128 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



The find of implements of fossil ivory with etched surface designs 

 similar to early Siberian and north Alaskan types marks the site at 

 Bonasila as the most advanced interior point known to have been 

 reached by this culture. 



Fragments of coarse black pottery were exhumed. These were 

 decorated with rim hachure and were modeled like the heavy thick 

 earthenware of the Eskimo. However, making of pottery by the 

 Tinne Indians of the lower Yukon valley has been discontinued. 



The art of painting, on wooden grave boxes, fishing or hunting 

 scenes of special significance in the lives of the deceased is still occa- 

 sionally practised. One of the grave box panels exhumed contains a 

 realistic painting with black figures on a red background depicting the 

 harpooning of a beluga or white whale. Another old panel from a 

 wooden grave l)Ox at Bonasila shows in a spirited manner several 

 reindeer running before a hunter. 



The contrast in cultural objects emphasizing both Eskimo and 

 Indian influences is complicated by the anomalous find of skeletal 

 material which according to Doctor Hrdlicka is dissimilar alike to 

 Eskimo and Tinne physical types. 



The valley of the lower Yukon below the mouths of the Anvik and 

 Innoko Rivers was formerly Eskimo territory. A well defined trail 

 extends from Anvik, up the Anvik River to the Eskimo village of 

 Unalaklikmiut on Norton Sound near St. Michael. Another trail 

 crosses the portage from the Kuskokwim to the Yukon River in the 

 vicinity of Russian Mission. Eskimo formerly ascended these rivers 

 beyond their present range of travel and there are many traditions 

 of hostile encounters with Tinne Indians as far upstream as the con- 

 fluence of the Koyukuk and Yukon Rivers. The environs of Shage- 

 luk Slough, east of Anvik, were formerly frecjuented by herds of 

 caril)ou, whose presence there supplied a reason for the Eskimo ad- 

 vance to the interior. There is now a government herd of reindeer 

 at Shageluk, thriving and increasing in numbers. 



A brief study was made of the Tinne Indians of the villages of 

 Anvik, Hologochakat, Shageluk, and other villages l)elow the con- 

 fluence at Fort Gibbon of the Tanana and Yukon Rivers. Many 

 details of their ceremonial and religious life are similar to those of 

 the Eskimo, the ceremonial masks and dances in particular being 

 almost identical in appearance. 



Indians of the lower Yukon gain a living primarily by fishing and 

 hunting, but appear to be less energetic than the Tinne of the villages 

 of Kaltag, Nulato. and Tanana farther upstream, who are primarily 



