138 H. P. Steenssy. 
proof of the connection is the borrowing of articles of use (pipes, bird-bolas), and 
of words, which Murpocu thinks he can prove to have been made from Asia. 
From their umiaks the Islanders carry on walrus hunting, which appears 
to have been their principal means of subsistence. The ivory hereby procured 
they brought, as already mentioned, to Asia, but they were not contented with 
bringing the Asiatic goods to the nearest part of the American coast. Across 
Norton Sound they sailed southwards to Pastolik, near the mouth of the Yukon, 
where they met the Delta Eskimo. Northwards they sailed into Kotzebue Sound, 
the inhabitants of which undertook to convey the goods further to Point Bar- 
row and Mackenzie. On these long trips sails were used. Nowadays a mast 
is set up amidships, and the sail, which is square, is stretched out at the top 
with a cross-bar. Originally, according to Nrtson, they are said to have placed 
an upright on each gunwale, and fastened the top of a three-cornered sail to. 
each of these. The fact that sails are used by these Eskimo is, moreover, men- 
tioned from recent times by Murpocn, and from older times by Korzesur, 
who sometimes saw umiaks (baidares) with sails. Once he even mentions a 
flotilla of eight skin-boats with sails. 
There can be no doubt that the use of sails has been borrowed from the 
Pacific-Asiatic coast people. It even seems that it came from rather far to 
the south among the latter. The description given corresponds closely to the 
mode of sail-carrying used among the Ainos, which they probably again have 
borrowed from the south, i.e. from Japan. (See for instance the excellent 
illustrations in Mac Ritchie, Pl. XIX, and p. 45). 
Also the settlements of the islands have a peculiar character, lying as they 
do, so to say, pasted against the sides of the mountain, so that the houses almost 
have the character of pile dwellings, in that they appear to remind one most 
nearly of the form of the summer houses among the Kamchadales and Gilyaks, 
and should undoubtedly be explained as the result of a Pacific-Asiatic influence. 
The Yukon Eskimo. 
The coast regions situated between the Seward Peninsula towards the 
north and the Aliaska Peninsula! towards the south is naturally divided into 
three parts. Near Norton Sound the coast is lofty as far as to St. Michael, and 
passes into a mountainous interior. From St. Michael to Cape Newenham, 
south of the mouth of the Kuskoquim, there is a low and swampy delta-coast. 
Lastly, around Bristol Bay, the country is again high and mountainous. The ~ 
sea exhibits a corresponding peculiarity, being, off the delta, shallow over a 
large area, and this is especially the case off the mouth of the Yukon itself, between 
St. Michael and Cape Romawzow. 
Between Norton Sound and that part of the Lower Yukon which has approx 
imately a direction from north to south, there is a mountainous tract, the crest 
* For brevity’s sake I am here using the style of writing “Alaska” for the 
whole of the large North American peninsula, and “Aliaska’”’ for the small 
peninsula which is continued in the Aleutian Islands. 
