188 INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 



importance to note that an affinity of long standing exists between the 

 natives of this phice and those of Plover Bay. It is evidenced during 

 wrestling contests between the natives of Siberia and St. Lawrence 

 Island. When the men of the latter place are exhausted — as they are 

 few in comparisoji Avith those of Indian Point — the Plover Bay natives 

 take the side of the St. Lawrence Island natives. Without desiring 

 to lay too great stress upon this affiliation, I am inclined to believe (in 

 \^iew of the dread of the Plover Bay people — who number, probably, 

 about 200 — of extermination at the hands of the Indian Point people, 

 who outnumber them more than twice) that formerly the ancestors of 

 these people and those of the St. Lawrence Island natives constituted 

 either one village or adjacent communities, having their common 

 enemy, the Indian Point people, as their near kindred. Family quar- 

 rels ai'e ))itter. and it is not to be wondered at if one or more families 

 left the Plover Bay region for a more peaceful abode on St. Lawrence 

 Island. Of course, the first people who ventured, in frail skin boats, 

 to cross a strait -tO miles in width, where the currents are strong, and 

 with a prospect of l^eing swamped in a frail canoe or blown hopelessl}^ 

 to the southwest with a vast expanse of water on every hand, must 

 have had rather strong urging from some quarter to run the great 

 risk. I hardly think that mere desire to better their condition — 

 hoping to find more walruses and seals, for instance, on this island — 

 would have exiled a people who were essentially so devoted to their 

 homes. 



There is no tradition on St. Lawrence Island, as far as I can discover, 

 of a general exodus from Siberia to this place. The people have a 

 tradition of a first man and a first woman who alwaj's lived hei'e and 

 who began the propagation of this race. Its only significance to my 

 mind is that no large number of people came from Siberia to this 

 island at first. One family may have been followed in the course of a 

 few years by others. To this unattractive isolated island onl}^ those 

 came who required a place of refuge. 



Nor did the}- find respite long here from their relentless foes. There 

 are traditions of manj^ battles with the Indian Point men who came 

 over here in the summer seasons, accompanied at times, I understand, 

 by their allies, the Deermen from the interior. The natives at this 

 village, Seevookuk, were nearly exterminated. On one or two occa- 

 sions a man and a woman only were able to escape and preserve a 

 remnant of the original stock. In these contests the Plover Bay men 

 never took any part. Even at the present time, when the Siberians 

 are obliged to desist from ravaging the people here in the presence 

 of a United States Government official, they make the people give 

 them many skins and much whalebone as a sort of tax, promising to 

 remunerate them later, but forgetting the o])ligation. It may not be 

 amiss to add that our Government ou*rht to terminate this unsatisfac- 



