BULL. 30] 



RUSSIAN INFLUENCE 



399 



E. and s. and in later years as servants at 

 the trading posts. Each trading post of 

 importance had a Yakut fisherman in 

 charge of salmon traps. Californian na- 

 tives were taken to Kodiak in 1841, where 

 there was a small village of superannuated 

 Company's servants as late as 1870 — now, 

 probably, all dead. Some Kanaka from 

 Oahu took part {ca. 1850) in the Com- 

 pany's whaling expeditions, which had 

 no great success. 



Changes of sustenance, and stimulants. — 

 The art of distilling was introduced 

 among the Tlingit by Eussian convicts 

 about 1796, and, though forbidden under 

 severe penalties by the Company, was 

 secretly practised at many of the isolated 

 trading posts. The use of cereals as food 

 was hardly known until the sixties, ex- 

 cept among the Com])any's servants at 

 posts. The same may be said of sugar and 

 tea. They were known as gifts or lux- 

 uries, not as trading goods. The natives 

 until 1867 lived entirely off the natural 

 food resources of the country, as did most 

 of the Russians and Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany's men. 



Clothing. — Cotton drill, cloth, and 

 blankets took the place of the more valu- 

 able furs early in the history of the trade, 

 but till recently skins and native foot- 

 wear held their own as vastly better for 

 winter wear. 



Tools, utensils, and guns. — The first iron 

 tools were made in imitation of the stone 

 and native copper tools and weapons 

 (iron celts were called "toes"); exotic 

 forms came very slowly into use. The 

 native, as late as 1866, preferred to buy 

 malleable iron or wood-files, and to make 

 his own tools in ancient shapes. Kettles 

 and frying-pans were first adopted of 

 exotic utensils. Guns came first from the 

 Hudson's Bay Company and free traders; 

 percussion guns came only in the sixties. 

 Flint -and-steel was eagerly accepted from 

 the very first, matches only about 1867. 

 Axes, sheath knives, and saws were al- 

 ways sought in trade; other tools made 

 their way much more slowly. 



Ornaments. — These, except pearl but- 

 tons (among the Tlingit) and Chinese 

 cash, were hardly salable among the 

 practical Alaskan natives. There was 

 practically no sale for such things except 

 dentalium shell, small mirrors, and copper 

 or brass wire for rings or bangles, which 

 the natives made themselves. Bright- 

 colored blankets and striped drilling were 

 a good deal used, and certain tinds of 

 beads, which were used as a sort of cur- 

 rency quite as much as for ornament. 



Tobacco. — This probably reached the 

 Bering strait region (with pipes) by in- 

 tertribal commerce from Mongolia before 

 the Russians brought it. The American 

 type of pipe was not found there until 



much later, and was rarely seen until 

 after 1867. The Mongolian type of i)ipe 

 is not known s. and e. of Bristol bay, 

 where the Russians first introduced 

 tobacco, but was universal n. and w. of that 

 locality. Tobacco is not mentioned in early 

 lists of trading goods, and was probably 

 only in general use after the Russians 

 had made permanent settlements or trad- 

 ing posts. 



Language. — The Chinook jargon was 

 introduced, almost as soon as it was 

 formed, by free traders in s. e. Alaska, 

 and was also more or less used in this 

 region by the Russian traders. In the 

 Eskimo region a jargon arose, composed 

 of Russian, Eskimo, and Hawaiian words, 

 corrupted, and used without inflection. 

 This jargon has been in use from Bristol 

 bay to Pt Barrow and on the Eskimo 

 coast of Siberia, and has been frequently 

 mistaken by hasty travelers and recorded 

 in vocabularies as an Eskimo dialect. 

 The Vega vocabularies were partly of 

 this kind. The Aleut used Russian, and 

 so far as is known never had a' jargon. 



Myths and religion. — The Aleut were 

 converted to the Greek Church , of which 

 they are, so far as they understand it, de- 

 voted members, though retaining secretly 

 much of their ancient religion. On the 

 rest of the people of Alaska the influence 

 of the GreekChurch was infinitesimal, and 

 consisted in a purely nominal adherence 

 by rare individuals to a few formalities. 

 From what is known of the myths and 

 mythology of either Tlingit or Eskimo, 

 there was in them, up to 1868, no trace of 

 Christian teaching. With the first intro- 

 duction of Russian priests in 1793, it is 

 probable that native children were taught 

 to repeat the responses and catechism and 

 join in the intoned service. The teach- 

 ing of reading, writing, and other secular 

 branches did not come in most cases till 

 much later, but the dates are not recorded. 



Population. — Zymotic diseases, nor- 

 mally unknown in the region, at various 

 times have been introduced by traders and 

 have proved very fatal in approximately 

 theorderfollowing: scarletfever, measles, 

 smallpox, syphilis. The last-named was 

 introduced into the Norton Sound re- 

 gion by the American Telegraph Expedi- 

 tion in 1866, the Russians having been 

 successful in excluding it up to that time. 

 A disease affecting the bones is noticeable 

 in many prehistoric skeletons, but seems 

 not to have been syphilitic. After the 

 warfare with the early traders ceased, 

 the natives under Russian auspices, when 

 friendly, were carefully protected as pur- 

 veyors of peltries, and probably did not 

 seriously diminish in numbers under the 

 conditions then existing. 



In general the Russians endeavored to 

 maintain the status quo among the natives 



