hrdliCka] ARCHEOLOGY OF WESTERN ESKIMO 205 



168. Old camp, exact location not certain. (S. Chance.) 



169. Matthew or Aniyak. — Old camp. 



170. Ottala. — Camp, occupied. (S. Chance.) 



171. Old site reported; exact location (?). 



172. Old site, rich archeologically, exact location undetermined; 

 small collection. (A. H.) 



173. Kevalina. — Living Eskimo village. 



174. Pin-go. — Old dead village. (S. Chance. Jim Allen.) 



Kevalina — Point Barrow 

 point hope (tigara) 



This is the most important ruin as well as living Eskimo village 

 in Arctic Alaska. It is unanimously declared by the Eskimo of the 

 coast to be one of the oldest settlements and has always been the 

 largest native center on the coast. The point was called Golovnin 

 Point by the early Russians; it was called Point Hope by Beechey 

 in 1826 in honor of Sir William Johnston Hope. At the time of its 

 visit by the revenue cutter Coi'iv'm, 1884, there are said to have been 

 two villages ; 43 the second being possibly at the site of the old whaling 

 station. Rasmussen, who visited the village about 1924, speaks of 

 it in part as follows : 4i " Point Hope or Tikeraq, ' the pointing finger,' 

 is one of the most interesting Eskimo settlements on the whole coast 

 of Alaska, and has doubtless the largest collection of ruins. The 

 old village, now deserted, consists of 122 very large houses, but as 

 the sea is constantly washing away parts of the land and carrying 

 off more houses, it is impossible to say what may have been the origi- 

 nal number. Probably the village here and its immediate neighbor- 

 hood had at one time something like 2,000 souls, or as many as are 

 now to be found throughout the whole of the Northwest Passage 

 between the Magnetic Pole and Herschel Island." 



The ruins are to the northwest and west of the present village. 

 Those to the northwest consist of imposing heaps, which together 

 form an elevated ridge facing the sea. It is said that this old 

 settlement was abandoned because of the encroachments upon it by 

 the sea, i^articularly during storms. 



The ruins of this main compound have been for several years 

 assiduously excavated inch by inch by the local Eskimo, and thou- 

 sands of articles of great variety, of stone, bone, ivory, and wood, 

 with here and there iu the uppermost layers an object of metal, are 

 being gathered and sold to all comers. With these are found a few 

 human skulls and bones, but especially the skulls and bones of various 

 animals, all of which unfortunately have hitherto been left behind in 



43 Heal y, M. A. Cruise of the Concin in the Arctic Ocean 1884. Washington, 1889. p. -7- 

 ** Rasmussen. Knud. Across Arctic America. New York, London. 10^7. 3'29-3^<>. 



