NELSON] TRIBES AND DIALECTS 25 



found a village occupied by a mixture of people from King island in 

 Bering strait, Sledge island, and others from different parts of Kaviak 

 peninsula. These people had united there and were living peaceably- 

 together in order to fish for crabs and tomcods and to hunt for seals, 

 as the supply of food had become exhausted at their homes. 



There are few places among the different divisions of the people living 

 between Yukon and Kuskokwiin rivers where a sharp demarkation is 

 found in the language as one passes from village to village. In every 

 village in this region they have had friendly intercourse with one 

 another for many years, and intermarriage has constantly taken place. 

 They visit each other during their festivals, and their hunting and 

 fishing grounds meet. All of these causes have aided, since the ces- 

 sation of the ancient warfare which served to keep them separated, in 

 increasing the intercourse between them and have had a tendency to 

 break down the sharp distinctions that existed in their dialects. The 

 language used in this region, south of the Yukon mouth, is closely 

 related to that of the Uualit along the shore of Norton sound north of 

 the Yukon. r-t 



The greatest distinctions in language appeared to be in the curious 

 modification of the sounds of the vowels, these being lengthened or 

 shortened in a different manner, thus causing the pronunciation to be 

 differently intoned in the two districts. The Nunivak island people 

 and those living at Cape Vancouver, however, appear to speak a lan- 

 guage quite sharply divided from that of their neighbors. 



As it is, one of the natives from any portion of the district south of 

 the Yukon mouth, except onNunivak island or Cape Vanconver, can 

 readily make himself understood when visiting villages of the lower 

 Y'ukon or among the Unalit of Norton sound. The distinction between 

 the Unalit and Kaviagmut Eskimo, or the Unalit and the Malemut, is 

 considerable, and people speaking these tong^ues do not readily com- 

 municate at once, although it takes but a short time for them to learn 

 to talk with one another. The dialect of the people of Point Hope 

 appears to differ but slightly from that used at the head of Kotzebue 

 sound. There is such a general resemblance between the dialects 

 spoken by the Eskimo of the Alaskan mainland that a person belonging 

 to one district very quickly learns to understand and speak other dia- 

 lects. My Unalit interpreter from St Michael accompanied me on the 

 Coriciu, and when at Plover bay, on the eastern coast of Siberia, man- 

 aged to understand a considerable portion of what the people of that 

 X)oint said. He had great difficulty, however, in comprehending the 

 language of the St Lawrence islanders, and in fact could understand 

 but few words spoken by them. Both at East Cape and at Plover bay, 

 on the Siberian coast, there were many words that I could understand 

 from my knowledge of the Unalit tongue gained at St Michael. The 

 people of St Lawrence island and Plover bay are closely related and 

 the dialects spoken by them are very similar, so that they have no diffii- 

 cultv. in communicating with each other. ' 



