The Cordova daily times., 1916-01-29
NATIVE CUSTOMS IMPROVED BY
 TEACHER

Far. far away, on tine beak shores of Bristol Bay, in the Boring Sea re- zion of Alaska, a Tacoma woman, Mrs. Corinne Call, has made as bright a name and as big a place for herself as any woman who has come to Alas ka in the last decade.
 Mrs. Call is the teacher of the government school at Choggiung. She
 is also in a quiet and unobtrusive way and spiritual uplift, and when she got to Choggiung she found herself in a typical Eskimo village, where her modern methods of teaching immedi- ately clashed sharply with customs as old as the Eskimo people.
 The first of these clashes arose over the custom of kissing the dead, There was a death in the village and straight-way all the natives assem- Died, and filing into the house of the deceased. one by one, kissed the corpse. Then, in accordance with the native custom, the body was kept in a warm, pleasant room of the house for nearly a week Then the funeral took place, and the principal cere- mony at the funeral was another neighborhood kissing of the corpse. Likely there is not a more innately polite, kindly and cheerful people on the face of the earth than the Eski- mos, but as this custom of kissing the dead is of a religious origin and deep ly rooted. Mrs. Call, who was shocked and mortified at such an exhibition as we'll as alive to the danger of in- lection with disease, took up ;he matter of it's eradication with the greatest caution. Finally. by persua- sion and through talking the matter over with their priests, she succeeded in getting them to bow to the dead instead of kissing them.
 The custom of marrying off the Eskimo girls at a very tender age was the next thing attacked by Mrs. Call. She found that Eskimo girls were married as young as nine years, to mature men. It was the very rare exception to find a girl unmarried at fourteen or fifteen years of age. One woman, but twenty-seven years of age, who had married when but twelve years of age, had given birth to twelve children, six of whom had died. Mrs, Call began a crusade against this child marriage. She succeeded in stopping different we'd dings, going to the priest who per formed the ceremonies and securing his cooperation. Once in while rather ludicrous and sometimes dra- matic incidents took place. A month ago an Eskimo sued for the hand of fourteen year old girl. Her rela- tives agreed but the girl did not want to marry the man. Mrs. Call Loyalty stood by the girl, who sought protec- tion with her. The girls sister came after her. Rushing into Mrs. Calls home and grabbing the child by the arm she started pulling her out of the house. Mrs. Call caught the child by the other arm and for a few minutes the little girl was the central at traction in a tug of war contest. Then Mrs. Calls staying qualities and muscle won the day, and getting pos session of the child she rushed her upstairs and locked her in the attic. Later the child's relatives consented to the child herself deciding the issue. The little girl very promptly decided not to marry, and is still living in single blessedness.
 One of the big drawbacks to the progress of the school was the native dances. These dances take place sev- eral times during a school term and last all the way from two to four weeks. Before Mrs. Calls time the natives took their children out of school during the dance period, which practically broke up the school until the dance was over. For the first time in the history of the Bristol Bay region the Eskimos are this winter emitting the native dances, and month in and month out the school is running smoothly along with it's full quota of