92 ANTHROPOLOGICAL SURVEY IN ALASKA [eth.axn.46 



and afford one the opportunity of seeing many of the natives, even 

 if prevented, as in this case, from visiting their village. 



The Eskimo impress one here as in every further locality as a 

 lively, cheerful, and intelligent lot, good traders, and advancing 

 in many ways in civilization. The latter is perhaps especially true 

 of the St. Lawrence Eskimo, who from what was seen now and 

 later must have had especially good missionaries and teachers as 

 well as a considerable freedom from bad influences from the outside. 



Savonga 



About 40 miles east-southeast of Gambell is the second and smaller 

 village of the St. Lawrence Island, known as Savonga, which was 

 the object of our next visit. It was here that we were to buy two 

 or three reindeer carcasses, the animals being killed and dressed for 

 us by the natives in an astonishingly short time. The little village 

 is prettily situated on the green flat of the elevated beach. It con- 

 sists of less than a dozen modern small frame dwellings. One of 

 these, that of the headman. Sapilla (who regrettably died during the 

 following winter), is of two stories — a unique feature for an Eskimo 

 dwelling in these waters. Here we were visited by three boats and 

 the previous scenes were repeated, only, due to the proximity of 

 a rich old site, there were more objects of old ivory. 



The captain made me acquainted with Sapilla. whom I found 

 remarkably white-man-like in behavior. Then the ship doctor, not 

 feeling very well after yesterday's storm, filled my pockets with 

 tooth forceps and I was taken to the shore, to see the women and 

 children who would not venture out and to attend to any tooth ex- 

 traction that might be needed. 



We were considerably farther from the shore than even at Gam- 

 bell, but I was sent on one of our motor boats and so it did not take 

 long to land. Upon landing we came to bright and clean and 

 smiling little groups of women and children, full of color in their 

 cotton dresses, and I was soon in one of their houses. All these 

 dwellings were built by the Eskimo themselves, and it was a most 

 gratifying surprise to find them as clean and wholesome as any 

 similar dwelling of whites could be. Moreover, these houses were 

 furnished with stoves, chairs, tables, crockery and other utensils 

 exactly as if they were those of a good class of whites, with the smell 

 of the seal, which as a rule is so clinging to and characteristic of 

 the Eskimo house, barely perceptible. 



It was a busy and interesting hour that I spent at Savonga. I 

 saw probably all the inhabitants that were at home; pulled five 

 teeth — the teeth of these quite civilized people are no more as sound 

 and solid as were those of their fathers and mothers — and found and 



