CAVE RELICS OF THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS. 



THAT great series of islands extending from the mouth of Cook s Inlet to the 

 end of the Aleutian chain, and perhaps properly including the Commander s 

 Islands, was named by Forster, in 1786, the Catherina Archipelago, in honor of 

 Catherine the Great, Empress of all the Russias, to whose enlightenment and 

 liberality the explorations in that quarter were largely due. 



The chain between Lon. 163 and 188 W. of Greenwich bears the general 

 name of the Aleutian Islands, from the term Aleuts, applied by the Russians 

 to their original inhabitants. 



East of Lon. 103 the various groups have local names, of which the more 

 important are the Shumagin Islands, the Semidi Islands, the Kadiak group, and 

 the Barren Islands. 



The entire Archipelago is, or has been, inhabited by tribes of the Eskimo 

 stock. These are naturally divided into two groups : I, the Kaniag muts, or 

 typical Eskimo tribes, and, II, the Aleiits, or Aleutian Islanders. 



The Kaniag muts, in language and physique, in implements and weapons, and 

 in manners, arc hardly distinguishable from those of the Western Eskimo, who 

 inhabit the coast lands of the continent, from the Kusilvak mouth of the Yukon 

 River to Cook s Inlet. The differences now existing are due to original local 

 peculiarities, common to each individual assemblage of settlements of any 

 aboriginal stock ; and to the greater pressure of civilization which circumstances 

 have brought to bear on them during the last three quarters of a century. 



They are described by the earliest voyagers as independent in character, long 

 resisting the efforts of traders to subdue them and of missionaries to christianize 

 them ; as sharing with the other Eskimo of that region, uncleanly habits, sensual 

 practices, a belief in Shamanism, extreme facility in the use of the skin canoe or 

 kyak, and great powers of endurance. To these they united certain peculiar 

 superstitions, which indicate a passage from typical Eskimo animism toward the 

 more differentiated and still more peculiar notions entertained by the Aleutians. 

 The intercourse of the Kaniag muts with the latter people was greatly interfered 

 with by the hostilities usual to adjacent and dissimilar aborigines in all parts of 

 the world, and especially by the differences in their dialects. There is reason to 



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