30 ' ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



should not. But it is exceedingly fortunate that they do sustian 

 themselves so as to be, as it were, a jirosperous corporate factor, enti- 

 tled to the exclusive privilege of labor on these islands. As an encour- 

 agement for their good behavior the Alaska C^ommercial Company, in 

 pursuance of its enlightened treatment of the whole subject, so liand- 

 somelj^ exhibited by its housing of these people, has assured them 

 that so long as they are caj)able and willing to perform the labor of 

 skinning the seal catch every year, so long will they enjoy the sole 

 privilege of participating in that toil and its reward. This is wise 

 on the part of the company, and it is exceedingly happy for the peo- 

 ple. They are, of all men, especially fitted for the work connected 

 with the seal business — no comment is needed — nothing better in the 

 way of manual labor, skilled and rapid, could be rendered by any 

 body of men, equal in numbers, living under the same circumstances, 

 all the year round. They appear to shake off the j)eriodic lethargy 

 of winter and its forced inanition, to rush with the coming of summer 

 into the severe exercise and duty of capturing, killing, and skinning 

 the seals, with vigor and with persistent and commendable energy. 



To-day only a very small proportion of the population are descend- 

 ants of the pioneers who were brought here bj^ the several Russian 

 companies in 1787 and 1788; a colony of 137 souls, it is claimed, prin- 

 cipally recruited at Unalaska and Atkha. I have placed in the appen- 

 dix, together with other scattered notes, a list of these people who were 

 living on St. Paul Island in August, 1873; also showing at the same 

 time those who were living there in 1870. It is a simple record, per- 

 haps of no interest to anybody except those who are intimately asso- 

 ciated with the islands. (See note, 39, F.) 



Origin and traits of the Aleuts. — The question as to the deriva- 

 tion of these natives is a still mooted one among ethnologists, for in 

 all points of personal bearing, intelligence, character, as well as phys- 

 ical structure, they seem to form a perfect link of gradation between 

 the Japanese and Eskimos, although their traditions and their lan- 

 guage are entirely distinct and peculiar to themselves. Not one word 

 or numeral of their nomenclature resembles the dialect of either. They 

 claim, however, to have come first to the Aleutian Islands from a "big 

 land to the westward," and that when they came there first they found 

 the land uninhabited, and that they did not meet with any people, 

 until their ancestors had pushed on to the eastward as far as the 

 l^eninsula and Kadiak. Confirmatory of this legend, or rather liighly 

 suggestive of it, is the fact that repeated instances have occurred 

 within our day where Japanese junks have been, in the stress of hur- 

 ricanes and typhoons, dismantled, and have drifted clear over and on 

 to the reefs and coasts of the Aleutian Islands. Only a short time 

 ago, in the summer of 1871, such a craft was so stranded, helpless and 

 at the mercy of the sea, upon the rocky coast of Adak Island, in this 

 chain. The few surviving sailors, Japanese, five in number, were, I 

 remember, rescued by a i)arty of Aleutian sea-otter hunters, who took 

 care of them until the vessel of a trader carried them back, by way of 

 Unalaska, to San Francisco, and from thence the}^ returned to their 

 native land. 



The Aleuts on the islands, as they appear to-day, have been so mixed 

 up with Russian, Koloshian, and Kamschadale blood, that they present 

 characteristics, in one way or another, of all the various races of men, 

 from the negro up to the Caucasian. Tlie predominant features among 

 them are small, wide-set eyes, broad and high cheek bones, causing the 

 jaw, which is full and square, to often ajjpear peaked; coarse, straight, 



