1890, Kelly:[90]
Personal appearance.—There are three types observable among the Arctic Eskimos of Alaska. The tall, cadaverous natives of Kangoot, Seelawik, Koovuk, and Kikiktowruk, on Kotzebue Sound, who live on fish, ptarmigans, and marmots. They always have a hungry look and habitually wear a grin of fiendish glee at having circumvented an adverse fate. There is a tendency among these people to migrate north.
Then there is the tall, strongly knit type of the Nooatoks, a gigantic race, of a splendid physique that would be remarkable in any part of the world.
Rugged as the mountains among which they live, vigorous and courageous, they stop at nothing but the impossible to accomplish a desired end. Their food supply is the reindeer, mountain sheep, ptarmigans, and fish. There are many of the coast natives of this type, but they lack the healthy glow and the indomitable will of the Nooatoks.
The third type is the short, stumpy one, probably that of the old Eskimo before the admixture with southern tribes, now found on the Arctic coast. * * *
The Eskimos have coarse, black hair, some with a tinge of brown. Many of the coast people of both sexes are bald from scrofulous eruptions. Males have the crown of the head closely cropped, so that reindeer may not see the waving locks when the hunter creeps behind bunch grass. They have black eyes and high cheek bones. The bones of the face are better protected from the severity of the climate by a thicker covering of flesh than southern races.
Among the coast people the nose is broad and flat, with very little or no ridge between the eyes. The adult males have short mustaches, and some of the elder ones—more noticeable in the interior—have rough, scraggy beards. Generally their beard is very scant, and most of them devote otherwise idle hours to pulling out the hairs.
1900, Nelson:[91]
The Eskimo from Bering Strait to the lower Yukon are fairly well-built people, averaging among the men about 5 feet 2 or 3 inches in height. The Yukon Eskimo and those living southward from that river to the Kuskokwim are, as a rule, shorter and more squarely built. The Kuskokwim people are darker of complexion than those to the northward, and have rounder features. The men commonly have a considerable growth of hair on their faces, becoming at times a thin beard 2 or 3 inches in length, with a well-developed mustache. No such development of beard was seen elsewhere in the territory visited.
The people in the coast region between the mouths of the Kuskokwim and the Yukon have peculiarly high cheek bones and sharp chins, which unite to give their faces a curiously pointed, triangular appearance. At the village of Kaialigamut I was impressed by the strong development of the superciliary ridge. From a point almost directly over the pupil of the eye and extending thence inward to the median line of the forehead is a strong bony ridge causing the brow to stand out sharply. From the outer edge of this the skull appears as though beveled away to the ears, giving the temporal area a considerable enlargement beyond that usually shown. This curious development of the skull is rendered still more striking by the fact that the bridge of the nose is low, as usual among these people, so that the shelf-like projection of the brow stands out in strong relief. It is most strongly marked among the men and appears to be characteristic at this place. Elsewhere in this district it was noted only rarely here and there.