Arizona republican., 1910-07-28
THE INDIANS
 IF ALASKA Two Methods Of Measuring
 Flight of Time BY SHOWS AND SLEEPS
Among Information Gath cred By Census Enum- orators Is That Natives of Fairbanks District Are Not Quite Sanitary

Washington, July 27.-"Leather-
 stocking is verified and Fennimore | Cooper is vindicated, and their sub stantiation comes as it should. through the census bureau. It is from far away Alaska, but it is official. This substantiation is found in a report l from Chief Census Agent Mckenzie telling all about the taking of the cen sus in the Fairbanks district Mir. Me Kenzie gives assurance that the In dians do measure time by the "snOws" and suns" and distances by sleeps. Indeed, he asserts that they have no other standards of time or of measure ment, and in relating the fact he cites an instance which throws no little light on the difficulties of enumerating the red men.
 "Only the very young children, who have been educated in the government schools" he says, have any knOwl- edge of their ages or births. and the agents were instructed to use the age and birth months as nearly as talk and observation would seem correct. Time with them is computed on suns and snows, and distances by sleeps Marri- ages separations, births and deaths are all based upon such calculations. and we were obliged to base our in formation in the same way
 l He then gives this instance: An Indian buck claimed to have | lived 200 snows." After much talk and
 use of the sign language it was de- | termined that he was about so years | old He was found to have been 20 snows old when he got his first wom- an: to have kept her four snows. when she got away; that he got more wom- an and kept her five snows and she | die; that he got no woman for 20
 snows more, and finally that he got young chicken and keep her all time
 ever since. now, on, 9 or 30 snows. '
 That there were other difficulties in getting the facts regarding the aborin- zines is indicated by the following
 from the report:
 Many of the Indians know a suffi- cient number of English words to do business with white man. but when if was determined that they were to I ing their mouths and knowing nothing
 until an interpreter impressed upon them the fact that the agent came from the Great White Father al Washington"
 Regarding the habits and character
 of the people he says:
 AS a class they are indolent, lazy and dirty. although in recent years the
 teachers have taught the younger ones
 that dirt has been the cause Of much of their illness and the present gen eration are keeping themselves healthi-
 CT by bathing Their homes are filthy as a rule and conducive to the dis
 eases with which the Indians are most
 afflicted.
 "They spend their winters in hunt ing and their summers in fishing. Furs secured, hides of moose and caribou, are brought to the traders and eX- changed for food and clothing, but sell dom for money. out of these hides they also make moccasins. gloves, init . Items and other 'curios which they trade in the same way. The fish caught in | the summer are dried and used for food for themselves and their dogs dur ing the winter.
 "The Indians have no knowledge of their tribal or clan names and are all ways called by their village or locality name The Indians in the vicinity of 1 Chandlar river are called "Chandlar Indians The same is true of the Che ma, Salcha, Panama, Mansfield Circle, tribes, etc. The missionaries and the bureau of educations have determined, however, that all of the Indians in the interior of Alaska are Athabascan-
 KnaiokohOtana, with the exception of those in the Koyakuk district, which are Athabascan Koyakhotana."