Looking at them ethnographically, we find two principal groups or races,—the first scientifically known as Esquimaux, and the second as Indians. By another nomenclature, having the sanction of authority and usage, they are divided into Esquimaux, Aleutians, Kenaians, and Koloschians, being four distinct groups. The Esquimaux and Aleutians are reported Mongolian in origin. According to doubtful theory, they passed from Asia to America by the succession of islands beginning on the coast of Japan and extending to Alaska, which for this purpose became a bridge between the two continents. The Kenaians and Koloschians are Indians, belonging to known American races. So that these four groups are ethnographically resolved into two, and the two are resolved popularly into one.
There are general influences more or less applicable to all these races. The climate is peculiar, and the natural features of the country are commanding. Cool summers and mild winters are favorable to the huntsman and fisherman. Lofty mountains, volcanic forms, large rivers, numerous islands, and an extensive sea-coast constitute the great Book of Nature for all to read. None are dull. Generally they are quick, intelligent, and ingenious, excelling in the chase and in navigation, managing a boat as the rider his horse, until man and boat seem to be one. Some are very skilful with tools, and exhibit remarkable taste. The sea is bountiful, and the land has its supplies. From these they are satisfied. Better still, there is something in their nature which does not altogether reject the improvements of civilization. Unlike our Indians, they are willing to learn. By a strange superstition, which still continues, these races derive descent from different animals. Some are gentle and pacific; others are warlike. All, I fear, are slaveholders; some are cruel task-masters; others, in the interior, are reputed cannibals. But the country back from the sea-coast is still an undiscovered secret.
(1.) Looking at them in ethnographical groups, I begin with the Esquimaux, who popularly give the name to the whole. They number about 17,000, and stretch along the indented coast from its eastern limit on the Frozen Ocean to the mouth of the Copper River, in 60° north latitude, excluding the peninsula of Alaska, occupied by Aleutians, and the peninsula of Kenai, occupied by Kenaians. More powerful races, of Indian origin, following the courses of the great rivers northward and westward, have gradually crowded the Esquimaux from the interior, until they constitute a belt on the salt water, including the islands of the coast, and especially Kadiak. Their various dialects are traced to a common root, while the prevailing language betrays an affinity with the Esquimaux of Greenland, and the intervening country watered by the Mackenzie. They share the characteristics of that extensive family, which, besides spreading across the continent, occupies an extent of sea-coast greater than any other people of the globe, from which their simple navigation has sallied forth so as to give them the name of Phœnicians of the North. Words exclusively belonging to the Esquimaux are found in the dialects of other races completely strangers, as Phœnician sounds are observed in the Celtic speech of Ireland.
The most known of the Russian Esquimaux is the small tribe now remaining on the island of Kadiak, which from the beginning has been a centre of trade. Although by various intermixture they already approach the Indians of the coast, losing the Asiatic type, their speech remains a distinctive sign of race. They are Esquimaux, and I describe them in order to present an idea of this people.
The men are tall, with copper skins, small black eyes, flat faces, and teeth of dazzling whiteness. Once the women pierced the nostrils, the lower lip, and the ears, for ornaments; but now only the nostrils suffer. The aboriginal costume is still preserved, especially out of doors. Their food is mostly from the sea, without the roots or berries which the island supplies. The flesh and oil of the whale are a special luxury. The oil is drunk pure, or used to season other food. Accustomed to prolonged abstinence, they exhibit at times an appetite amounting to prodigy. In one night six men were able to devour the whole of a large bear. A strong drink made from the strawberry and myrtle, producing the effect of opium, has yielded to brandy. Sugar and tea are highly esteemed; but snuff is a delight. Lisiansky records that they would go out of the way twenty miles merely for a pinch.[72] They have tools of their own, which they use with skill. Their baidars, or canoes, are distinguished for completeness of finish and beauty of form. Unlike those of the Koloschians, lower down on the coast, which are hollowed from trunks of trees, they are of seal-skins stretched on frames, with a single aperture in the covering to receive the person of the master. The same skill appears in the carving of wood, whalebone, and walrus-ivory. Their general mode of life is said to be like that of other tribes on the coast. To all else they add knowledge of the healing art and passion for gaming.
Opposite Kadiak, on the main-land east, are the Tchugatchi, a kindred tribe, speaking the same language, but a different dialect. Northward is a succession of kindred tribes, differing in speech, and each with local peculiarities, but all are represented as kind, courteous, hospitable, and merry. It is a good sign, that merriment should prevail. Their tribal names are derived from a neighboring river, or some climatic circumstance. Thus, for instance, those on the mighty Kwichpak have the name of Kwichpakmutes, or “inhabitants of the great river.” Those on Bristol Bay are called by their cousins of Norton Sound Achkugmutes, or “inhabitants of the warm country”; and the same designation is applied to the Kadiaks. Warmth, like other things in this world, is comparative; and to an Esquimaux at 64° north latitude another five degrees further south is in a “warm country.” These northern tribes have been visited lately by our Telegraphic Exploring Expedition, which reports especially their geographical knowledge and good disposition. As the remains of Major Kennicott descended the Kwichpak, they were not without sympathy from the natives. Curiosity also had its part. At a village where the boat rested for the night, the chief announced that it was the first time white men had ever been seen there.
(2.) The Aleutians, sometimes called Western Esquimaux, number about 3,000. By a plain exaggeration, Knight, in his Cyclopædia of Geography, makes them 20,000. Their home is the archipelago of volcanic islands whose name they bear, and also a portion of the contiguous peninsula of Alaska. The well-defined type has already disappeared; but the national dress continues. This is a long shirt with tight sleeves, made from the skins of birds, either the sea-parrot or the diver. This dress, called the parka, is indispensable as clothing, blanket, and even as habitation, during a voyage, being a complete shelter against wind and cold. They, too, are fishermen and huntsmen; but they seem to excel as artificers. The instruments and utensils of the Oonalaskans have been noted for beauty. Their baidars were pronounced by Sauer “infinitely superior to those of any other island,”[73] and another navigator declares them “the best means yet discovered to go from place to place, either upon the deepest or the shallowest water, in the quickest, easiest, and safest manner possible.”[74] These illustrate their nature, which is finer than that of their neighbors. They are at home on the water, and excite admiration by the skill with which they manage their elegant craft, so that Admiral Lütke recognized them as Cossacks of the Sea.
Oonalaska is the principal of these islands, and from the time they were first visited seems to have excited a peculiar interest. Captain Cook painted it kindly; so have succeeding navigators. And here have lived the islanders who have given to navigators a new experience. Alluding especially to them, the reporter of Billings’s voyage says: “The capacity of the natives of these islands infinitely surpasses every idea that I had formed of the abilities of savages.”[75] There is another remark of this authority which shows how they had yielded, even in their favorite dress, to the demands of commerce. After saying that formerly they had worn garments of sea-otter, he pathetically adds, “but not since the Russians have had any intercourse with them.”[76] Poor islanders! Exchanging choice furs, once their daily wear, for meaner skins!
(3.) The Kenaians, numbering as many as 25,000, take their common name from the peninsula of Kenai, with Cook’s Inlet on the west and Prince William Sound on the east. Numerous beyond any other family in Russian America, they belong to a widespread and teeming Indian race, which occupies all the northern interior of the continent, stretching from Hudson’s Bay in the east to the Esquimaux in the west. This is the great nation called sometimes Athabascan, or, from the native name of the Rocky Mountains, on whose flanks they live, Chippewyan, but more properly designated as Tinneh, with branches in Southern Oregon and Northern California, and then again with other offshoots, known as the Apaches and Navajoes, in Arizona, New Mexico, and Chihuahua, thirty degrees of latitude from the parent stem. Of this extended race, the northwestern branch, known to travellers as Loucheux, and in their own tongue as Kutchin, after occupying the inner portion of Russian America on the Yukon and the Porcupine, reached the sea-coast at Cook’s Inlet, where they appear under the name of Kenaians. The latter are said to bear about the same relation, in language and intellectual development, to the entire group, as the islanders of Kadiak bear to the Esquimaux.
The Kenaians call themselves in their own dialect by yet another name, Thnainas, meaning Men; thus, by a somewhat boastful designation, asserting manhood. Their features and complexion associate them with the red men of America, as does their speech. The first to visit them was Cook, and he was struck by the largeness of their heads, which seemed to him disproportioned to the rest of the body. They were strong-chested also, with thick, short necks, spreading faces, eyes inclined to be small, white teeth, black hair, and thin beard,—their persons clean and decent, without grease or dirt. In dress they were thought to resemble the people of Greenland. Their boats had a similar affinity. But in these particulars they were not unlike the other races already described. They were clothed in skins of animals, with the fur outward, or sometimes in skins of birds, over which, for protection against rain, was a frock made from the intestines of the whale, “prepared so skilfully as almost to resemble our gold-beater leaf.”[77] Their boats were of seal-skin stretched on frames, and of different sizes. In one of these Cook counted twenty women and one man, besides children. At that time, though thievish in propensity, they were not unamiable. Shortly afterwards they were reported by Russian traders, who had much to do with them, as “good people,” who behaved “in the most friendly manner.”[78] I do not know that they have lost this character since.