Anthropology of Southeastern Alaska— Laughlin 79 



the comparatively well studied Indian groups such as the 

 Tlingit, on the southern border of the Eskimo distribution, 

 there is no time depth, so that it is not possible to state what 

 traits have been borrowed by the Eskimos from the Tlingit or 

 by the Tlingit from the Eskimos. The great time depth of the 

 Aleutian culture and of other Eskimo cultures in Alaska sug- 

 gests that many ideas concerning the Indian origin of certain 

 traits will have to be revised or abandoned unless greater time 

 depth for the Indian cultures can be found. Fortunately there 

 are many native speakers and many old customs still practised, 

 especially in the more remote villages where the economy has 

 not been completely altered. A great deal can be accomplished 

 purely in descriptive anthropology which will lay the necessary 

 basis for more abstract analysis at a later date. 



To illustrate the nature and significance of the ethnological 

 problems which can be dealt with it is useful to examine the 

 attitudes toward the dead and the corresponding interest or 

 lack of interest in anatomy. Among many northern and eastern 

 Eskimos there is a fear of the dead and elaborate precautions 

 are taken in some places to prevent any dangerous association 

 with the deceased or their spirits. There is a notable change in 

 western Alaska, and in the Aleutians quite the opposite is the 

 case. Here, the dead were preserved by means of mummifica- 

 tion, were visited and used as a source of powerful charms. 

 Accompanying this is an incredible interest in and knowledge 

 concerning human anatomy. This development of mummifica- 

 tion was apparently an innovation of the Neo-Aleuts and did 

 not exist among the earlier Aleuts, as indicated by the geo- 

 graphical distribution of the trait and also by the statement of 

 an Attu informant that Attuans did not believe in mummies. 

 How far to the east and south the practice of mummification 

 was spread, with or without a corresponding study of anatomy, 

 is not known. The practice of mummification probably arose 

 from the use of many of the parts of the animals they killed for 

 fabricational purposes, and their dissection of sea-otters in 

 order to learn about the anatomy of humans, explaining this 

 kind of comparative anatomy by their belief that the sea-otters 



