146 H. P. STEENSBY. 
the invention of the latter is more obscure. The next point to be emphasized 
is that between the South Alaskan Eskimo on the one side and the North-west 
Indian Tlinkites on the other side there is no transition, but a sharp contrast. 
All judges of the Kadiaks have agreed in assuming that they came from the 
north. WRANGELL! advances their own traditions for it. ERMAN? draws atten- 
tion to the fact that, as they use the skin-boat in the neighbourhood of richly 
forest covered districts, this can only happen on account of tradition. Finally 
MuRDOCE” asserts that the using of the sinew-backed composite bow by the 
Eskimo in Kadiak and South Alaska is a proof that their culture germinated 
in regions lacking wood, or, in other words, in Arctic regions. As a further 
proof of this may be mentioned the stated traditional predilection for drift- 
wood for implements. 
The Aleuts. 
The peninsula of Ahaska together with the chain of islands which form 
the southern boundary of Bering Sea is, geologically speaking, a continuous 
series of volcanoes. The country is high and mountainous, and the coasts are 
irregular and rocky. The climate is comparatively mild, but damp and raw, 
with much fog and a considerable rain-fall, and storms prevail at certain seasons 
of the year. It is rare for the bays to be ice-covered, and then only until the 
first strong wind occurs. Woods are wanting, so that the inhabitants are chiefly 
dependent on drift-wood. On the north coast, and on a part of the south coast 
of Aliaska, as also on the group of islands as far as the island of Attu (53° N. 
lat., 187° W. long.) there lives a tribe, the people of which are also called 
Aleuts by the Russians, while they originally called themselves Unung’un 
(human beings, or people). | 
From а linguistic point of view they occupy а peculiar position аз compared 
with the Eskimo, while culturally they stand on the same plane of develop- 
ment as the inhabitants of Kadiak, where the geographical conditions are in 
several respects the same. But here too, the conditions are nowadays so 
greatly altered through the influence of the Russians, that the Aleuts described 
by ExLiot do not greatly recall the Aleuts of an earlier date. The present 
Aleuts have a strong mixture of Russian and American blood. They gave up 
using their old skin clothes a long time ago, as they did the custom of wearing 
labrets, and the use of the meeting house (kashim), which was originally found 
in every settlement. The introduction of Christianity was synchronous with 
the disappearance of their festivals and peculiar dances, in which men and 
women danced separately, with their faces covered by painted wooden masks, 
which were usually carved in fantastic forms. 
But the European culture has not been able to influence their means of 
livelihood or their “economical culture” to any great degree. As before the 
1 WRANGELL, pp. 117. 124. 
? ERMAN, p. 169. 
3 Мовросн, II, р. 130. 
