THE ESKIMO OF WESTERN ALASKA 



By henry B. COLLINS, JR., 



Assistant Curator, Di7'isioii of Ethnology. U. S. National Museum 



From the standpoint of the anthropologist, the section of Alaska, 

 from Bristol Bay northward along the coast to the mouth of the 

 Yukon, is one of much interest, for here dwell the most primitive 

 group of Eskimo to he found in all of Alaska. The region is hleak 

 and dreary in the extreme, consisting for the most part of vast 

 stretches of flat monotonous tundra hroken in places hy low mountains 

 which extend to the coast and stand out as bold capes and headlands. 

 The Bering Sea is here very shallow and frequently stormy, making 

 navigation difficult. There are hardly more than a dozen white people 

 in this entire region and no industrial or commercial activity of any 

 kind, hence it is seldom visited by ships from the outside. Due to their 

 isolated position the Eskimo here have retained more of the essential 

 features of their native culture than those of any other ])art of Alaska. 



For the ]uu-])ose of observing these people, their manner of life 

 and their j^hysical type, as well as to collect skeletal and cultural ma- 

 terial from inhabited and abandoned villages, the writer and Mr. T. 

 Dale Stewart, of the Division of Physical Anthropology, U. S. Na- 

 tional jMuseum, were detailed to conduct field-work along the coast 

 of western Alaska, including the island of Nunivak, in continuation 

 of the anthro])ological survey of northern and central Alaska made 

 l)y Dr. Ales Hrdlicka in the summer of 1926. The work was conducted 

 under the auspices of the Bureau of American Ethnology, the U. S. 

 National Museum, the American Association for the Advancement 

 of Science, and the American Council of Learned Societies. 



We were fortunate in obtaining trans]:)ortation to Nunivak Island 

 on the U. S. S. Boxer, operated by the Federal Bureau of Education 

 in the interest of the native schools it maintains throughout Alaska. 

 The Boxer stopped at Unalaska, yVkutan, and LTgashik on the Aleutian 

 Islands and the Alaska Peninsula, and later at Kanakanak on the 

 upper i)art of I>ristol Bay. Here the Bureau of Education has estab- 

 lished an orphanage and hospital and is doing a splendid work in 

 educating and supporting the native children whose parents have 

 died during the repeated influenza epidemics of recent years. Thanks 



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