Evening star., 1931-06-25
MUMM|ES FOUND
IN ALASKAN CAVE
Chambers and Ford Report
Discovery, Giving Clue to
Early AIeut Tribes.
BY THOMAS R. HENRY.

Discovery of cave full Of mummies
on an uninhabited island in Berlng Sea
has lust been reported to the Smith
sonian Institution by Moreau B. Cham
bers and James A. Ford, members OF
the National Museums archaeological
expedition to Alaska this Summer.
The mummleS had been desecrated.
the EMPLOYERS report, so the bones were
scattered over the cave floor in con-
fusion. The cave was a prehistoric
burial place of the Aleuts, who now have
practically disappeared as pure race.
Aleut remains, according to Henry B.
Collins. assistant curator of ethnology
at the National Museum, now are very
rare.
Only Evidence of Man.
The mummy cave was found on Wis.
low Island, off the northern coast OF
Unalaska, 1t was the only evidence
that the lonely little island ever had
been occupied by man. On the Un-
alaskan coast nearby the explorers
found evidences of prehistoric Aleut
village site, of which the cave prob
ably was the cemetery. The island
seldom has been visited and is almost
inaccessible. There have been rumors
of the mummy cave for some time, but
Mr.. Collins was unable to reach the
lSlanQ Wneu 1le fLSAIeo OAoAoSN0 A0'NV
year.
Besides the desecrated mummies,
Chambers and Ford found fragments OF
cloSely-WoVen fabric, coarse mating,
parts of the frame of boat and other
artifactS which, with the bones, Will be
brought to washington. The bones,
they informed Mr.. Collins, were in good
condition, with dried flesh and liga-
mentS on some of them.
Distinctive Trait Found.
The Aleut art of mummification. Mr..
Collins says, was a distinctive cultural
trait. It consisted of stufhng body
with dried grass, fexing the limbs and
binding all closely together in a coarse
sack. Several good examples are now
at the National Museum, but these were
collected years ago, and 1t was thought
the last of the caves had been found.
The mummy caves, Collins says, ap-
pear to have been looted when Unalaska
island was a center of the Alaskan gold
rush. Adventures sought whatever
treasures might have been buried with
the skeletons. Only those caves in in
accessible places remained intact.
other mummieS have been found In re-
cent years in great log vaults placed
on the surface. These through the CEN
they were invisible and thus were saved
from the looters.
Chambers and Ford, according to
their letter to Collins, were able to
spend only few hours on the island
because of the difficulty of getting of
again. After returning to Unalaska
the expedition split up. Chambers pro-
ceeded to st. Lawrence Island, where
he will excavate a village site in search
of the trails of the ancestors OF IN
Indians on their way to North Americb
from Siberia. Ford is on his way to
Point Barrow, the northernmost in
habited spot on the continent, where
he will direct excavations of prehls-
toric settlement.
While some archeologists believe the
Aleut mummies to be very ancient, Col
Inns says. all that can be said OF them
for certain is that they antedate the
discovery of Alaska by the Russians, In
the middle of the eighteenth century.
From that time on the disappearance
of the Aleut population was rapid, and
now the so-called Aleuts have SO much
Russian blood that it is very difficult
to find any one approaching the orig
inal type.