Evening star., 1917-03-11


ST. MICHAEL, Alaska.
F1HE Indians of Alaska are fast
losis and others of the evils
I. brought in by the/white man,
have decimated them and they grow
fewer and fewer. They are changing
their customs, and, ethnologically
speaking. within a short time they will
be little more than a memory. 1 have
already written of the natives of the
Yukon valley, and later 1 shall de-
scribe the Eskimos who live on Seward
peninsula and along the shores of the
Arctic ocean and Bering sea. 1 shall
also visit the Aleuts who inhabit the
long chain of islands that reaches from
the end of the Alaskan peninsula al
most to Asia. This letter deals with
the Indians of southeastern Alaska and
those that skirt the coast as far north
as the terminus of our new railroad at
Seward. 1t has to do with the Totem
Indians, and more especially with the
Thlingets, who are far different from the
Indians of the United States proper
and, indeed, from any others on our
western hemisphere.
The Indians of Alaska look far more
like the Chinese and Japanese than
like the red men farther south. They
nave SSiiO"iSH VI liSHl UToWH
ions. Their eyes are a trifie slanting,
and their cheekboneS are high
those Of the Mongols. or the inhabit-
ants of Tibet. When dressed in Euro
pean clothes it is difficult to tell them
from the Japanese who come north to
work in the fish canneries. and it is
question whether they did not orig
inally come from Asia, crossing from
Aleutian Islands and gradually making
their way to the Alexander archipel-
ago. which they largely inhabit.
Bering strait is only fifty or sixty
miles wide. and there are two islands
in the midst of it. SO that it would be
easy for the Chukchi and other Mon
golian tribes to cross over from Asia
to the mainland of this continent; and
it may be that the Thlingets made their
first migration that way. There is no
doubt that they have many of the traits
OF the Mongols. and in some ways they
are like the Japanese. They are great
imitators. skilled in carving, and nat
urally bright and quick witted. Some
of their customs are the same as those
that prevailed in Japan before it adopt
ed the western civilization; and it is
not hard to ina gine that these customs
may have come down from their Mon
golian ancestors. For instance, when
uISl VlSlleu Jdpdil, now almost thlrty
years ago. every widow shaved her
head as smooth as billiard ball in
order to show that she was mourning
for her husband. She also stained her
unattractive. The widows of the
Thlingets shaved their heads the same
way until the missionaries taught them
better. and they even painted their
The black used was a water color, and
if this were streaked with tears it was
a sign of emotion and brought the
widow respect through her grief for
her dead husband.
Cremation is common in Japan. It
was for years common in Alaska. Many
of these Indians burned their dead, and
they had hollow poles in which they
tribes took the ashes and pieces of
bones that were left and put them in
a sack. which was kept in the family
dead house, the bones of each indi-
others by the colors of the sacks.
The Chinese will undergo any priya-
tion to have good funeral. The
Alaskan Indians do likewise. They take
from their friends to spend upon the
funeral of a relative. They put his
favorite possessions on the grave, and
clothing and bedding alongside the
give great feast in honor of the de-
ceased, and the food they eat is sun
posed to nourish the spirit of the dear
departed as it goes to the other world
They differ from the Chinese in that
they seldom bury the dead in mounds.
In southeastern Alaska 1t rains SO
much that the ground is always wet
and the people put up as vaults little
houses of wood set upon poles. The
soil of many of the islands is too shall
low for graves, and a cemetery may
consist of scores of such little houses.
each not larger than a dog kennel
Burial vaults Of this kind are to be
found in the interior. ! saw many of
them on my way down the Yukon, In
some cases they covered the top of a
hill. The houses were painted in all ,
the colors of the rainbow, and some
had rude crosses of wood or of iron
pipes. screwed together. rising above
them. Practically all of the Indians
are now Christians, but their old su-
perstitions are mixed with their new {
tell where one ends and the other be-
gins. At Fort Yukon l Photographed I
a cemetery not far from the mission {