July 26. Up at 5.40, breakfast 6, and off in one of our staunch motor boats, with Jenness, for the Little Diomede. Countless birds flying in streams about the island.
The island is just a big rock, with barren flat top and steep sides, covered where inclination permits with great numbers of larger and smaller granite bowlders. There is neither tree nor brush here. The village, if it deserves that name, with a school, occupies an easier slope, facing the larger island across a strait seemingly about a mile broad. There are but a few dwellings, due to local necessities and conditions built above ground and outside of stone. One that was entered showed a dark fore-room, a storage attic, and a cozy somewhat lighted living and sleeping back room, entered through a low and narrow entrance. The houses seem to be built on old débris of habitations, and there are refuse heaps, one of which was eventually worked in by Doctor Jenness, though without much profit.
The bowlder-covered slope above the village was the burial ground of the natives. (Pl. 5, b.) Unfortunately most of the skeletal remains have been collected by a former teacher and then left and lost. With Doctor Jenness and the present teacher, himself an Eskimo, we climb from bowlder to bowlder and collect what remains. The work is both risky to the limbs and difficult in other respects. The large bowlders are piled up many deep; and there being little or no soil, there are all sorts of holes and crevices between and underneath the stones. Deep in these crevices, completely out of sight or reach, nest innumerable birds (the little auk), and their chatter is heard everywhere. But into these impenetrable crevices also have fallen many of the bones and skulls of the bodies that have been "buried" among the bowlders, and also doubtless many of the smaller articles laid by the bodies.
The burials here were made in any suitable space among the rocks. The body was laid in this space, without any coffin and evidently not much clothing. About it and on the rocks above were placed various articles. We found clay lamps, remnants of various wooden objects, the bone end pieces of lances, and finally one or two pieces of driftwood to mark the place. Here the bodies decayed and what was left had either tumbled or was washed by rain into the crevices. It was suggested, however, that much may have been taken by dogs and foxes. Some of the skulls and here and there one of the larger bones remained, to eventually be covered by moss and eroded. With the help of Doctor Jenness and the teacher I was able to find five male and seven female crania in fair condition, which will be of much value in the study of this interesting contingent of the Eskimo.
No evidence in the graveyard among the rocks of any great antiquity, nothing more than perhaps a few scores of years. But traces of older burials would surely be completely lost among the rocks, though they may lie in the deep crevices and holes where they can not be reached.
Upon return am treated to a cup of good hot coffee—never can get a real hot cup of coffee on the boat—and excellent bread, made by the Eskimo wife of the teacher; and see his family of fine chubby children. Can not help but kiss his girl of about 10—she is so fresh and innocent and pretty. Obtain also from the wife of the teacher a good old hafted "jade" ax, though she hesitates much to part with it—it used to belong to her grandmother; and from the teacher himself a number of interesting articles in old ivory. Leave Doctor Jenness. Have learned to like him much, both for his careful work and personally, in our short association; and at 11 a. m. return to the boat.
Cold, but calm and sunny. Sit on boxes at the very end of the good old Bear. See Asia, the two Diomedes, and Seward Peninsula, all in easy reach, all like so many features of a big lake. Pass around Greater Diomede.
There never could have been any large settlement on the Diomede Islands—they are not fit for it. The Great Diomede has just two mediocre sites, which are occupied now each by about half a dozen dwellings. A small old settlement, a few stone houses, has also once existed, I am told, on the elevated top of the larger island opposite the Little Diomede. On the latter only the one visited—everywhere else the steep slopes or walls come right down into the water, and there is even no landing possible (or only a precarious one at best) except where we landed. The old natives of the Little Diomede are said to have believed that another village had once existed farther out from the present site and that it has become submerged. The evidence cited (told by the native teacher) is not conclusive, and no indication of such a settlement could be seen from the beach. But in front and possibly beneath the native houses, in the old refuse, there may be remnants of older dwellings.
Just passed from Monday to Tuesday, and then back to Monday, all in a few hours—the day boundary. We are now just north of the Bering Strait and see all beautifully, in moderate bluish haze.
A grand panorama of utmost anthropological interest. A big lake, scene of one of the main migrational episodes of mankind. Sea just wrinkling some, day calm, mostly sunny, mildly pleasant, with an undertone of cold.