82 ANTHROPOLOGICAL SURVEY IN ALASKA [eth. ann. 46 



8. The line of demarcation between the Indians of the Yukon and 

 the Eskimo, outside of language, is indefinite. Traces of old Eskimo 

 admixture are perceptible among the Indians far up the river, and 

 the cultures of the two peoples in many respecte merge into each 

 other; while among the Eskimo of the lower river and farther on 

 there are physiognomies that it would be hard to separate from the 

 Indian. Whether all this means simply extensive past mixture, or 

 whether, as would seem, the Alaska Indians as a whole are nearer 

 physically to the Eskimo than are the tribes in the States, remains 

 to be determined. Among the Athapascan Mescalero Apache, who 

 have reached as far south as New Mexico, a somewhat Eskimoid 

 tinge to the face, especially in young women, was by no means very 

 unusual 25 years ago when I studied this tribe. This problem will 

 be touched upon again in this volume. 



9. All along the Yukon, from near Tanana (Old Station) to the 

 mouth of the river, in the Indian and in the Eskimo region, there pre- 

 vailed the same type of winter house, namely, a largely subterranean 

 room with a subterranean tunnel or corridor entrance ; and also a 

 similar type of summer dwelling, formerly a skin, now a canvas, tent. 

 The winter dwellings were built within of stout posts and covered 

 with birch bark and sod, looking from outside much like the present- 

 day Navaho hogan; while the pits left by them remind one of the 

 southwestern " pit dwellings," the kashims of the Pueblo kivas. As 

 a hogan, so these largely subterranean dwellings along the Yukon 

 had a smoke-air-and-light hole in the center of the top, a fireplace 

 in the middle of the floor, and benches (of heavy hewn planks in the 

 north) along the sides. Each village, furthermore, had at least one 

 larger structure of similar nature, the "kashim," or communal house. 

 All this may still be traced more or less plainly on the dead sites 

 along the Yukon, and houses as well as a kashim of this type were 

 seen at Kotlik and Pastolik, at the mouth of the river. 



10. The native industry of the river presents also much similarity, 

 though there are differences. 



Pottery, of much the same type and decoration, was made at 

 least as far as the lower middle Yukon. 



Stone implements were made and used all along the river, and 

 were much alike. But the double-grooved, cupid-bow ax of the 

 Yukon Indian, hafted in the center and used for chipping rather 

 than cutting, is lower clown replaced by the same ax, in which one 

 end has been broken off (or has not been finished), and which is 

 hafted as an adze; or by oblong quadrilateral flat axes which have 

 not been found up the river. 



The peculiar and apparently very primitive stone industry of 

 Bonasila is, it seems, just a development of local conditions — nature 



