All of the people in the district about Capes Vancouver and Romanzof, and thence to the Yukon mouth, are of unusually light complexion. Some of the women have a pale, slightly yellowish color, with pink cheeks, differing but little in complexion from that of a sallow woman of Caucasian blood. This light complexion is so exceptionally striking that wherever they travel these people are readily distinguished from other Eskimo, and before I visited their territory I had learned to know them by their complexion whenever they came to St. Michael.
The people of the district just mentioned are all very short and squarely built. Inland from Cape Vancouver lies the flat marshy country about Big Lake, which is situated between the Kuskokwim and the Yukon. It is a well-populated district and its inhabitants differ from those near the coast at the capes referred to, in being taller, more slender, and having more squarely cut features. They also differ strikingly from any other Eskimo with whom I came in contact, except those on Kowak River, in having the bridge of the nose well developed and at times sufficiently prominent to suggest the aquiline nose of our southern Indian tribes.
The Eskimo of the Diomede Islands in Bering Strait, as well as those of East Cape and Mechigme and Plover Bays on the Siberian coast, and of St. Lawrence Island are tall, strongly built people and are generally similar in their physical features. These are characterized by the unusual heaviness of the lower part of the face due to the very square and massive lower jaw, which, combined with broad, high cheek bones and flattened nose, produces a wide, flat face. These features are frequently accompanied with a low retreating forehead, producing a decidedly repulsive physiognomy. The bridge of the nose is so low and the cheek bones so heavy that a profile view will frequently show only the tip of the person's nose, the eyes and upper portion of the nose being completely hidden by the prominent outline of the cheek. Their eyes are less oblique than is common among the people living southward from the Yukon mouth. Among the people at the northwestern end of St. Lawrence Island there is a greater range of physiognomy than was noted at any other of the Asiatic localities.
The Point Hope people on the American coast have heavy jaws and well-developed superciliary ridges. At Point Barrow the men are remarkable for the irregularity of their features, amounting to a positive degree of ugliness, which is increased and rendered specially prominent by the expression produced by the short, tightly drawn upper lip, the projecting lower lip, and the small beady eyes. The women and children of this place are in curious contrast, having rather pleasant features of the usual type.
The Eskimo from Upper Kowak and Noatak Rivers who were met at the summer camp on Hotham Inlet are notable for the fact that a considerable number of them have hook noses and nearly all have a cast of countenance very similar to that of the Yukon Tienné. They are a larger and more robustly built people than these Indians, however, and speak the Eskimo language. They wear labrets, practice the tonsure, and claim to be Eskimo. * * * Among them was seen one man having a mop of coarse curly hair, almost negroid in character. The same feature was observed in a number of men and women on the Siberian coast between East Cape and Plover Bay. This latter is undoubtedly the result of the Chukchi-Eskimo mixture, and in the case of the man seen at Hotham Inlet the same result had been brought about by the Eskimo-Indian combination. Among the Eskimo south of Bering Strait on the American coast not a single instance of this kind was observed. The age of the individuals having this curly hair renders it quite improbable that it came from an admixture of blood with foreign voyagers, since some of them must have been born at a time when vessels were extremely rare along these shores. As a further argument against this curly hair having come from white men, I may add that I saw no trace of it among a number of people having partly Caucasian blood. As a general thing, the Eskimo of the region described, have small hands and feet and the features are oval in outline, rather flat and with slightly oblique eyes.
Children and young girls have round faces and often are very pleasant and attractive in feature, the angular race characteristics becoming prominent after the individuals approach manhood. The women age rapidly, and only a very small proportion of the people live to an advanced age.
The Malemut and the people of Kaviak Peninsula, including those of the islands in Bering Strait are tall, active, and remarkably well built. Among them it is common to see men from 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall and of proportionate build. I should judge the average among them to be nearly or quite equal in height to the whites.
Among the coast Eskimos, as a rule, the legs are short and poorly developed, while the body is long with disproportionately developed dorsal and lumbar muscles, due to so much of their life being passed in the kaiak.
The Eskimo of the Big Lake district, south of the Yukon, and from the Kaviak Peninsula, as well as the Malemut about the head of Kotzebue Sound, are on the contrary very finely proportioned and athletic men who can not be equaled among the Indians of the Yukon region. * * * There were a number of half-blood children among the Eskimo, resulting from the intercourse with people from vessels and others, who generally show their Caucasian blood by large, finely shaped, and often remarkably beautiful brown eyes. The number of these mixed bloods was not very great.
1905, Jackson:[92]