2 CAVE BELICS OF THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS. 



believe, however, that a certain amount of inter-tribal commerce always existed 

 between them. After the advent of the Russians, hostilities were put a stop to ; 

 the extensive transportation of both Aleiits and Kaniag'muts from place to place 

 within the territory previously divided between them, and the elFects of civiliza- 

 tion on both, have done much to efface early differences, except those of language. 



We ai-e obliged to follow general usage in applying the name Aleiit* (pro- 

 nounced Aly-oot') to the tribes inhabiting the region west of the Kaniag-'miits ; 

 although it is a word foreign to their language, and of uncertain origin. It was 

 applied to them by the early Russian explorers, and is perhaps an opprobrious 

 epithet from some one of the Eastern Siberian dialects. Their own name for 

 themselves appears to be Uniing-'un, but they often follow the Russians in 

 styling themselves Aleuts, while asserting that it is not their original name. 

 While the comparison of even a limited number of elementary words from their 

 vocabulary shows unmistakable evidences of their Eskimo derivation, yet, in 

 construction, prefixes and suffixes, and in the majority of ordinary words in their 

 language, they differ in a very marked manner from their neighbors and nearest 

 relations, the Kaniag-'miits. The Aleutian language is much richer, and they 

 count from one to one hundred thousand by the decimal system, while the 

 Kaniag-'miits reach their limit of numbers at one or two hundred, using five as a 

 basis. 



The evidences of the shell heaps are conclusive as to the identity Avith the con- 

 tinental Eskimo of the early inhabitants of the islands, as far as implements and 

 weapons go ; but their insular habitat, and the changed fauna and climatic con- 

 ditions under which they existed, gradually modified their habits, and their 

 manufactures, of every kind. With these changes, it is probable, the language 

 changed. 



Their physiognomy differs somewhat from that of the typical Eskimo, though 

 individuals are often seen Avho could not be distinguished from ordinary Innuit, 

 in a crowd of the latter. It is probable that the climate, and almost uninter- 

 rupted canoe-life, may have much to do with this, and there is no impossibility 

 in the Jiyiiothesis that occasional shipwrecked Japanese may have contributed to 

 modify the Aleutian physique ; though leaving no traces of their language or 



* In a volume entitled Memoires et Obs. Geographiques, etc., by Samuel Engel, (Lausanne, 1765, 4to,) and con- 

 taining little else of value, I find some notes, which may perhaps afibrd a clue to the deriviation of this much 

 disputed word " Aleut." He gives an extract of a letter from St. Petersburg, which appeared in the Gazette de 

 Leydcn, February 26, 17G5, in which it is stated that the Russian fur traders, east of Asia, had discovered 

 inhabited islands in G4° N. Lat. which they called Aleyui. He calls attention to the statement of Muller, to the 

 effect that the people of the Diomedes Islands were called by the Chukchi "Achjuch-Aliat," and the adjacent 

 coast of America " Kitchin-Aeliat," and suggests that Aliat, or Aeliat, and Aleyut are identical terms. The 

 Chukchi word for island is known to be i'lu-a or co-lu-a; " kit-chin " meaning great or extensive ; hence it would 

 seem as if the Kussians, after forcing their way into Kamchatka, subsequently to their ho.:tilities with the 

 Chukchi, brought with them as a proper name the general Chukchi term for island, and subsequently applied it to 

 the Aleutian Chain and its inhabitants when they were discovered. Much the same has happened to the Aleut 

 word- for continent, now corrupted into Alaska. 



