130 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



hunters. Yukon natives are great travelers. They think nothing of 

 a 100 or 200 mile journey upstream or downstream. The same ap- 

 plies to trapping and hunting expeditions inland, but the final destina- 

 tion is always the river, either as a temporary camp or winter home. 

 An Indian's trapping line may be 50 to 100 miles from his winter 

 home, while his fish wheel and fish drying racks are always located 

 at a distance from the winter village. 



A successful season for the Yukon native nets him an income 

 equivalent to that of many a city dweller within the United States. 

 The Indian of the Yukon valley has adopted the civilization of the 

 white man and now lives in a log cabin instead of the semisubter- 

 ranean, earth covered pit house used by his ancestors. No difference 

 was noted in the construction of the cabins of the Indians and of the 

 white men. Log cabins with mossed chinks and moss covered over- 

 hanging roof are warm in winter but hot in summer. They are fre- 

 quently infested with vermin and are dark, as many have no windows. 



The modern Indian of the Yukon valley builds a small canoe of 

 sawed boards after the model of the old birch bark canoe " trich " 

 with its double overlapping strips of birch bark at the sides. A very 

 few old canoes of birch bark survive. They were modeled accord- 

 ing to the same principles as the kayak of the Eskimo and were 

 covered over with birch bark at prow and stern with an opening 

 large enough for only one person who operated the boat from a 

 kneeling position at the center of the canoe. The Tinne make beauti- 

 ful baskets of birch bark sewn with spruce roots around the margin, 

 also coiled baskets of willow and grass with decorative panels in 

 black, blue, and pink vegetable dyes. 



The Yukon Indian still spears the lamphrey eel and catches fish in 

 traps through holes cut in the ice. The ice covering the Yukon in 

 winter reaches a thickness of from three to five feet. In summer 

 the native catches one or more tons of salmon in his fish wheel, dries 

 them, and packs them in bales. The Indian woman stands the entire 

 day at a fish rack cleaning the fish caught in the fish wheel. In pre- 

 serving their catch of fish no salt is used, but smoking over a slow 

 fire of green wood, grass, and moss is resorted to. Cured salmon 

 are eaten dry and uncooked. The Yukon Indian prefers beef, when- 

 ever he can get it, to caribou meat as he says meat of wild animals 

 has no strength. Sugar and tea are in great demand. 



The kashim is an organization of the men of the village. A coun- 

 cil of three under the leadership of the village shaman is the ruling 

 bodv within the organization, whose visible incorporation is the 



