328 THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT [kth.ann.18 



guard against the approach of the Mageuiut, who lived just south of 

 the Yukon mouth and were the chief enemies of the Unalit. 



Near St Michael, on the top of an elevated islet close to the coast, is 

 the site of an ancient village which had been surprised and destroyed 

 by this last-named people long before the arrival of the Eussians in 

 that region. Digging in some of the pits marking the places once 

 occupied by houses, I found charred fragments of wood and various 

 small articles belonging to the former occupants. 



The following account of the ancient warfare of the Eskimo on the 

 lower Yukon and adjacent region southward was given me in January, 

 1881, by an old man living near Andreivsky: 



The i)eople of the lower Yukon and Pastolik fought against those 

 living on the southern part of the Yukon delta and the country south- 

 ward, including the villages at Big lake and in the Kuslevak mountains 

 and the Magemut of the coast just south of the Yukon mouth. The 

 old man said that the main war between these people started in a 

 great village located near Ikogmut. Two boys were playing with a 

 bone-tip dart, and one of them accidentally pierced his companion's 

 eye; this so enraged the father of the injured boy that he caught the 

 other and destroyed both his eyes. The fathers of the two boys then 

 fought, one armed with a beaver-tooth knife and the other with a bone 

 bodkin, the fight resulting in the death of both men. The quarrel was 

 taken up by relatives and friends on both sides, the village became 

 divided, and the weaker party was forced to leave the Yukon and go 

 southward, where they settled. From that time continual warfare was 

 carried on between them. 



Battles took place usually in summer, and the victors killed all they 

 could of the males of the opposing side, even including infants, to 

 prevent them from growing up as enemies. The dead were thrown in 

 heaps and left. The females were commonly spared from death, but 

 were taken as slaves. 



When young men fought in their first battle each was given to drink 

 some of the blood and made to eat a small piece of the heart of the 

 first enemy killed by them, in order to render them brave. An Unalit 

 at St Michael told me that in former days each of their young warriors 

 always ate a small piece of the heart of the first enemy killed by him 

 on a hostile raid. 



During the battles on the Yukon the best fighters used to throw 

 themselves on their backs and kick their heels in the air in derision of 

 the enemy when they approached one another. When any of the men 

 exhausted their supply of arrows they would stand in front of their 

 comrades and break those of the euemy with their spear shafts by 

 striking them as they flew past. No shields were used. They said 

 that if an arrow was coming straight at a man he could not see it, so 

 it was very hard to avoid being hit, but that a man could readily see 

 one flying toward another. Some of the warriors are said to have 

 been very expert bowmen. My old informant told me that his name- 



