NELSON] MORAL CHARACTERISTICS 301 



to live for some time upon seal and walras meat, while their Eskimo 

 neighbors were feasting upon the provisions from the wreck. 



Owing to the constant danger of being wrecked at this point and 

 cast ashore among these people, the whalers fear to oftend them 

 and constantly make them presents. The Eskimo recognize this as 

 being a sort df peace offering resulting from a feeling of fear, and 

 they are therefore insolent and overbearing. When they came on 

 board the Corwin they were sulky, and any slight contradiction seemed 

 to render them very angry. 



The Malemut at the head of Kotzebue sound are another vigorous, 

 overbearing tribe. As among the E.skimo of Bering strait, they are 

 quarrelsome and have frequent bloody affrays among themselves. The 

 ITnalit and Yukon people regard them with the greatest fear and hatred 

 and say that they are like dogs — always showing their teeth and ready 

 to fight. The Malemut are the only Eskimo who still keep up the old 

 fend against the Tiune, and are a brave, hardy set of men. They are 

 extremely reckless of human life, and a shaman was killed by them 

 during my residence at St Michael, because, they said, "he told too 

 many lies." 



They buy whisky from trading vessels and have drunken orgies, dur- 

 ing which several persons are usually hurt or killed. In 1871) a fatal 

 quarrel of this kind took place on Kotzebue sound; the people said it 

 was the fault of the Americans for selling them whisky, and the rela- 

 tives of the dead men threatened to kill with impunity the first white 

 man they could in order to have blood revenge. 



They also had the reputation of being extremely treacherous among 

 themselves, not hesitating to kill one another, even of their own tribe, 

 when opportunity offered while hunting in the mountains — a gun or a 

 few skins being sufficient incentive. As a consequence, hunters among, 

 this tribe would not go into the mountains with each other, unless they 

 .chanced to be relatives or had become companions by a sort of 

 formal adoption. 



One intelligent Malemut, who was a fine hunter, told me it was very 

 hard work to hunt reindeer in the mountains, as a man could only 

 sleep a little, having to watch that other men did not surprise and kill 

 him. 



One winter, while preparing for a sledge journey into the Malemut 

 country, my Unalit interpreter begged me not to go, saying that the 

 Malemut were very bad people. He was soon followed by the head- 

 man of the Unalit at St Micliael, who repeated the injunction, assuring 

 me that the "dogs of ^Malemut" would surely kill me if I went. 



On the other hand, the Malemut despise the Unalit, saying that they 

 are cowards and like children. When the Corwin anchored off Cape 

 Prince of Wales in Bering strait, the people came off to us in a number 

 of umiaks. They halted at some distance from the vessel and shouted, 

 ^^ nil-kii-riil; nu-ku-rul;^' meaning " good, good," in order to assure us of 



