1 882.] Limit of the Inmiit Tribes on the Alaska Coast. 57 r 



pose in their southern or interior home ? The natural barrier to 

 kaiak navigation mentioned above, has been passed ages ago by 

 the Thlinket tribes, but these never adopted the use of the kaiak ; 

 they still hunt and travel in their dugouts that they brought with 

 them from their former homes in the south-east. The exclusive 

 use of the kaiak or bidarka in this Alpine region, with dense for- 

 ests and dangerous beaches, can only be explained by the emigra- 

 tion of the people from other regions devoid of timber. From 

 whatever direction the Innuit people of Prince William sound 

 and the Copper river delta came, they brought with them the 

 kaiak or it never would have been invented there. The Ougha- 

 lentze, who are now confined to two villages, Alaganuk and 

 Ikhiak (called Odiak by the traders), have already ceased to con- 

 struct bidarkas, owing to the preponderance of the Thlinket ele- 

 ment among them. Their houses are constructed on the Thlin- 

 ket plan and the younger generation speaks the Thlinket lan- 

 guage only, while the older men and women speak both the lat- 

 ter and the Innuit. The Chilkaats, on the other hand, offer to 

 the observer. but few faint traces of their Innuit intermixture, and 

 in their intercourse with Chugach Innuits and the traders, they 

 use interpreters. They wear blankets exclusively. 



The end of the Innuit element is here very clearly defined. 

 Here, as everywhere on the Alaskan coast, the traveler will at 

 once observe the extreme caution with which the Innuit moves 

 and acts as soon as he finds himself among people of another 

 tribe. In their own country they always endeavor to pass the 

 night at some village, but as soon as they enter foreign or even 

 debatable territory, the camp is pitched fa*r away from the habita- 

 tion of man, even when they are escorting a white man. On this 

 terminal line of Innuit population, the feeling amounts to abject 

 fear. Money will not tempt the Chugatch to advance into the 

 Thlinket country. 



An argument in favor of my theory concerning the more recent 

 Period. at which the Innuits spread over the Alaska coast may 

 Perhaps be found in the existence of a branch of this tribe on the 

 Aleutian islands. I fully agree with Mr. Dall that the theory of 

 ar i Asiatic influx of population over the Aleutian chain of islands 

 !s entirely untenable, and that they were peopled from the east, 

 bu t I do not think that this migration took place before the in- 

 vention of the kaiak. Timber evidently never existed on these 



