September 11, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



229 



John Murdocli during his sojourn at Cape Smythe, 

 as a member of Lieut. Ray's party, on duty at the 

 International polar station known as Uglaaini. In 

 the course of his admirable ethnological investiga- 

 tions he found that the Point Barrow people have 

 the habit of using the plural rather than the collec- 

 tive form of the designation for a particular people, 

 and call those of the Mackenzie River district by the 

 term Kupung'-mi-un (KopagmCit), and those of the 

 Colville Kung-mud'-ling (Kuiig-maligmut). 



For the people of Point Barrow, Mr. Murdoch and 

 the other members of Lieut. Ray's party obtained 

 rich ethnological data,, which are in course of publi- 

 cation. Some interesting facts have also been gath- 

 ered by Capt. Hooper of the U. S. revenue cutter 

 Corwin during several visits to Point Barrow. As a 

 whole, we shall soon be in possession of very full 

 information in regard to this isolated band. 



Of the Nunatakmut we have nothing since 1877; 

 and of the Ku-agmut only a few facts collected by 

 Lieut. J. C. Cautwell of the U. S. revenue marine, 

 during his exploration of the river in 1884. He re- 

 ports that the local name of the river is KCi-ak, not 

 Kowak, as generally adopted on the charts. From 

 Lieut Stoney who followed him, and who has since 

 returned to the region to carry on a more extensive 

 exploration, a large addition to our knowledge of 

 these Innuit may be expected in the near future. 



Of the Innuit from Kotzebue Sound around to Nor- 

 ton Sound, little bearing on their classification or 

 language has been gathered since 1877. The obser- 

 vations of Nordenskiold and the Yega party at Port 

 Clarence in 1879, and of the speaker in charge of the 

 U. S, coast-survey party in 1880, at Port Clarence and 

 the Diomedes, as well as Kotzebue Sound and the Asi- 

 iatic coast near by ; of Hooper in the Corwin, 1878-80 ; 

 of the Jeannette expedition in 1879, — have added nu- 

 merous facts, but little bearing on their distribution 

 or classification which was not already known. 



The most interesting people of the region adjacent 

 to Bering Strait are the Asiatic dwellers on the coast, 

 part of whom belong to the Korak race, and part to 

 the Orarian group of people. In no other ethnic 

 group of the region has research been better rewarded 

 since 1877. We have the admirable observations of 

 the Yega party, the arduous explorations of Arthur 

 and Aurel Krause, and some observations of my own, 

 all of which, taken together, have done much to clear 

 up one of the most knotty ethnological puzzles of the 

 northern regions. I give the results in brief, as my 

 time is not sufficient to go into details. The Asiatic 

 coast presents us with the Tsau-yfi (plural Tsau-yiiat) 

 or Tsau-chn, a people of Korak extraction, commonly 

 known as sedentary Chukchi, who have lost their 

 reindeer and settled upon the coast, adopting from 

 their Innuit neighbors much of their peculiar culture, 

 but not their language. These people bear about the 

 same relation to the wandering or reindeer Chukchi 

 that the fishing or farming Lapps do to the moun- 

 tain Lapps of Lapland. Among them, with their 

 little villages sometimes side by side, are to be found 

 the Asiatic Innuit, who call themselves Yuit (by local 

 corruption of the race name), and who present essen- 



tially the features of the western Innuit of ximerica, 

 with some local differences. They migrate with the 

 seasons from Cape Olintorsk to East Cape; their 

 most northern permanent village, as far as known, is 

 at the latter point. The Tsau-chu extend along the 

 northern coast of Siberia much farther north and 

 west. The two races are friendly; there is some 

 intermingling of blood by marriage ; and a jargon con- 

 taining words of both dialects is used in communica- 

 tions between them. In my opinion, however, it is 

 very necessary to keep in view that the culture of 

 Tsau-chu, so far as it differs from that of the wan- 

 dering Chukchi, is distinctly a derivative from that 

 older culture of the Innuit race, though the arctic 

 people of both hemispheres and all races have much 

 in common, due to their environment. The word 

 Chukchi has been so misused that it is almost mean- 

 ingless; but, in the strict and accurate meaning of 

 the word, there are no Chukchi on the American 

 coast, as has been asserted. That error arose from 

 the confusion between the Innuit and Yiiit on the 

 one hand, and the Tsau-chri on the other. 



Of the Innuit people on the American coast at Nor- 

 ton Sound and southward to the peninsula of Alaska, 

 not much additional information has been made pub- 

 lic since 1877 bearing on their classification. That 

 in the report on Alaska, comprised in the publica- 

 tions of the U. S. census of 1880, is retrograde in 

 many particulars rather than an advance, being the 

 work of a person unqualified for the task. Magnifi- 

 cent collections bearing on the culture of these peo- 

 ple have been made by Turner, E. W. Nelson, W. J. 

 Fisher, C. H. Mackay, and others, and have been 

 received by the U. S. national museum. But the un- 

 fortunate ill health of Mr. Nelson and other circum- 

 stances have delayed the publication of his rich and 

 valuable observations. A good deal has also been 

 done in the way of collections on the island of St. 

 Lawrence by Hooper and Nelson, and in the Aleutian 

 Islands by Turner, Dall, and others. 



With regard to the tribal limits of the western In- 

 nuit, geographically considered, they are very muta- 

 ble, and, especially in recent years, are constantly 

 changing in small details. This arises from the fact, 

 that the geographical group, which we have called a 

 tribe among the Innuit, and for which in some cases 

 they have a special designation, is not a political or- 

 ganization headed by a chief or chiefs, but simply a 

 geographical aggregation of people who have by pos- 

 session obtained certain de facto rights of hunting, 

 fishing, etc., over a certain area. The jealousy of 

 adjacent groups keeps the imaginary boundary-line 

 pretty well defined through fear of reprisals should 

 it be violated. When the whites came in with trade, 

 and established posts all over the region, they also 

 used their power to put down any conflicts, which 

 are always injurious to trade. The boundaries, now 

 violable with impunity, fall into oblivion, and the 

 more energetic hunters and trappers go where they 

 choose. In this manner the geographical group names 

 I have described are ceasing to have any serious sig- 

 nificance, and every new ethnographical visitor will 

 find himself unable to make the ancient boundaries 



