ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 333 



THE GREEK CHURCH ON THE ISLANDS. 



The church regulations promote immorality. — The rules of the Greek 

 Church permit marriage only wheu the coutracting parties are beyond 

 the fourth degree of coiisaiiguiuity. Foster and church relationships 

 are also deemed a bar to matrimony, No woman can marry more than 

 three times, with the result that serious injury is inflicted on the morality 

 of the youth of the village by these widows. 



Not only do such rules exist, but the question of relationship is decided 

 often by the memory of a church elder, and in case of any uncertainty 

 marriage is withheld. Further than this, the interpretation of the 

 church rules rests with a priest whose mental status is indicated by the 

 fact that when called upon last summer to marry a couple he declined, 

 in an official communication, to do so because the contracting parties 

 each had cousins (not related by blood to each other) who had married. 

 The result of this is that the natural affections have their way, and 

 among a people devoid of chastity seduction is not looked upon as a 

 crime, and illegitimacy, with all its attendant evils, is not only frequent, 

 but bears no stigma. 



Their spiritual adviser morally incompetent. — The spiritual welfare of 

 the natives of St. Paul is presided over now by a priest whose moral 

 sense is so dwarfed by church regulations and his own personal habits 

 that when called upon to marry a couple who were living together as 

 man and wife, with oflspring as a result, declined to do so on the ground 

 that relationship of the fourth degree existed. Wheu asked which he 

 l)referred to do, to follow the dictates of the church or stand on the 

 side of good morality by removing the scandal, he chose the former. 



The result. — These are not abnormal cases, but of frequent occurrence, 

 and just how long the Government is justified in permitting this state 

 of attairs to continue is a serious question. Its effect upon such an 

 i.^olated people, who from earliest aboriginal times have been notori- 

 ously licentious, is most disastrous. Its result is shown in the instance 

 of a couple who were found living in a state of fornication and were 

 called upon to marry. They frankly stated they preferred the present 

 arrangement. In the face of the indifference of the church and such a 

 total lack of moral consciousness on the part of many of the natives, 

 the Government officials find themselves powerless. 



The condition of affairs existing on the Pribilof Islands to-day in 

 respect to immorality is a disgrace to the Government of the United 

 States, and the church officials on the island stand squarely in the way 

 of repeated attempts on the part of Government officials during the 

 last three years to remedy the evils. • 



For over twenty years the Government has maintained an English 

 school upon the islands, and yet not ten natives on both of them can 

 make themselves even fairly well understood in English, nor has any 

 appreciable advance been made in the direction of American citizen- 

 shii). While outwardly the natives appear civilized, they are still so 

 densely ignorant that, despite their association with Americans for 

 twenty-five years, and the continuous presence of a physician on the 

 islands during that time, they still often refuse medicine, continue to 

 "tie up" a pain by a constricting cord, and permit no accouchment 

 without the presence of the village midwife — a totally blind old woman. 



Surely tlie will of the Government should be freely exerted for the 

 good of these people, and an imperative demand for an improvement 

 in morals can not justly be construed as an interference with religious 

 liberty. 



