846 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1895. 



Iii some ethnographic &quot; Memoranda concerning the arctic Eskimos in 

 Alaska and Siberia,&quot; by Mr. John W. Kelly, 1 an interpreter, says: 



The Eskimo oomeaks (open boats) have a framework of spruce covered with split 

 walrus hides, sea-lion skins, or white grampus skins. The latter is not used if sea- 

 lion or walrus skins are obtainable, as it is rather thin. The Bering Strait and uorth- 

 coast boats are generally 24 feet long with 5 feet beam, and have a carrying capacity 

 of 15 persons and 500 pounds of freight. 



Those of the Kotzebue Sound average about 35 feet in length and 6 feet in width. 

 They have a carrying capacity of 20 persons and 1,000 pounds of freight, or 3,000 

 pounds of merchandise and a crew of 6 men. There are exceptional boats built on 

 the sound that are as much as 42 feet over all. In crossing Kotzebue Sound or 

 Bering Strait the natives sew on bulwarks of sea-lion skins a foot high to keep the 

 water from dashing in. 



Mr. Ivan Petroff, 2 who spent a number of years in various portions 

 of Alaska, in an official capacity, says of the vessels of the Eskimo : 



All the Eskimo tribes, without exception, manufacture and use the skin canoe 

 known as the kaiak, identical with that of the eastern or Greenland Eskimo ; and 

 this feature is so distinctive and exclusive that a tribal name might justly be based 

 upon it should the necessity arise for another. At present I know of only one 

 instance where an intermixture of the Innuit with another tribe has taken place 



Fig. 52. 



MODEL KAIAK AND DOUBLE PADDLE, POINT BARROW. 



under such circumstances that the foreign element has gained the upper hand, and 

 there they have already abandoned the manufacture of the kaiak and apparently 

 forgotten the art of its construction. I refer to the Oughalakhmute. who have 

 mixed with the Thlinket. The open skin boat, the oomiak, or woman s boat, also 

 known as Mdar, is used by certain tribes on the north coast of Asia; but the kaiak 

 proper is only found among the Eskimo. 



When the Russians first observed this craft, they applied to it the name of bidarka, 

 a diminutive of bidar, a Kamchatkan term for an open skin boat. This term is now 

 used throughout Alaska wherever Russian influence once predominated, and the 

 same word has been incorporated into several Eskimo dialects in the form of Mdali, 

 which is, however, applied only to two and three hatch kaiaks a variety formerly 

 known only on the Aleutian Islands, and adopted by the Russians for greater con 

 venience in hunting and traveling. From Bristol Bay westward and northward the 

 kaiak and oomiak only are used. 



The accompanying illustration serves to show the general form of the 

 kaiak, so often figured by the natives in their hunting record. 3 



Although fig. 52 is from the most northern portion of Alaska, the 

 generic type of construction is practically the same among all the 



1 Bureau of Education, Circular of Information No. 2, 1890, Washington, 1890, p. 27. 

 2 Tenth Census of the United States, VIII, 1884 (Alaska, etc.), pp. 124, 125. 

 3 Ninth Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology, 1887-88. 1892, fig. 341, p. 224. 



