CAVE RELICS OF THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS. 3 



handicraft among the Islanders. The common notion of the derivation of these 

 people from the Japanese by emigration, owes its popularity chiefly to its super 

 ficiality, and cannot for a moment be maintained by any one conversant with the 

 characteristics of both races. I assign very slight value to traditions, but such 

 as they have, imply an Eastern and continental origin. 



In character and mental attributes the Aleiit differs from the Kaniag mut, even 

 more than in physique and language. 



Uniting a greater intellectual capacity, with equal (if not superior) facility in 

 canoe-navigation and the chase ; the Aleiit in personal independence of character 

 is far inferior to his neighbors. How much this has been due to the comparative 

 security of their island homes, and how far to the merciless persecution and 

 numberless outrages to which they were subjected by the early Russian traders, 

 cannot now be determined. It is very evident however that the Russians found 

 a great difference at the outset between the Aleuts and Kaniag muts, in this 

 respect. 



A perusal of the chronicles of the early trading voyages sufficiently attests 

 this. 



There were numerous petty conflicts between the different groups of Aleutian 

 Islanders, chiefly arising from disputes in regard to the limits of their hunting 

 grounds, and traces of this feeling exist even to the present day, though it is 

 many years since any troubles have occurred. But the vindictive and energetic 

 conflicts which characterize the disputes between continental Eskimo tribes and 

 the Indians, do not appear to have ever been paralleled among the people under 

 consideration. 



A discussion of all the characteristics of the two peoples is not within the 

 scope of this paper, but some reference to such differences is necessary to a com 

 plete comprehension of what follows. 



The Aleuts possessed great endurance, especially in regard to cold ; hospitality 

 was one of their prominent traits, as were love of children and deference to the 

 aged. They were not uncleanly compared with other wild tribes, and the activity 

 of their lives doubtless had something to do with their being less sensual than 

 most of the Eskimo. Their form of Shamanism was in many respects peculiar, 

 and their rites more complicated and mysterious, than those practiced by any 

 other tribes of the same stock as far as we know. It is a matter of constant 

 regret that in their earnest propagandism, the early missionaries took every 

 means, secular as well as spiritual, of destroying all vestiges of the native beliefs 

 and the rites which were practiced in connection with them. No record of them 

 is any where preserved with the exception of a few casual allusions scattered 

 through various works, relating to the exploration of that region. The little 

 that we do know is so interesting that it renders our ignorance of the rest the 

 more provoking. During the last eighty years so thoroughly have the natives 



