FOOTNOTES:
[23] See also Petrof (Ivan), Tenth Census Rep., Wash., 1880, VIII, 37; but his transliteration of names is not always correct.
[24] This doubtless included many subadults.
[25] 31 per cent, or 1 in 3.2.
PRESENT CONDITIONS
To-day, judging from all the obtained evidence, which comprised information, the witnessing of a potlatch at Tanana at which were assembled practically all the Indians above Nulato, and a visit below the Tanana of nearly all the villages where the Indians still live, the total number of the Tinneh on the lower Tanana (from Fairbanks to the mouth of the river) and on the Yukon from Tanana to Anvik, can scarcely be estimated to reach 1,000. It is probably well below that number. Moreover, not one-half of the adults and much fewer among the young are still full bloods. Disease, bad liquor (Yukon), and mostly as yet imperfect accommodation to changing conditions are steadily diminishing the numbers. Since our visit many have died from influenza, especially at Anvik. Their future is not hopeful. On the Tanana, however, and with the more educated in general, conditions are better, and much good is being done by the four missions on the two rivers (Nenana, Tanana, Anvik, and Holy Cross).
The old Indian settlements along the Yukon are gone, with a few exceptions. On some of the sites, as at Tanana, Nulato, Kaltag, etc., there are new villages bearing the old names but built by or in imitation of whites and sheltering a mixed population. The very names of not a few of the older Indian sites have gone into oblivion; or the natives call those they still know by a corruption of a white man's name, such as "Ulstissen" (for Old Station). Anvik alone has kept its original site and some of its old character, the mission and the white trader being across the river.
In the Eskimo part of the Yukon, below Holy Cross, conditions on the whole appear to be somewhat better. There has also been a diminution in population. The majority of the old villages have ceased to exist, while under the influence of whites some new settlements or names have appeared. Yet there are respectable remnants of the Eskimo, and, being better workers than the Indian and seemingly more coherent, they manage to sustain themselves somewhat better than he does. Their greatest handicap is disease. The beneficial effect among them of the old Russian Mission has declined, but there are a number of Government schools which have a good influence. They are more tractable, sensible, and in some respects perhaps more able than the Indians.
But there exists to-day no clear-cut demarcation, geographical, cultural, or even physical, between the two people. Anvik, the last Indian village downstream, is in every respect at least as much Eskimo as Indian; more or less Eskimo-like physiognomies are seen again and again among the Indians; and Indianlike features are common among the Eskimo. There has either been an old and considerable admixture on both sides, or there are some fundamental similarities of the two groups; perhaps both.