562 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1941 



Alaskan Eskimo. Matches, the old-timers say, were held yearly be- 

 tween the Eskimo of northeastern Siberia and those of St. Lawrence 

 Island and the Kotzebue region. To this day, high on the hill at 

 Gamble (St. Lawrence Island), the Eskimo show burial places of 

 famed wrestlers. 



The tossing game was probably brought over by the Russians. 

 It consists of a girl or a boy, standing on a skin held outstretched 

 slackly some feet above the ground by strong young men, being 

 tossed up by a combined jerk that straightens the skin, dropping 

 down, being tossed up higher, and so on until the players tire. I 

 have seen a young woman thus tossed up, as high as 5 feet above the 

 skin, rising and descending time and again, as straight and stiff as a 

 doll. It is no mean sport and must call for no small ability on the part 

 of both the tossed and the tossers. 



A healthy Eskimo child is a happy and lovable creature and, 

 except for less boisterousness, nervousness, and self-consciousness, 

 is very much like our own average youngster. They are tractable, 

 malleable, and, though less demonstrative than ours, become genu- 

 inely attached to a good teacher. They are by no means stupid or 

 stolid, and as soon as the difficulties with language are overcome, 

 they progress very much as do white children. When the girls 

 marry, if fate gives them good husbands and spares them illness, 

 they keep their homes as clean and bright as could any of their 

 white sisters. 



When a child dies there is deep though undemonstrative mourning. 

 A small, sickly infant is not mourned for so much, but the loss of a 

 larger or stronger child is felt deeply. It will never be voluntarily 

 spoken of, and its name will never be mentioned. The loss is par- 

 ticularly felt when no more children can be had by the mother, and may 

 then be compensated for more or less by the adoption of an orphan. 



Tlie Eskimo population as a whole is happy, resourceful, and 

 virile, and everyone who truly knows them must wish them all pos- 

 sible good. May we be wise and just enough to save their children 

 from the many unnecessary deaths, and aid in every rational way 

 to restore and further develop this excellent strain of native people, 

 who are utterly American, and may yet be the saving element for 

 many parts of Alaska. 



