of the Innuit Tribes on the Alaska Coast. [July, 



progress through Innuit territory was always com- 

 and uninterrupted except by natural obstacles, 

 ;ursion into the country occupied by other tribes 

 ith open or secret opposition on the part of the 

 casional threats of violence or even overt acts of 



In the course of my explorations, extending over a period of 

 several years, of alt the coast from Bering strait to the vicinity of 

 Mt St. Elias and of the river systems, I had found the Innuits 

 occupying the coast and interior wherever nature has thrown no 

 obstacle in the way of free navigation in their kaiaks or skin- 

 covered canoes ; and consequently this eastern limit or boundary 

 of the long chain of homogeneous orarian tribes was a locality 

 of peculiar interest to me. The tribes who now have their homes 

 m this vicinity are the so-called Chugach, of purely Innuit extrac- 

 tion; the Oughalentze, or Oughalakmute of Innuit extraction, 

 but now mixed with Thlinkets ; and thirdly, the so-called Chilk- 

 haat tribe of the Thlinket family, settled on Comptroller's bay 

 and up to the left bank of Copper river. The Chugach, whose 

 name is a Russian corruption of their own tribal name of 

 Sh-Ghachit Shoit (the latter word means simply "people"), par- 

 take of all the characteristics ascribed to the Innuits of the Alas- 

 kan coast south of Bering strait. They hunt marine mammals in 

 preference to land animals, and their whole domestic economy 

 and mode of life rests upon the use of the kaiak or bidarka. The 

 Ougalakmutes have always been the easternmost branch of Innuit 

 stock along the coast. The earliest Spanish and English visitors 

 to Prince William sound described more than a hundred years 

 ago, the natives of that region just as we find them now, and I 

 have been unable to discover any proofs of the existence of these 

 tribes farther down the coast. It is true that in one instance 

 Lieutenant Ring, of the U. S. Army, reported the discovery 

 relics apparently of Innuit type, in shell hear 

 the Stakhine river, and a few skulls, said to i 

 have been foun 1 in Santa Barbara county, 

 these can be easily accounted for by the com 

 o( Aleuts and other Innuits under the Russi; 

 the last and the beginning of the present cent 



the northwest coast of the American continent 



near the 



mouth o( 



; of the s 



same type, 



alifornia 



Both of 



ulsory w 



anderings 



I rule at ' 



the end of 



ry . Thousands of 



lied mas 



ters down 



nt were 



slain and 



