The Cordova daily times., 1919-04-09
ESKIMOS ADOPT
 CHILDREN OF FLU VICTIMS

The cry of distress travels fast in the land of the igloo and the aurora in the land from Cape Prince of Wales on the north to Nome, St. Michael and Point ,Dall, on the south, where between two hundred and two hun dred and fifty Eskimo children have been left orphans by the recent i'm fluenza epidemic.
 be long without homes. So willing are the Northern Eskimos of the Ko- bulk river district to adopt these child ren that many have volunteered to come at once for them through biting winds and across some 200 or 25O miles of snow, rather than wait the opening of navigation, when each little Eskimo can be delivered right at the door by government agents.
 Not only that, but the old Eskimo mothers, and fathers, too, for that matter, have been planning for weeks on the number of orphans they can take care of, and long list has been forwarded from Noorvik, on the Ko- bulk river, to w. T. Lopp, chief of the Alaskan bureau of education, with of fees in the L. c. Smith building, Se- attle. Noorvik asks for 121 orphans, seventy boys and fifty-one girls.
 "The Eskimos are very fond of children and the adopting or orphans has been practice among them for twenty years," said MT. Lopp. "As a rule they do not have large families. They believe that it is not well for a couple to be without children in their old age. n for, as rule, as their own children and they grow up with the same family ties as the others.
 t'The Eskimos probably are the kindest to children of any race. Cor poral punishment is seldom used and in the better types of families the children are respectful and obedient.
 "The family work is well organized. The children do their part, not as drudgery or task, but willingly. The women are not the drudges that many Of the Indian women are. They have their portion of outdoor work which gets them out of the confinement of the house. The Eskimo wife is the real partner of the husband and holds the same position in the family as a white woman.
 Tn the more northern tribes the women skin the seals The men come in exhausted after hard days work on the ice and the seals are turned over to the women."
 The plan to establish orphanages at Nome and various points has been suggested by white residents of Nome, but does not meet with general ap- proval.
 What we want is to make better Eskimos and not children who, when they are grown, will not be fitted by training for the community in which they will have to live" continued MT. Lopp. "The adoption of children by the Eskimos will assure them of home life to which they are accustomed, while in the orphanages they would re- ceive training under semi-military conditions. The change of teachers would make it impossible for the same affection to exist in orphanages as in the homes" N
 Change in Mode of Living
 To the children of Nome, life on the Kobuk river will be wonderful change It will be transition from wind-swept, barren beaches to a wooded section, filled with berries in the summer, bountiful with salmon, reindeer and other foods with which the Eskimos are familiar. It will be change from the canned foods of the white man to dishes prepared in true Eskimo style.
 The mode of living in the north will be different. The Eskimos of Nome live in modified igloos, poorly venti- lated and in every way about as poor aR excuse for house as could be in- vented
 The Eskimos on the Kobuk river live in the ordinary log cabin of the trapper or pioneer in the early days of the West.
 As an example of the adopted Els kimo. Dr. Lopp cites Split-the-W Wind, !. winner of the marathon at Nome and member of the stefansson expedt- ton, who was born on Kotzebue sound and was adopted by an Eskimo family at Cape Prince of Wales. On being paid of at Nome on the return of the Stefansson expedition 6plitthe-Wind