, and
living in skin tents. Some of the
tribes encountered had never seen a
white man before and seriously be-
lieved that they We're the only people
lalive.
The explorers spent nearly two years
travelling among them by dog and REIN
deer sledges, visiting camps Of rein
deer herds and scattered fishing set
Elements. SThey found people who had