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FIELDIANA ^'^^ "^^

Anthropology

Published by Field Museum of Natural History
Volume 70

E.W. NELSON'S NOTES ON THE INDIANS OF
THE YUKON AND INNOKO RIVERS, ALASKA

Edited with an introduction by
JAMES W. VANSTONE

April 28, 1978

FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY

A Continuation of the

ANTHROPOLOGICAL SERIES

of

FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

VOLUME 70

FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
CHICAGO, U.S.A.

E.W. NELSON'S NOTES ON THE INDIANS OF
THE YUKON AND INNOKO RIVERS, ALASKA

FRONTISPIECE: Edward William Nelson, 1855-1934. (Smithsonian Institution, Na-
tional Anthropological Archives).

FIELDIANA
Anthropology

Published by Field Museum of Natural History

Volume 70

E. W. NELSON'S NOTES ON THE INDIANS OF
THE YUKON AND INNOKO RIVERS, ALASKA

Edited with an introduction by
JAMES W. VANSTONE

Curator, North American Archaeology and Ethnology
Field Museum of Natural History

AprU 28, 1978
Publication 1281

Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 77-091447
ISSN 0071-4739

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

Page
List of Illustrations ix

Introduction 1

Preface to Nelsons Account 16

E.W. NELSON'S Notes On Indians of the Yukon

and Innoko Rivers 17

Messenger or barter festival 17

Festival to the dead 18

Festival of the dressing of the dead 21

Bladder festival 22

Anvik doll festival 25

Anvik mask festival 27

Burial customs of Yukon Indians 28

Hunting 34

Fishing 36

Physical development and character 37

Customs and beliefs 40

Villages and houses 44

Implements and trade 46

Raven tale of the stolen wife 47

Raven's search for his friend's wife 51

Tale of the returned one 55

Tale of the two shamans 56

Raven brings the light 58

Bird myth 60

Notes 62

References 74

Index 78

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece: Edward William Nelson, 1855-1934 iv

1. Map of Alaska 2

2. Map of the lower-middle Yukon and lower Innoko rivers 9

3. Indian graves on the Innoko River 32

4. A kashim on the Innoko River 45

INTRODUCTION'

On November 16, 1880, E. W. Nelson, Signal Service observer at
St. Michael, and a companion, S. A. Fredericks, a fur trader station-
ed at Anvik, left St. Michael with dogs and sledges for a trip to the
lower-middle Yukon River and its major tributary in this area, the
Innoko.

Europeans and Americans had been in the Yukon area and even
on the Innoko for nearly 50 years, but the tributaries of the lower
Yukon and their inhabitants were almost as little known in 1880 as
they had been at the conclusion of Lieutenant Lavrentiy A.
Zagoskin's explorations for the Russian-American Company 35
years before. Nelson's manuscript account of this trip, published
here for the first time, therefore fills a large gap in our knowledge of
the area.

Russian explorers may have reached the Yukon River overland
from Cook Inlet as early as the 1790's (Chernenko, 1967, pp. 9-10,
29-30; Fedorova, 1973a, p. 6) or from Iliamna Lake in 1818
(Fedorova, 1973b, pp. 64-68), but it was not until 1833 when the
Russian-American Company established Mikhailovskiy Redoubt
near the mouth of the Yukon that they were able to penetrate the in-
terior of Alaska via its major river. After unsuccessful explorations
in the Yukon Delta that same year, Audrey Glazunov, a Creole
employee of the company, was chosen to lead a small expedition
overland in January, 1834. His journey, a major accomplishment in
the history of Alaskan exploration, resulted in the first account of
the Yukon Valley and its inhabitants.

Glazunov ascended one of the streams flowing into Norton Sound
east of Mikhailovskiy Redoubt, crossed over to the upper Anvik

'Although primarily a product of historical research, this paper has benefited from
my two seasons of field work in the lower Yukon-Innoko area supported by the
Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the James R. Getz
Fund of Field Museum of Natural History. For critical comments and helpful sug-
gestions during the preparation of this paper, I am grateful to Dorothy Jean Ray
and my wife, Mary W. Helms. The maps were drawn by Zbigniew Jastrzebski.

A V

A \ \ V

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 3

River, a major tributary of the lower-middle Yukon, and descended
it to the Ingalik Indian village of Anvik at the mouth. After
distributing trade goods and exhorting the Indians to bring their
furs to Mikhailovskiy to trade, Glazunov proceeded down the
Yukon trading, and taking a similar message to the inhabitants of
Magimiut (Bonasila) and Anilukhtakpak (near Holy Cross). From
Anilukhtfikpak he proceeded over the portage to the Kuskokwim
River and reached the company's small trading post, later known as
Kolmakovskiy Redoubt, in mid-February. In an attempt to reach
Cook Inlet, Glazunov ascended the Kuskokwim and the Stony River
as far as the Lime Hills, but was forced to turn back after experienc-
ing extreme hardship and starvation. His return route is not
definitely known, but was probably by way of the Kuskokwim. In
any event, Glazunov and his party arrived back at Mikhailovskiy
Redoubt in mid- April (VanStone, 1959).

Glazunov's account, which has never been pubhshed in full
(Fedorova, 1973b, p. 31), provides the first ethnographic infor-
mation concerning the Ingalik, westernmost members of the Atha-
paskan language family, and his explorations, together with those
of other explorers in the Nushagak and Kuskokwim drainages
(VanStone, 1967, pp. 3-11), served to open all of southwestern
Alaska to the fur trade. Glazunov's success led to further explora-
tion of the Yukon Delta and to the establishment of a trading post
at Ikogmiut in 1836. Of equal significance, it also led to Petr
Vasilevich Malakhov's travels on the upper-middle Yukon for the
purpose of extending the fur trade in that direction

Malakhov, Uke Glazunov an employee of the Russian-American
Company, left Mikhailovskiy Redoubt in February, 1838 and reach-
ed the Yukon by way of the Unalakleet River portage. He ascended
as far as the mouth of the Koyukuk and was undoubtedly the first
European to see that river. After establishing the Nulato trading
post, he descended the Yukon to its mouth the next spring, and was
thus the first Russian to navigate a significant portion of its great
length. During his descent he apparently entered Shageluk Slough
and may have continued down the lower Innoko to its confluence
with the Yukon. If so, he was probably the first Russian to navigate
any portion of that important Yukon tributary (Chernenko, 1967, p.
10; Zagoskin, 1967, p. 298).

By 1839 the Russians were reasonably familiar with the
Unalakleet and Anvik rivers, the Yukon between Nulato and its

4 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

mouth, and considerable portions of the Kuskokwim and Nushagak
drainages. The Russian- American Company now needed to fill gaps
in its knowledge of the interior of west-central Alaska by obtaining
more information concerning the area between the Yukon and
Kuskokwim drainage systems. Glazunov had failed to bridge this
particular geographical gap, being unable to reach Cook Inlet by
way of the Stony River, so it was still necessary to explore a route
from the Kuskokwim to the Yukon well above the usual portages
and at the same time to obtain first-hand information concerning
the potentially rich fur-bearing area of the Innoko River and its
tributaries.

In the fall of 1839 Petr Fedorovich Kolmakov, son of Fedor
Kolmakov, pioneer explorer of the Kuskokwim and Nushagak
rivers, crossed over from the Takotna, a tributary of the
Kuskokwim below the present village of McGrath, to the upper
reaches of the Innoko which he called the Tlegon. His journal in-
dicates that he collected a large number of beaver pelts and descend-
ed the Innoko in search of a short route to the Yukon. At some point
during his journey, probably at the village of Dementi opposite the
mouth of the Iditarod River, a major Innoko tributary, Kolmakov
learned that the post at Ikogmiut had been attacked and destroyed,
and the occupants massacred in the spring of 1839. He was there-
fore obliged to turn back. It is not clear whether this attack was per-
petrated by the natives of the Kuskokwim or the lower Yukon, but
it seems likely that Kuskokwim Eskimos from near the present
village of Bethel were responsible. Destruction of the post may have
been in retaliation for the disastrous smallpox epidemic of
1838-1839 for which the Indians and Eskimos of western Alaska
held the Russians responsible (Chernenko, 1967, p. 10; Zagoskin,
1967, pp. 81, 236-237, 275, 300; Russian-American Company
records, communications sent, vol. 20, no. 486, folios 403-404,
October 15, 1841).

The next Yukon exploration of major importance was that of
naval lieutenant Lavrentiy Alekseyevich Zagoskin for the Russian-
American Company from 1842 to 1844. In the administration's
orders to Zagoskin he was directed to explore the Yukon,
Kuskokwim, and Innoko rivers, to ascertain the most practical por-
tages between these rivers, and to explore the drainage of the
Buckland River which was known to flow into Kotzebue Sound.
Zagoskin's expedition left Mikhailovskiy Redoubt on December 4,

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 5

1842' and proceeded to the Yukon by way of the Unalakleet River,
the route pioneered by Maleikhov. Arriving at Nulato in mid-
January, 1843, his party, during the winter, explored the lower
Koyukuk searching for a short route to the Buckland River and
Kotzebue Sound. Zagoskin eventually abandoned this part of his
planned exploration since he had neither the time nor the resources
to reconnoiter as far as the coast.

After spending the spring at Nulato collecting natural history
specimens and data on the fur trade, Zagoskin's party started up
the Yukon on June 4, and explored as far as the mouth of the Nowit-
na River, just above the present village of Kokrines. Somewhere
near Kokrines they met an encampment of upper Innoko Indians,
from \Yhom Zagoskin obtained useful information about their area,
supplementing data he had already obtained from Petr Kolmakov's
map.

On August 2, 1843 Zagoskin and his companions left Nulato after
a stay of some seven months, this time going down the Yukon. On
August 13 the party arrived near the entrance to Shageluk Slough
but being unable to enter because of shallow bars at the entrance,
continued to Anvik, Anilukhtsikpak, and Ikogmiut, which became
Zagoskin's headquarters for the winter of 1843-1844. Thus far he
had explored and described more than 500 miles of the Yukon River.

For the purposes of this introduction, Zagoskin's most pertinent
explorations during that winter were along the lower reaches of the
Innoko, although he also traveled to the Kuskokwim twice. He ex-
plored the Innoko between February 10 and March 10, 1844, and,
although he describes and names a number of settlements on the
river and gives detailed information concerning the environment, it
is not possible to determine his route with complete certainty. He
apparently reached the mouth of the Iditarod and believed that he
had ascended the river to at least the point that Petr Kolmakov had
reached from the opposite direction. Having accomplished this,
Zagoskin then realized that it was possible to travel from the upper
Kuskokwim to the lower Yukon by way of the Innoko, although this
route was obviously longer and more difficult than the short,
customary portages leading from the Yukon River settlements of
Paimiut and Ikogmiut.

'Dates are according to the Georgian calendar which was 12 days behind the
Julian in the nineteenth century.

6 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

Having completed their Kuskokwim explorations, Zagoskin and
his party were back in Ikogmiut on June 10, 1844 for the last time,
and left on the 13th. They descended the Yukon to its mouth, mak-
ing their way along the coast to Mikhailovskiy Redoubt where they
arrived on June 21, having been away from the post for more than a
year and a half.

Zagoskin's report, first published in 1847-1848, republished in a
carefully edited edition in 1956, and in an English translation in
1967, is the primary source for information on the history,
geography, and ethnography of west-central Alaska during the Rus-
sian period. The Russian-American Company made no further at-
tempts at comprehensive interior exploration. Traders stationed at
Mikhailovskiy and Ikogmiut visited the Indian villages periodically
to collect furs, and a priest from the Russian Orthodox mission,
which was established at Ikogmiut in 1845, also traveled extensive-
ly. Although they experienced extensive contact with village in-
habitants, it is doubtful whether, in the course of their travels, they
added greatly to the knowledge which the company already possess-
ed concerning the country and its inhabitants.

At the time of the transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United
States in 1867 American explorers were already in the newly ac-
quired territory. Members of the Western Union Telegraph Com-
pany Expedition, an elaborate undertaking to survey a route for a
telegraph line that would cross the Bering Sea to Siberia and thus
connect America with Europe, were at Mikhailovskiy Redoubt in
the winter of 1865 and at Nulato in the spring of the following year.
Although the lower-middle Yukon and the Innoko were traversed,
the various parties did little more than pass through these areas and
they seem to have been largely unaware of previous explorations.
Nevertheless, members of the Telegraph Expedition could not help
noting that the Indians with whom they came in contact were
familiar with white men and had established procedures for dealing
with them. In various publications relating to the work of the ex-
pedition references are made to the fur trade and useful information
is sometimes provided concerning the early stages of culture change
in the Yukon-lower Innoko area (Whymper, 1869, pp. 264-265; Dall,
1870, pp. 219-222).

In the summer of 1869 Captain Charles W. Raymond, U.S. Corp
of Engineers, traveled from St. Michael, as Mikhailovskiy was call-
ed after the purchase, to Fort Yukon in a small steamer to ascertain

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 7

the amount of trade carried on by the Hudson's Bay Company in
American territory and to determine the latitude and longitude of
that post. Like members of the Telegraph Expedition, Raymond
makes useful contributions to our knowledge of the fur trade at the
beginning of the American period, but he spent very little time in
the area of interest to us here. He noted the existance of Shageluk
Slough, but made no attempt to explore in that direction and only
commented that the Innoko Valley was reported to be the richest
fur country in the lower Yukon (Raymond, 1871, 1873).

In summary, much of the exploration of interior Alaska by both
Russians and Americans between 1845 and 1880 was superficial
and was not accompanied by the accurate surveying and mapping
that characterized some coastal explorations being carried out at
the same time. Writing as late as 1886, Henry W. Elliott, a noted
authority on Alaska and former member of the Western Union
Telegraph Company Expedition, noted that although the Yukon
flowed through some of the most unexplored country in the north,
the river itself was one of the best known waterways in Alaska
(Elliott, 1886, pp. 412-413).

St. Michael was one of the early stations of the Signal Service of
the United States Army in Alaska. This program was established in
1874, largely through the efforts of Spencer Baird, then Secretary of
the Smithsonian Institution. The observers selected for these sta-
tions were young men interested in all aspects of natural history
and thus qualified to make profitable use of their time when not per-
forming their meteorological duties. In June, 1877 Private Edward
William Nelson was assigned to St. Michael and directed by the
Chief Signal Officer to obtain, in addition to weather observations,
data on the geography, ethnology, and zoology of the area (Sher-
wood, 1965, pp. 93-94).

Edward Nelson was born near Manchester, New Hampshire on
May 8, 1855.' The family moved to Chicago following his father's
death in the Civil War. Intermittently between 1872 and 1875 he at-
tended the Cook County Normal School and at the age of 17 made
his first field collecting trip to the far west. His principal interest at
this time and throughout the early years of his career was orni-

'A detailed account of Nelson's life stressing his accomplishments in the fields of
ornithology and mammology is found in Goldman (1935). His anthropological con-
tributions are described and evaluated by Lantis (1954).

8 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

thology and his first papers, on birds of Illinois, were published in
1876 and 1877.

With the assistance of Baird, Nelson was accepted as a weather
observer in the Signal Service for assignment to Alaska and in
April, 1877 he sailed from San Francisco. During his term of duty at
St. Michael he traveled extensively and, in addition to collecting
birds and mammals, made the superb collection of Eskimo
ethnographic specimens, now in the National Museum of Natural
History, which has secured his fame among later generations of
arctic anthropologists.

Nelson remained at St. Michael until 1881 and his last journey
during the winter prior to his departure is the subject of this ac-
count. Leaving St. Michael on November 16, 1880 with dogs and
sledges. Nelson and Fredericks crossed the mountains to the upper
Anvik River, and thence dgwn the river to its confluence with the
Yukon. After being delayed at Anvik a few days because of bad
weather, the two men traveled up the Yukon a short distance before
crossing overland to the Innoko River and exploring its upper
reaches (Nelson, 1887, p. 16; 1899, p. 20).

The exact route traveled by Nelson and his companion is uncer-
tain in part because his accounts, both published and unpubhshed,
are sketchy and vague on this subject, but also because of certain
geographical characteristics of the area. About 75 miles above its
confluence with the Yukon the Innoko is joined to the latter by
Shageluk Slough, an anabranch which runs in a meandering north
-south direction generally parallel to the two rivers for a distance of
some 40 miles and joins the Innoko approximately 15 river miles
above the village of Shageluk. A branch of Shageluk Slough,
HoUkachuk Slough, flows into the Innoko above the village of
Holikachuk, formerly a sizeable settlement but abandoned in the
1960's when the inhabitants moved to the Yukon.

A glance at the map (fig. 2) will show that Shageluk Slough,
together with the Innoko River, creates a large island roughly in the
shape of an inverted triangle with Fox Point Island in the northwest
corner, Holikachuk in the northeast corner, and the confluence of
the Innoko and the Yukon at the apex. This arrangement has
created confusion in geographical naming and identification by
early explorers, traders, and missionaries. In some written ac-
counts, including Nelson's manuscript, Shageluk Slough is con-

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES

Fig. 2. Map of the lower-middle Yukon and lower Innoko rivers.

sidered to include not only the slough but the lower Innoko as well.
For these writers the name Innoko is applied only to the river above
the mouth of Holikachuk Slough. It is easy to see why some
observers considered the entire complex of sloughs and a section of
the lower Innoko to be simply a large anabranch of the Yukon,
because it is certainly true that both sloughs deliver a considerable
amount of Yukon water to the Innoko in the spring. Zagoskin (1967,
p. 298) noted that the Indians he encountered referred to the upper

10 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

Innoko as the Tlegon, a name, it will be recalled, which Petr
Kolmakov also obtained in 1838. The "middle course" was called
"Shiltonotno or Innoka," while the lower reaches between the point
where Holikachuk Slough enters and its junction with the Yukon
was designated "Ittege" by the local people and "Chagelyuk," or
Shageluk, by the neighboring Eskimos. Zagoskin believed the name
Shageluk to mean "willow," a reference to the heavy growth of
these trees along the river's banks. According to one source
(Osgood, 1958, p. 27), Innoko is an Ingalik word meaning "in the
woods," but there is no general agreement as to its meaning or
origin.

Since Nelson reserved the name Innoko for that part of the river
above the entrance to Holikachuk Slough, it is possible, with the
help of the few actual dates in his account, to reconstruct with some
degree of certainty at least part of his route. After leaving Anvik, it
is likely that Nelson and Fredericks ascended the Yukon to a point
in the vicinity of the present village of Grayling, occupied by the
former residents of Holikachuk, and then crossed over to the Innoko
River in the vicinity of Holikachuk village. A winter trail in the area
is still frequently used today. From that point the route can only be
surmised. Nelson obviously ascended the Innoko, probably one of
the few white men to do so since Petr Kolmakov had traversed the
same territory from the opposite direction in 1838. It is doubtful,
however, if he reached the headwater tributaries that Kolmakov had
followed in going from the Kuskokwim drainage to that of the
Yukon. The return journey probably followed much the same route
since Nelson (1887, p. 16) mentions stopping again at Anvik, but the
two travelers then proceeded down the Yukon and along the coast
to St. Michael rather than by way of the Anvik River. This return
route is of some importance in interpreting the information in his ac-
count because it means that he did not visit the lower Innoko at any
time during these travels, though he refers to "the Shageluk" in his
manuscript.

Edward Nelson left St. Michael in late June, 1881 aboard the
Revenue steamer Corwin, serving as naturahst that summer on her
northward voyage in search of the missing ship Jeannette. The Cor-
win visited the north coasts of Alaska as well as the Diomede
Islands and St. Lawrence Island before returning to San Francisco
in October (Nelson, 1887, p. 16). Nelson never did further work in
Alaska, but spent the remainder of his long career in the southwest.

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 11

California, Mexico, and in various administrative positions for the
Bureau of Biological Survey, U.S. Department of Agriculture. His
interest in Alaska and writings on Alaskan subjects continued,
however, and in 1899 he pubHshed his major ethnographic work,
"The Eskimo About Bering Strait," in which he carefully described
the approximately 10,000 specimens collected in the course of his
sledge and boat journeys from St. Michael. He retired from govern-
ment service in 1929 and died on May 19, 1934 (Goldman, 1935, pp.
145-148; Lantis, 1954, pp. 9-10).

Nelson's sledge journey to the Yukon and upper Innoko in the
winter of 1880 would have been a truly remarkable accomplishment
for anyone else, but for this indefatigable man it was simply one of
many such trips, all equally long and arduous. Although lacking in
specific geographical information, Nelson's account of his journey is
an important source for the ethnography of the area. It provides
more information relevant to nineteenth century culture change
than any other single source prior to the establishment of the
Episcopal and Roman Catholic missions on the lower Yukon seven
years later. Nelson (1887, p. 16) acknowledged that the emphasis of
his trip was ethnological and he did not hesitate to supplement data
obtained by personal observation with information provided by
others. Through the co-operation of men like L. N. McQuesten, a
pioneer Yukon trader who made frequent trips to St. Michael,
Nelson derived his information concerning the Koyukon Indians of
the Nulato area and the lower Tanana River (Sherwood, 1965, p. 94).

The most significant information in the notes on his journey,
however, concerns the Ingalik Indians of the Anvik area. Cornelius
Osgood, whose field work in the 1930 's has provided most of the
ethnographic information available concerning the Ingalik, believ-
ed, at the time of his field work, that these Athapaskan speakers
comprised four units or subdivisions based on subtle linguistic and
cultural differences. The first was the Anvik-Shageluk group, which
centered around the village of Anvik on the Yukon and in set-
tlements on the lower Innoko River, particularly Shageluk. The
second group was identified with the now-abandoned village of
Bonasila on the Yukon River approximately 22 miles above its con-
fluence with the Innoko. A third group inhabited the villages of
Holy Cross on the Yukon and Georgetown on the Kuskokwim.
Osgood was less certain about the fourth subdivision, the McGrath
group, occupying the drainage of the upper Kuskokwim (Osgood,

12 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

1940, p. 31). More recent research suggests that the Ingalik oc-
cupied only a small section of the Kuskokwim Valley above the
village of Stony River as well as the drainages of the Swift and
Tatlawiksuk rivers, Kuskokwim tributaries (Kraus, 1974).

Osgood's (1940, 1958, 1959) exhaustive reconstructions of tradi-
tional Ingalik culture constitute the most comprehensive account of
any northern Athapaskan peoples. He did not, however, concern
himself with problems of culture change, although he was aware of
the contributions of Glazunov and Zagoskin and summarized their
data on the Ingalik and neighboring peoples well before information
concerning the activities of these explorers was available in English
(Osgood, 1940, pp. 35-50). From the standpoint of its usefulness for
the study of Ingalik culture change. Nelson's account is important
because his observations in the area took place after those of
Zagoskin but before missions were established in 1887. From that
time on, the published and unpublished writings of mission person-
nel form the basis for our understanding of the Ingalik reaction to
the ever-increasing presence of Euro- Americans in their area in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It seems safe to say
that between the departure of Zagoskin in 1844 and the arrival of
Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries 43 years later. Nelson
and Hieromonk Illarion, the Russian Orthodox priest at Ikogmiut,
were the only white men with an interest in observing and writing
about the native peoples to visit the territory of the Ingalik.

Nelson's account also contains data on the inhabitants of the up-
per Innoko River whom he termed "Kolchan," a name which has
had varied usage in the historical and anthropological literature on
western Alaska. While at Anvik in January, 1834 Glazunov learned
of a group of Indians called "Kyltchanes" who were said to inhabit
the upper Kuskokwim River (VanStone, 1959, p. 43). Writing in
1839 Baron Ferdinand Petrovich von Wrangell, a former general
manager of the Russian- American Company, noted that the Ahtna
and Tanaina, Athapaskan groups in the Prince William Sound and
Cook Inlet areas respectively, used the names "Kolchan" or
"Goltsan" to refer to unspecified peoples in the interior. The names
were said to mean "strangers" or "visitors" (Wrangell, 1970, pp.
8-9). Wrangell may have had access to Petr Kolmakov's unpublish-
ed journal since Zagoskin (1967, p. 300) noted that the explorer used
a similar name to refer to the inhabitants of the upper Innoko and
translated it as "nomads." Zagoskin himself applied the name

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 13

"Goltsan" to the inhabitants of the upper Kuskokwim and believed
that Kolmakov had been in error in extending its use to include the
upper Innoko (Zagoskin, 1967, p. 243). Hieromonk lUarion referred
to the Indians of the upper Kuskokwim and upper Innoko as
"Kolchanes" and noted, at the time of a visit in May, 1866, that
Holikachuk was "the first Kolchane village" (Oswalt, 1960, pp. 104,
109, 116-117).

Perhaps the most significant point to be derived from the above
information is that the earliest travelers on the Innoko recognized a
linguistic and cultural distinction between the inhabitants of the
lower Innoko and the river above the settlement of Holikachuk. It is
probable, however, that the name "Kolchan" and its many varia-
tions was simply a designation in several Athapaskan languages to
identify people who lived inland from the speakers. Zagoskin (1967,
p. 243) appears to have suspected as much when he noted that the
name was "applied to all tribes of the interior by those living on the
coast." Osgood (1940, pp. 31, 33), as we have noted, tentatively plac-
ed the upper Kuskokwim within Ingalik territory and he considered
the upper Innoko to be within the area occupied by Koyukon
Athapaskans. Holikachuk was thus a Koyukon village linguistically
but because of frequent interaction with the Ingalik the inhabitants
were culturally aligned with those people. This latter point is cer-
tainly correct, but the recent linguistic research of Kraus (1974) and
his colleagues has resulted in the delineation of a new Athapaskan
group which he calls Holikachuk and which includes the upper In-
noko and a small section of the Yukon in the vicinity of the village of
Grayling. As previously noted, the former inhabitants of the Innoko
community now occupy this latter area. As for the upper
Kuskokwim, Hosley (1968), on the basis of research in the McGrath
region, designated the inhabitants of this area as an independent
group of northern Athapaskans and gave them the traditional name
of Kolchan. Kraus (1974) recognizes the linguistic distinctiveness of
this area but prefers to designate it simply as Upper Kuskokwim.

The reader of Nelson's account who is primarily seeking informa-
tion on the nature and quality of Ingalik life in the late nineteenth
century just prior to the impact of missions and the influx of popula-
tion resulting from the discovery of gold on the upper Yukon may be
somewhat disappointed. More than half the manuscript is devoted
to an account of myths, most of which are duplicated in other collec-
tions, and a description of festivals in the winter cycle of social and

14 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

religious ceremonies which are described in greater detail by
Osgood (1958, pp. 73-146). It was undoubtedly the weather-induced
delay at Anvik which enabled Nelson to collect so much of these
kinds of data. His eye-witness accounts of the ceremonies, however,
are important primary source material. Combined with later
descriptions by missionaries and Osgood's excellent ethnographic
reconstructions, Nelson's data on ceremonies helps to make the
ceremonial cycle of the Ingalik as well known as that of the adjacent
Eskimos and better known than that of any other northern
Athapaskan group.

Perhaps the most valuable information in Nelson's account con-
cerns Indian-Eskimo relations, particularly Ingalik trade with the
Eskimos of the Norton Sound area. Also valuable are his observa-
tions on resource utilization, and on changes in the resource base,
and in hunting and trapping methods in response to the re-
quirements of the fur trade. Particularly detailed is his discussion of
the seasonal round of subsistence activities, a pattern that is dif-
ficult to determine in other nineteenth-century sources and even in
Osgood. As a result, it is possible to ascertain the extent to which
the Ingalik were involved in the fur trade in the 1880's. Nelson's in-
formation on death and burial customs usefully supplements data in
Osgood, as does his reasonably detailed discussion of girls' puberty
observances, courtship, and marriage.

One theme that runs through Nelson's account is his opinion that
the Ingalik and also the "Kolchan" had borrowed a considerable
body of customs and beliefs from the neighboring Eskimos. He saw
this as a result of the long history of interaction between the three
peoples and was convinced that the Ingalik and "Kolchan" were the
borrowers because Eskimo culture traits were found only among In-
dians living in close proximity to Eskimo territory. More recent
students of Athapaskan culture have been less willing to commit
themselves on this subject although they readily acknowledge the
obvious resemblances. In writing of the rich ceremonial life of the
Ingalik, for example, Osgood (1959, p. 274) noted that his research
failed to reveal satisfactory evidence of the borrowing of most of the
ceremonies from the neighboring Eskimos. His informants believed
the performances to be basically Athapaskan and he was unwilling
to make a judgement either way in the matter. Whatever may have
been the extent of Ingalik borrowing, it is clear that their way of
life, as well as that of the Koyukon, Tanana, and Tanaina— other

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 15

Athapaskans living in close proximity to the major waterways of
western Alaska— resembled to a marked degree that of the riverine
Eskimos of the same area.

PREFACE TO NELSON'S ACCOUNT

Nelson's manuscript account of his travels on the Yukon and In-
noko rivers in November and December, 1880 is undated and con-
sists of 91 handwritten pages. It is deposited in the National An-
thropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, where it bears the
designation BAE ms. no. 2109. The full title is "Manuscript on the
'Tinne' tribes of Alaska, information mainly from Anvik Indians,
with some from Yukon Indians, and 'Kolchan' Indians from Innoko
River." Although most of the information in this manuscript was
never utilized in Nelson's many publications on Alaskan subjects,
some material on birds and mammals was incorporated into his
"Report Upon Natural History Collections made in Alaska. ..."
(1887).

In the following pages Nelson's manuscript is reproduced virtual-
ly complete with the exception of a very brief section consisting
almost entirely of musical transcriptions. Also eliminated are the
sketches of artifacts which the author interspersed throughout the
text, but which are crudely drawn and do not supplement the writ-
ten material in any way. An outline sketch-plan of an Indian house
on the upper Innoko River is retained, however (fig. 4). Since Nelson
made no attempt to divide his account into logical paragraphs, this
has been done by the editor, necessitating some punctuation
changes. Words appearing in brackets are those of the editor, while
those in parentheses are part of the original manuscript. The few
footnotes in the manuscript have been either eliminated or incor-
porated into the text. All editorial footnotes are numbered and plac-
ed at the end of Nelson's account.

16

E. W. NELSON'S NOTES ON INDIANS
OF THE YUKON AND INNOKO RIVERS, ALASKA

Messenger or Barter Festival: Anvik Indians

This festival is ordinarily one of the first ones held in winter. It
generally takes place in November and seems to have no significa-
tion except the exchange of articles from one village to the other and
the promotion of good fellowship between villages. This is a com-
mon festival with the Innuits from the Arctic Coast and Bering's
Straits to Bristol Bay.

This festival is begun as follows: After winter sets in the people in
a certain village find that they have more than they need of various
articles of value such as deerskins, wooden dishes, or other things
and they lack certain other desirable articles. They decide to hold a
barter festival and invite the people of the neighboring village.

Nearly everyone in the village has some article he wishes to ex-
change and in consequence he becomes one of the feast givers. When
a large supply of food is prepared and all is ready the two head men
of the villages prepare two slender batons which they peiint with
bright colors and then these are given to two young men who £ire in-
structed to give the batons to the two head men in the village decid-
ed upon by the feast-givers.

The messengers arrive at their destination and deliver their
batons and tell who sent them. Then the messengers recite to the
assembled villagers the things most desired by the feast makers and
the articles that will be given out by them at the festival. Each of
the messengers is given some new article of clothing and they are
treated as guests of honor during their stay.

The villagers meike ready and, placing their articles on sledges,
start for the feast. When one day's journey from the village giving
the feast, one of the messengers hurries on ahead to notify his
people. The next day the other messenger runs on ahead and notifies
the people of the approach of the guests.

17

18 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

The guests are received with great hospitality and are apportion-
ed among the different householders. The last messenger who leaves
the approaching guests is told by each of the guests what he par-
ticularly desires such as an article of clothing or other thing.

Soon after the arrival of the guests all gather in the sweat house
and the women bring in a bountiful supply of food. When everyone
has feasted to his content each man brings in some article asked for
by one of the guests and gives it to him and if it is an article of
clothing, he helps the guest put it on. Then the hosts unite in a
dance and song of welcome which occupies the first evening.

The second evening the guests bring in and distribute their
presents after which they dance and sing a song addressed to their
hosts.

On the third evening the hosts bring in and distribute fresh
presents and this is followed by a general dance in which both sides
take part and the festival is ended.

Frequently more than one village is invited to take part in one of
these festivals. The next year some of the guests at this festival will
make another one and invite their hosts of the year before. In this
way a considerable exchange of goods is brought about.'

Festival to the Dead

On December 10, 1880, during one of my sledge journeys, I came
to a small Indian village near the head of the Innoko River. There I
found nearly all of the able-bodied men of the Kol-chan Indians
assembled by invitation to witness and take part in a feast given in
honor of the dead.

The principal feast makers were a young man and an old man, but
the entire village took a more or less active part in it. The shades to
be honored in chief, however, were relatives of the two men named,
and, in a general way, the shades of other village dead whose rela-
tives took part.

I arrived after the festival began and from that time on kept note
of all the ceremonies. The two principals, I was told, sang a song
prepared for this occasion in the morning and the evening before the
day set for the festival to begin.

On the evening of my arrival I noticed some excitement about the
sweat house and went in. All of the women came in and sat opposite

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 19

the doorway. In the middle of the room in a row facing the door sat
four old men. These men sang several songs, each one ending with a
low but high pitched "hoo, hoo, hoo." In about half an hour some
young men held up two blankets so as to conceal the door and all of
that side of the room. Directly after this two women and five men
came in and ranged themselves along the wall behind the blankets,
one woman at each end of the Une, and the blankets were taken
away.

One man wore the tail feathers of a white owl in a fillet so ar-
ranged that the feathers stood up straight from the forehead. The
other men each had a similar fillet in which were the feathers of a
gyr-falcon or some other bird of prey.

Three of the men each had a large downy feather fastened in some
way to the tips of their noses. The men all wore new blouses of fancy
ticking. The women had one or two black-tipped wing feathers of a
seagull in their hair and wore blouses of bright colored calico, also
new. In her right hand each woman held a slender rod about 3 ft.
long and tipped with a large, downy white feather.

The old men at once resumed their song, beating time with slender
sticks on a smooth, round log that lay before them. The new comers
began a slow dance in time to the song. The movements of the men
consisted of a mere jogging of the weight first on one leg and then
on the other, with a corresponding heave of the shoulders, all
without moving the feet from their place on the floor.

The women made a forward and backward motion of the body at
the hips accompanied by a Ught bending of the knees each time and
a slight twisting or rotary motion of the body as the last, or recov-
ery, movement. The women kept their wands in constant slight mo-
tion in time to the song. After the dance had gone on for some time
the singers uttered the final "hoo-hoo-hoo" and stopped. The danc-
ers stopped at once and turned with their faces to the wall and stood
thus until the song was taken up again when they would wheel
about and begin once more. This was repeated several times. All of
the dancers wore mittens and every now and then during the dance
they would draw out a pinch of fine white down in one hand and
blow it toward the middle of the room where the singers sat. When
this was finished everyone went to bed.

At 2:00 A.M., the next morning, I was awakened by the singing of
the old men on the roof of the sweat house. The song ceased and the

20 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

hewn end of a stick was pushed a little way into the smoke hole and
then came a long song. After it was finished the end of the stick was
pushed slowly down until a young man inside caught hold of it and
drew it down until the end rested on the floor. It was a slender
spruce pole, unpeeled except a little bit at the butt. All along its
sides were stuck long, downy white feathers.

After singing another song the men on the outside came in. The
chief shaman of the village then started a song which was taken up
by the other old men and followed by the seven dancers of the eve-
ning before. The latter wore old clothing and gathered in a ring
about the spruce pole and began to dance as before.

These dancers were soon joined by another who brought a wolf-
skin over his head. He circled once around and touched the pole and
then one of the seven dancers took the wolfskin and hung it on the
wall of the room. In this way the dance went on for hours, some new
man, or woman, bringing in a contribution every 15 or 20 min. In
the end a varied lot of stuff hung along the wall consisting of wolf,
wolverine, and other skins, calico, drilling, tobacco, etc., etc. There
averaged from 8 to 12 dancers and the unvarying song was kept up
with all the power of their lungs.

The old men and dancers did most of the singing as the others
very rarely joined in. The song was an endless repetition of the syl-
lables "oh-hee-ha; hee-ha; hee-ha-hay" varied by "ha-ha-hay; hee-ha;
hee-hee-ha." The dancers threw the upper part of the body back and
forth violently and stamped time vigorously on the floor with one
foot. The dancers streamed with perspiration and as fast as one
became exhausted and dropped out of line his, or her, place was
taken by a newcomer.

The dance ended at 10:00 A.M. and food was brought in. After
some fragments of food from each vessel and some water from the
watertub had been cast upon the floor as an offering to the dead, the
food was handed out by the women and all ate heartily. Then the
seven original dancers, who were namesakes of the dead in whose
honor the feast was given, were called out in the middle of the room
and fine new clothing put upon all of them and, the articles hanging
on the wall having been distributed generally, the festival was at an
end.

I was told that two other similar festivals are to be given by Kol-
chan villages right away. During the continuance of this festival the

VAN STONE: NELSON'S NOTES 21

use of sharp tools and instruments was forbidden in the village fear-
ing to injure the shades.^

Festival of the Dressing of the Dead: Anvik Indians

Every year the Indians of Anvik and the Shageluk celebrate this
feast during the December moon. The people from neighboring vil-
lages are notified of the time when this festival will be held. No
special messenger is sent but anyone who goes to an outside village
is commissioned to extend the invitation. As the villages usually
hold this feast in turn, a man can attend several of them if he
desires.

The first evening of the feast after the guests have arrived, the
namesakes and representatives of the dead, in whose honor the feast
is given, enter the sweat house and are seated in a row on new straw
mats in the place of honor, opposite the entrance. The feast-makers
now bring in a large supply of frozen fish and distribute it among
the p>eople. The namesakes are given also boiled fish in fine new
wooden trays or dishes. Each feast-maker casts an offering of the
food upon the floor for the shades before he distributes the food and
also before he gives food to the namesakes. At the same time every-
thing given the namesake is supposed to insure the direct benefit of
the shade so represented.

The second evening a large birch tray full of decayed and frozen
fish roe is distributed and the namesakes are given trays full of the
roe and other delicacies.

Every evening during the continuance of this festival, after the
distribution of food, the villagers join in dancing in time with songs
and drums, the latter like those used by the neighboring Innuits.
Early on the morning of the third day the feast-makers bring in a
large quantity of mixed chewed reindeer [caribou] fat and berries, as
throughout this festival offerings are cast to the shades and the
choicest bits are given to the namesakes.

Each feast-maker now goes out and brings in a bag of new cloth-
ing prepared for this occasion. A feast-maker may have but one
dead person to honor in which case he, or she, has but one namesake
to provide for, but it frequently happens that one feast-giver will
have several relatives to remember in which case he has a namestike
for each one of them and provides clothing for all alike.

The feast-makers then take out their clothing and help the name-
sakes put it on, including fur coat (parkie), breeches, boots, and

22 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY. VOLUME 70

gloves. When all are dressed a large supply of dried salmon is
brought in and distributed after which it is carried out by the recipi-
ents. The namesakes then rise, take their mats under their arms and
carry out their food trays, taking home all that has been given to
them.

The day is passed in singing and dancing. Early on the fourth
morning everyone rises and, while sitting down in the sweat house,
stamp heavily on the floor four times. Then they go out and into
each house in succession where they sit down and stamp four times.

This signal sends the shades back to the land of the dead and ends
the feast. The old man who gave me the foregoing details also ex-
plained to me the following points. The shade is supposed to be his
namesake during this festival. This feast is given the second winter
after a person dies, and as often thereafter as the relatives can af-
ford it. Several persons always unite in giving one of these feasts in
order to render it more imposing in the matter of gifts, etc. The
feast-givers are bound to provide an abundant supply of food for
everyone besides the usual gifts. These feasts are given for near rel-
atives such as the parents, wife, children, brother or sister, nephew
or niece.

During the continuance of this feast no one is permitted to cut
wood with an axe or knife, no sewing is allowed and, in fact, no
pointed or edged tool is used about the village. Firewood is broken
by striking one stick across another unless it was prepared before
the feast began. The reason for this is that the shades of the dead
are all about the place at this time, though invisible, and a person
using a sharp instrument might cut one of them by accident and
make it angry, and so cause it to revenge itself upon the villagers by
bringing them sickness or some other evil.

This festival is the same as the one described on the Innoko River
except that the Anvik people show the influence of their Innuit
neighbors in many of the details and observances.^

Bladder Festival

This festival is borrowed from the Innuits and is found among the
Indians only to the head of Shageluk Island on the Yukon. The
following details were given me by some old men at Anvik.

The feast is held there sometime before the January moon each
year. Guests are not invited nor expected as the feast is for the

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 23

special interest of the members of each community in itself. At the
same time chance guests are entertained hospitably. I wish it
understood that the following notes are but an outline of this
festival and do not purport to give the full details.

The sweat house is ornamented [with] newly split strips of wood 2
or 3 in. wide and from 3 to 4 ft. long and gaily marked by bands of
bright colored paints. These strips are fastened into crevices be-
tween the logs near the roof, and are ranged all along the front and
back ends of the room. At the outer end of each strip is the carved
wooden model of a reindeer, bear, wolf, fox, rabbit, grouse, or other
animal or bird; or, they bear the model of a gun or other hunting im-
plement. Upon the sides of the room are fastened six bundles of
rosinweed stalks, three bundles on each side. These bundles are
fastened to the wall by wooden pegs and are about an equal height
from the floor.

Just below the wooden strips at the back end of the room and ex-
tending from side to side are two or more strong rawhide cords.
From these cords hang suspended bunches of inflated bladders of
reindeer, moose, bears, otters, and other animals taken by the
hunters of the village during the past year. Each bladder is marked
by a hne drawn around it with white paint.

Leaning against the wall upon each side of the usual central lamp
at the back of the room are two large boards banded with red and
black paint with white paint in spots between the bands. Each of
these boards is made with four large scallops on each side and, in the
middle of each scallop, is inserted the quill feather of a goose and a
bunch of down is fastened at the top of the boeird.

Between these boards and under the bladders is an upright post
fastened in the floor, with a fork at the upper end, and about 5 ft.
high. This post is painted and ornamented with quill feathers just
like the boards.

All of these things are put in place and kept there for 10 days and
then the bladders are brought in and hung up and the festival
begins.

The evening that the bladders are hung two men wearing black
masks come in and dance while all the people unite in a song. This is
repeated the three following evenings. On the fifth evening all of the
people whose places are on the bench under the bladders have small,
newly-made wands about a yard long, banded with red paint and

24 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

tipped with a tuft of reindeer hair. These wands are moved slowly up
and down in time with a special song for that night.

On the sixth evening the two black-masked men come in and sit
one on each side of the lamp at the back end of the room. Then each
one begins beating time with a stick on a small board he has made
for the purpose. Soon after this a long line of men come filing in, all
wearing masks of various kinds. They form a Hne along the front of
the room opposite the bladders and execute an ordinary posturing
dance.

This is repeated on the seventh and eighth evenings. On the ninth
evening the men place their beds in a circle in the middle of the room
and unite in singing while the women are ranged about the walls.
The two men come in dressed in fine new masks and clothes and one
of them dressed as a woman. This couple dance in time to the song
throughout the night.

When they become tired they go out for a short time and then
return and go on with the dance. The singers go steadily on with
short intervals during all the night.

Early on the morning of the tenth day the cover is taken off the
smoke hole in the roof and a crowd of masked faces look down into
the room and cry "Where is our axe? We have lost our axe. Here is a
hole and perhaps it has fallen in here." The dancer dressed in man's
clothes now comes forward and hammers on the floor with an axe
made in the style of the old stone axes. At this the maskers on the
roof cry out "There it is, there is our axe. Throw it back to us." Then
they throw down a deerskin saying "This is to pay for it, now throw
it back." The man throws the axe up through the hole and the
maskers unite in a dance and song of thanks for the return of the
axe.

Then the people inside pull down all of the ornamented sticks from
the walls and after breaking them cast them into the fireplace in the
middle of the room. Half of each bundle of rosinweed is also thrown
there. The maskers from the roof now come in and after circling
around the fireplace singing and dancing they cast their masks upon
the pile. The rosinweeds not thrown on the pile are now lighted and
waved about until the room is filled with the aromatic smoke and
the people all join in a song. After this the masks are taken up and
carried out and hung in storehouses or trees until needed the next
year. Each man now takes the bundle of bladders belonging to him

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 25

and carries them out into the woods where he breaks and leaves
them if they are bladders of land animals. The bladders of otters or
other water animals are broken and put into the water through a
hole in the ice.

This ends the festival. The next morning the young men toss one
another on a large seal skin and on the second morning they have
foot races and other games. During the 10 days while the bladders
hang in the sweat house no hunting or trapping is permitted and it
is forbidden to bring a fox or a rabbit into the sweat house. During
this time whenever anyone brings food or water into the house they
take it first to a bundle of rosinweeds that is placed on a short stick
just back of the lamp in the back of the room— the forked stick
described [p. 23] —and sprinkle a little of the water on them or drop
a little of the food on the floor in front of them saying, "I give you
this." "And you also," he says turning and throwing a little of the
food or water up to the bladders overhead. If a man has killed no
animals during the year so that he has no bladders to hang up, he
takes a small bundle of rosinweeds and hangs it up with the blad-
ders and observes all the rites to it as though it was a bladder.

As with the Innuits, this festival is a species of harvest-home. The
bladder is supposed to contain the shade of the animal it was
taken from and when the bladder is taken out and opened in the
woods, or at the waterhold, the shade escapes and hurries off to
enter another one of its kind. By the songs of thanks that are sung
to the bladders with the dances and votive offerings of food and
water the hunters count upon pleasing the shade so that it will
return to him again in another of its kind and thus give him success
in the chase.

All of this is taken directly from the Innuits with some Indian
observances added.^

Anvik Doll Festival: Given in January Moon Each Year.
As Described by Old Men at Anvik

Two large wooden hoops are made to extend around the inside of
the sweat house. One of these is suspended a little below the other,
and both hang about midway between the roof and floor. From the
smoke-hole in the roof a large number of slender rods extend down
and are fastened at intervals around the upper hoop.

The hoops and these rods oie banded with red paint and small
tufts of downy, white feathers are fastened to them at intervals. At

26 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

the back of the room directly opposite the entrance way are fixed
two slender posts about 5 ft. long, upon the upper end of which is
placed at right angles a small board. On one of these boards are plac-
ed in a sitting posture two small wooden dolls completely dressed as
a man and a woman. Beside the man lay the models of a three-
pronged bird spear on one side and a paddle on the other. Beside the
woman is a model of a paddle. On top of the post to the right is the
image of an old man fully dressed and alone with a paddle standing
by him. The posts are banded with red paint. For two days these im-
ages are kept thus while the people of the village abstain from all
work and are very careful to make as little noise as possible in the
sweat house. The images are supposed to be very sharp-eared and to
dislike a loud noise so no one is permitted to drop anything, stamp
their feet or talk in a loud tone in the house. On each of the two
nights mentioned certain songs are sung, made up of a series of un-
meaning syllables supposed to be very pleasing to the images.

On the third evening five men come in, each bringing the small
wooden images of the birds, fishes, and animals they hunt for food
and clothing. These images are tied into five bundles and are hung
from the slender rods near the roof, nothing being hung to the
wooden rings. Then these men go out and return with dried fish
which they distribute among the people.

On the evening of the fourth day all of the people of the village
gather in the sweat house. Then each of the older men in the village
takes a girl or young woman by the arm with his left hand and car-
ries an arrow in his right hand. Each of the young men and large
boys then take the older women in the same way and all march
around the room singing a song. When this is done all disperse every
pair so formed becoming husband and wife for that night.

The next, or fifth, day the men all go out and each one brings a
load of wood to the door of the house where his temporary wife lives.

Then the rods are taken down from the roof and a fire is built to
warm the sweat house and after this is done the rods are replaced.
Then the women come in bringing food, each woman serving her
companion of the night before and, at the same time, making him a
present of some article of dress, such as a pair of gloves. In the even-
ing the women dance by themselves.

On the sixth day, very early in the morning, all of the rods and
hoops are broken up and cast into the fireplace. The images are
taken down and packed carefully in fine wood shavings, with a piece

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 27

of dried salmon and deer [caribou] fat in each package, and a piece of
white birch bark is wrapped about all. The man and woman are
packed together and the man who was alone on the board is packed
by himself. The two packages are then taken out and hung up in a
tree in some retired spot well sheltered from the weather. The
broken rods and rings are then thrown out of the sweat house and
the festival is over. No one must go near the images hung in the
trees except when taking them to or from the feast. If anyone
should touch them at any other time he would surely be sick and die.

When the time comes the next year for the feast, the oldest
shaman or head man of the village goes out and brings them in.
Then they are opened in the sweat house and on the inside close to
the images are found little tufts of hair, feathers, or bones of all the
animeds, birds, and fishes that will be teiken during the coming year.

If the sign of any animal, bird, or fish is absent, it is a sign that
this kind will be scarce during that year. If a piece of charcoal is
found it denotes that some of the villagers will die. These images
represent three people who live in the sky in a fine land where there
is an abundance of deer [caribou] and all other game and from which
the earth is supplied. No one but the shamans can get there from the
earth.

If the three people represented by the images are well treated,
they will help the people and make plenty of game, but, if they
become angry at anyone, he will become ill and die. The shamans
sometimes go to them to get their aid.

This festival is observed from near Mission to the upper end of
Shageluk Island.^

Anvik Mask Festival: From Old Men at Anvik

This is a festival given during the February moon and intended as
a diversion.

The men of the village compose some new songs which each one
sings alone in the sweat house. Then they teach the songs to the
others. When the songs have been learned the men all go out and get
wood suitable for a mask. Each one makes himself a mask, imitating
the head of some animal or some imaginary shape, such as a grotes-
que human face. When these are ready two small masks are made
and gaily decorated with paint and feathers. These are given to two
young men and they are sent out to invite neighboring villagers.

28 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

When near a village these men put on their masks and wait until
evening. When it gets a little dark they enter the sweat house with a
bound and cry out "Shi, shi, ko-ga-hi" or, "hush, hush, men come."
They repeat this several times and then dance for a few minutes,
after which they remove their masks and are made welcome. They
tell the object of their visit and are given presents of new gloves,
boots, etc. by the villagers. Accompanied by all the people they
start back the next day.

When they are near their own village the messengers run ahead
and dancing in front of their sweat house door, cry out as before,
"Shi, shi, ko-ga-hi," while the guests arrive and go into the house
and are given food.

In the evening the first part of the entertainment consists of a
dance by three men wearing enormous masks. After this is ended all
of the men go to some grass mats near the door and raise them
showing a pile of masks concealed there. Each man in succession
puts on his mask and dances singly while the rest of the villagers
sing the song composed by him. When five songs have been sung
and the five dances completed, all of the villagers go out and bring
in presents of fish, oil, deerskins [caribou skins], etc., etc. which they
distribute among the guests. Then five more songs and dances are
given and more presents distributed, and so on until morning and
the festival is at an end.*

Burial Customs of Yukon Indians

When an Anvik Indian dies, either man or woman, the body is
dressed in a full suit of new clothes and then placed in a sitting posi-
tion on the floor, in the middle of the house. The feet are drawn back
until the heels rest against the thighs and the knees are drawn up
near the chin. The arms are placed so to embrace the knees and the
body is bound in this position by means of cords. Three stakes are
then driven into the ground; one at the back of the body to which the
latter is tied, and one at each elbow. When the body is in position,
[a] black band is drawn with charcoal across the eyes ending on each
temple.

The body is usually kept in this position for two days while the
friends and relatives sing or dance about it in a circle. If the deceas-
ed was a person of importance, or was much liked, the body is taken
to the sweat house and there put in position with stakes and is kept
there for four days while the villagers sing and dance about it both

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 29

day and night. A portion of this time the women fast, but the men
do not/

At the end of two or four days the body is taken from the stakes
and laid out on one side and wrapped in grass mats and bound with
rawhide cords. The body is then hoisted out through the smoke hole
in the roof.^

If the deceased has many relatives or was a great favorite, a scaf-
fold is built on some point outside the village and upon this the body
is laid for a month. During this period every morning at dawn the
nearest female relative if the deceased was a male, or male relative
in the case of a female, goes to the spot and builds a fire close by the
platform. Into this fire each morning would be cast an offering of
food and water, and then the mourner would sit and weep and
mourn for the departed. At the end of this period the body is taken
down from the scaffold and the mats are removed from about it.®

The grave box is provided with a deerskin [caribou skin] bed on
which the body is placed, lying drawn up and on one side as describ-
ed. If it is a man, his woodworking knife is placed by him and, if a
woman, her fish knife and work bag, and the box is then closed.

Meanwhile, a larger grave box has been built on four posts above
the ground and a layer of 4 or 5 in. of earth placed in the bottom. On
this the box containing the body is placed so that there is a space of
several inches all around between it and the outer box. This space is
filled in with earth and several inches of earth on top and over all is a
roof of bark or rude boards.'"

The boxes are made of rude hewn planks fastened together by
wooden pegs. The graves at Anvik were located, some of them on
the opposite bank of the river from the village, on high ground
above all danger from high water, and some of them on top of a
small bluff below the village."

A grave box at the latter place was about SVz by 4 ft. horizontal
measurement and 3 ft. deep. It was strongly made of planks. The
bottom was 1 ft. above the ground. The box was supported by a post
at each corner, these posts extending 3 ft. above the top of the box.
Two feet over the top of the box was a flat roof of split logs covered
with birch bark. As a rule, these boxes and posts are made with a
rude symmetry that is creditable to the skill of the maker."

Below Anvik a few miles is a large graveyard containing many
grave boxes in front of each of which is the figure of a human head

30 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

and body on a post about 4 ft. high. I was passing this place on a
forced march and had no chance for a careful examination as I ex-
pected to return there later, but failed to get the opportunity. These
images are very well made and all of the newer ones had on skirts of
drilling or some other cloth. Most of them were sheltered from the
weather by an A-shaped roof. I was informed that these figures
represent the dead in boxes behind them, and the relatives place
new clothing upon them and make food offerings at the period of the
festivals to the dead. At the end of a year from a person's death, the
relatives go to the grave and open the box to see if the clothing
needs replacing. If it is in good preservation, the box is reclosed and
it is optional whether they visit it again or not. If the clothing is
decayed, then new articles are spread over the body and the box is
closed again."

In case of its being a shaman, the relatives place the remains in a
new box and put in new bedding and clothing at the end of the third
year from his death. Then, at long intervals, as this box decays, it is
replaced by new ones. When the boxes are changed thus the shaman
is supposed to rest easier, for he is thought to lie as though sleeping.
With common people this makes no difference."

The bodies of bad people or witches and wicked shamans are burn-
ed after death and other bodies are sometimes burned at the expira-
tion of two or three years if they continue to smell very offensively.
In the latter case the bones are gathered up and placed inside of new
clothing and returned to the box.^^

Before one of the great, or "ten year" festivals to the dead, new
clothing is put into the grave boxes of those to be honored at the
feast. This is done in the last part of the summer preceding the
festival."*

When a boy dies his father tears off his upper garments and
rushes out and throws himself naked into the snow if it is winter;
and, if summer, he rushes into the water and has to be dragged out
by his friends. The mother, sister, brother, or wife also rend their
clothing, tear their hair, and roll in the snow or rush into the water
all the time weeping and howling mournfully. If the other relatives
were fond of the deceased, they also weep and tear out their hair and
rend their garments.

If a woman's husband dies, she tears off her clothing, cuts or
scratches her thighs and breasts until they bleed, and casts herself
upon the ground with wild wailings and tears. If her child dies, she

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 31

does much the same but with less fervor and only scratches with her
finger nails. These violent demonstrations occur both at the time of
the death and also when the body is taken out for burial.

But the shamans teach the people that they must not weep too
long for a dead person, as too many tears will render the clothing of
the shade quite wet and uncomfortable, but just tears enough are
very pleasant to him. All the near female relatives of the deceased
cut their hair close and hang the cut hair in trees. Both male and
female relatives remove the fur trimmed collars of their fur hoods
and must do without them for a year in a sign of mourning."

At a summer village below Anvik I saw two little bags hanging
from trees and full of human hair from some women mourning their
dead. On another tree, about 15 ft. from the ground, hung, securely
tied, the long abundant hair of another woman. Her little child had
died here the previous spring, my guide explained.

At the mouth of the Innoko River is a large Indian graveyard of
which three accompanying photographs are views, taken December
7, 1880 (see fig. 3). There were about 30 graves there at the time of
my visit and many had been washed away by spring freshets. In
front of each of these graves were long peeled poles placed upright
in the ground and about 10 ft. from the ground on most of them was
fastened a rifle placed cross-wise.'^

These grave boxes are made of hewn slabs supported and roofed
as the box described at Anvik. On boxes containing men were usual-
ly painted in black the figures of three or four reindeer [caribou].'^
On the side of one boy's grave the same figures were marked and the
box was studded with brass buttons. On the boxes containing
women were painted in black the figures of the old, pointed style
hunting shirt and also the figures of the present style adapted from
the Innuits. Hanging under the roof of one woman's grave was her
head belt and hair ornaments. Upon a post, and sheltered from the
weather by a double sloping roof, was a good pair of snowshoes.
Sheltered in the same way and placed before a man's grave was a
bow and a quiver full of arrows. Drawn completely around some of
the grave boxes was a width of driUing or ticking and several small
strips of cloths fluttered from the tops of the poles. This cloth about
the grave box is renewed on each of the two years following the
death.^°

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32

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 33

Here as at Anvik the body is buried in new clothing and new
clothing is put in the grave box at the end of the first year. If
nothing but bones remain when new clothing is put into the box at
any time, they are gathered up and placed inside the clothing. The
same care is taken of a shaman's body, but, in addition, at the end of
the third year the shaman's bones are placed in new clothing and the
old grave box is replaced by a new one.

At this place I saw a fine grave box painted red and ornamented
by figures of a deer, an otter, and a sealskin oil bag, in black. This
box rests on two logs of wood to keep it above the ground and
measures SVz ft. long by 15 in. square at the ends. This I was told by
the Indians contained the bones of a shaman and was his second
grave box.

Standing quite by itself and close to the village, at this point, was
a finely ornamented grave box containing the body of a noted
shaman. The Indians placed it there fearing that he would be angry
if put among the others. When they pass his grave the people place
upon it sm£dl offerings of dried fish, tobacco, or other things and ask
for good weather or successful hunt or other favors of a like kind.
All of the newer grave boxes at this place were painted red.^'

On my way up the Innoko River we came to a deserted village
about 30 miles from the nearest people. I was surprised to be met
there by a dignified-looking old Indian whose figure was still
straight, although he was evidently old and feeble. The Indians who
were with me said that his wife, who had been a shaman, had died
here about a year before and that he had stayed there by himself
ever since making continual offerings to her shade and performing
such simple rites as he thought would please her in the land of the
dead. He had some children living on Shageluk Island who wished
him to Uve with them, but he would not leave this place. He seemed
very quiet and said Uttle to my Indians though he sat with us and
appeared glad of our company until we went to bed. The next morn-
ing I gave him some tea and bread from our scanty store at which he
expressed his thanks and stood watching as we passed up the river
and out of his sight."

One old man at Anvik told me that people who die a violent death
and murderers go up to a land in the sky. Also that people who are
drowned and their bodies lost go to a bad uncomfortable place in the
other world. I had nothing from anyone else on these points,
perhaps through lack of inquiry, so I give it for what it is worth."

34 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

Hunting

The moose is the largest game animal of this region and is now
very scarce. The Indians of the Yukon Valley go out hunting them
on showshoes when the snow is very deep or there is a hard crust
through which the moose will break at every step. The hunter is
stripped to the least possible amount of clothing and carries a light
gun (formerly a lance, or bow and arrows). The moose is overtaken
and shot and the hunter returns to camp while women who have
followed the trail cut up the game and drag it home on sledges.

Reindeer [caribou] are stalked at all seasons and in summer the
moose is sometimes killed when crossing the Yukon.

The Indians are now all provided with muzzle-loading rifles and
can get ammunition [at] any trading station and, as a consequence,
game is being destroyed very rapidly. To help along this extermina-
tion, quite a number of breech-loading rifles with ammunition are
getting into their hands along the lower Yukon. These guns come
mainly from the Malemiuts who obtain them from trading vessels
on the Arctic coast.

On the Yukon the hunters commonly carry a bow and arrows,
with their gun, to use on rabbits, muskrats, and other game not con-
sidered worth a charge of powder.^*

Trapping begins on the lower Yukon the last of October or first of
November, the exact time depending on the date of the first hard
frost that covers the pools and small streams with ice and renders
the ground firm. Then traps are put out for foxes, lynxes, marten,
mink, land otter, beaver, and muskrats. The season runs till the last
of December after which very little is done until the end of February
owing to the intense cold and the short days. The last of February
the traps are reset and the season runs until the glaring March and
April sun reflected from the snow bleaches and renders worthless
the fur of the foxes, marten, and mink. The sun at this time bleaches
the fur to a rusty reddish hue and renders the long hairs so brittle
that the skins have little or no value.

In spring when the ice breaks on the Yukon and all the low land is
flooded, the Indians of the lower Yukon go out in canoes and hunt
beaver, land otter, and muskrats. Bow and arrows or the rifle are
used for this purpose.

On December 9, 1880 I found a couple of men in the sweat house
at an Innoko River village, hard at work skinning four land otters

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 35

they had taken that day. One of the men had taken three of them.
These had been taken by being tracked to their hole in a snow bank
by the riverside and then clubbed to death as they were driven out.
The otter is much given to traveling from one stream to another, or
up and down the stream he frequents. In winter he plunges through
the snow by short leaps and is easily run down and killed by a
hunter on snowshoes. The Indians take up a fresh trail and either
overtake and kill the animal or drive it into its hole where it is forced
to come out and is killed. Sometimes a number of them are taken
from a single hole in this manner. They are also trapped by placing
steel traps set at the bottom of their holes leading under the ice on
the bank of a stream. The marten is also tracked until treed and is
shot by the Anvik and other Yukon Indians.

Beavers are taken by trapping or by being killed in their houses in
winter, as well as being shot from canoes in spring. Reindeer
[caribou] are snared by means of a strong noose set among bushes
where they frequent so that they will be caught by the neck or
horns. For lynxes a large pile of brush is made in a secluded spot and
in a small open space directly under the middle of the pile is placed
the bait. Then two or three openings are made from the outside
through the brush to this central space. In these openings are set
nooses of rawhide or sinew cord. The lynx tries to thrust its head in-
to one of these openings and is caught and strangled. Snares are set
in run-ways for white rabbits and ptarmigan are snared by nooses
set among the bushes where they resort regularly, or little fences of
brush are made with openings at intervals guarded by snares."

The most common method of trapping is by means of the deadfall.
This is made after the well-known plan: a little enclosure about the
bait, made by driving stakes in the ground, and across the front a
couple of small logs, the upper one moving up and down and held in
place ready to drop across the neck of the animal when it puts its
head in and touches the bait and so looses the trigger. In this way
are taken martens, lynxes, mink, foxes, wolverines, and sometimes
bears. This is the main method by which the great supply of furs is
annually taken by the northern Indians.^"

The Yukon Indians start out in fall and make a circuit, sometimes
as much as 40 miles long, over which they place these deadfalls at
intervals. This route would require two days to visit and is gone
over about once a week during the season. Every hunter has a cer-
tain district allotted him in which no one else is permitted to trap.

36 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

These districts are usually prized as so much property and a son in-
herits his father's right to it. Any infringement of another's rights
there would give rise to jealousy and feuds."

During the trapping season it is the orthodox way to clean,
stretch, and leave the skins taken in the woods until the season is
ended, but at present this is rarely done. Above Nulato the Indians
hunt bears in spring by tracking them to their holes, when warm
weather first brings them out, and then fastening logs across the en-
trance. When this is done the bear is stirred up and when he thrusts
his head out he is shot.^^

Fishing

The king salmon is the most important fish obtained by the
Yukon Indians. A common method of its capture with all of the
Yukon Indians from Anvik to Fort Yukon is by means of a dip net.
The fisherman goes out in his canoe and drifts down with the cur-
rent holding his net down in the water. As soon as an ascending
salmon is caught he is lifted out, killed, and placed in the canoe and
the operation is repeated. By the last half of June the king salmon
are running at Anvik and the people then have out their large wicker
fish traps. These are set at the outer end of a long fence of stakes set
in the water, extending out from shore.^^

From the last of June until after the middle of August the various
species of salmon continue to run and everyone is busy. The men at-
tend to the fish traps and the women cut up and hang the fish to dry
on long frameworks of poles. In this way the winter food supply is
insured and a failure of the salmon run means famine to the Yukon
Indians.^"

The good sites for fish traps are the property of the various
hunters in the adjacent village among the Anvik Indians in the
same way that the trapping ground is laid o"ff and held as a personal
right. ^' Every man with a family either has a fish trap of his own or
joins with another in the ownership of one. In winter these traps are
kept set constantly. On small streams the trap is placed in the mid-
dle of the river with a fence leading to the shore on each side.

On November 20, 1880 I found a trap of this kind set in the Anvik
River. The mouth of the trap faced downstream. We stopped and
raised the trap and found about 20 lbs. of beautifully colored gray-
ling, whitefish, and salmon trout.

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 37

During high water these wicker traps are taken up and gill nets
set. The care of the wicker traps is considered the business of the
men. The gill nets are also set by men in the Yukon as soon as the ice
goes in spring and are kept out until the water falls and the traps are
put up. The gill net fishing for whitefish, grayUng, and pickerel in
the smaller streams is mainly attended to by the women. ^^

Various species of whitefish run in the Yukon for about a month
in fall and are taken in large numbers. This is usually in October and
the first of November.

As soon as the river freezes over, the loche runs for the month and
is taken in the traps in large numbers."

The last of November each year the lampreys run up the Yukon
by Anvik in great numbers. The Indians have a series of holes in the
ice ready for them and a sharp watch is kept. The moment they are
seen in the lowest hole everyone rushes out upon the ice with scoop
nets or a stick with two cross-bars at the end and as the lampreys
pass one of the holes made in the ice they are scooped and thrown
out in great numbers. Then everyone runs upstream to the next
holes so this is repeated until the fishermen are exhausted or
another village is reached. In the latter case the people of the lower
village must stop and the people of the upper village take up the
pursuit. The lampreys swim slowly up the middle of the river, keep
as close to the surface of the water as possible in a compact mass,
and require an hour or more to pass a given point.^"

Physical Development and Character

As a rule, the Yukon Indians are small-sized people with small
feet and hands. The Anvik people and other Indians between Anvik
and Paimiut have rather thick features with flat noses and seem
almost as though their facial characteristics had been graded
towards those of their Innuit neighbors.

The people of the Innoko River, Nulato, and up along the Yukon
all show a large proportion of hooked noses and the typical Indian
features. The men are slenderly built, but are very active. There are
a few very large men among them and I saw several men from
among the Anvik, Innoko, and Nulato people who reached 6 ft. or
over, but they merely served to mark the almost stunted ap-
pearance of their fellow tribesmen.

The Indians of the Innoko River are very excitable and fond of
showing this in certain ways. When the Territory was first taken by

38 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

the Americans the people of that district had a reputation of being
hostile to the visits of strangers. The first fur traders who went to
their villages were met at the largest place by a great crowd of In-
dians all armed with bows and arrows and whooping, yelling, and
making all manner of hostile demonstrations. The traders stood
their ground and after a time they were escorted to the village and
were soon established there on a friendly footing. Since then regular
trading trips are made among them.^^

On my visit to them in December, 1880 we found nearly all of the
men and boys of this tribe, numbering about 60, gathered above the
village to take part in one of their festivals. As we drew near, the en-
tire village rushed out on the river bank and greeted us with the
most frightful yells and shrieks and evidences of the wildest excite-
ment. This was merely their way of extending a friendly welcome. ^"^

These people are brave and quick to resent any injury, real or fan-
cied. Formerly, when they were more numerous, they were much
more independent and pugnacious than at present. There present
condition as a mere remnant of their former numbers has taken
away their confidence and causes them to be much more timid than
the Yukon Indians.^^ As is usual with savages, the Yukon Indians
are thoughtless and improvident and have a childlike way of permit-
ting tomorrow [to] care for itself.

An incident that came under my notice served as a good illustra-
tion of this. While descending Anvik River the last of November,
1880, we camped at a deserted village one night. With us was an An-
vik Indian who had come from the seacoast with a large bag of seal
oil. When we went into one of the deserted huts for supper this In-
dian left his bag of oil lying upon the ground in the midst of the dogs
and went with us. A few minutes later the dogs had torn open the
bag and destroyed its contents. On inquiry we learned that this
young fellow had made a lot of wooden tubs during the preceding
summer and had taken them by boat to St. Michael, a round trip of
over 500 miles. There he had left the tubs in payment for the bag of
oil to be delivered in the early winter. He had just been back to the
coast with his sledge and brought the oil back within a day's
journey of home and had thus lost it by sheer thoughtlessness. This
oil was intended for lighting his hut during the winter.^^

He took its loss very indifferently and when the fur trader and I
told him we would make him a small present to help make up for his
loss he became as cheerful as before and was soon laughing and jok-

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 39

ing with our men without a care. They make very little or no at-
tempt to accumulate food or property beyond the bare necessities of
the immediate future, so that a feiilure in the usual abundance of fish
or game in any season is an almost certain forecast of a famine.

Almost every winter a season of distress arises among the Indians
at some point of the Yukon Valley and frequently many deaths
occur from starvation.^^ The winter of 1879-1880 the fur trader at
Nuklukayet saved many of the people about him from starvation
while many of the people in that district died."^

The custom of accumulating property through one or more years
for the purpose of making a festival in honor of dead relatives, at
which the property is distributed among the people, is looked upon
as predseworthy."' For anyone to try to accumulate property with a
view to his personal advantage is considered a species of disloyalty
to the public interest and gives rise to jealousy and ill will.

The fur traders told me of a practical illustration of this in the
case of an Indian living on the Yukon above the mouth of the
Tanana River. This young man was a very good hunter and by his
industry and success he managed to gather quite a store of furs and
other property. Then he built himself a log house apart from the
village and went to live in it with his two younger brothers. At the
same time he showed the greatest eagerness to learn the ways of the
white man and adopted some of their ways of living.

The men of his tribe talked this over and decided that his course
was wrong and that by thus withdrawing from the general com-
munity he had violated his duty to the tribe. The result was that a
party of his fellow townsmen went to this house and killed him and
his brothers, his property was distributed, and thus the young men
were taught to continue in the ways of their fathers."

These people are very fond of singing and dancing and when they
accompany the fur traders to St. Michael in summer the men spend
a large part of the arctic summer nights in wrestling, singing, and
dancing."

They have a great dread of any4;hing unusual, fearing witchcraft.
When at Anvik I had a large group of women and children arranged
in front of the camera and when ready to expose the plate I had the
interpreter tell them to stand still. The moment he said this every
one of them made a rush for home and they darted into the houses
like rabbits. It was only after the greatest effort that I finally got
them out again and obtained a photograph.

40 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

The children are very dutiful and affectionate, while the parents
show the greatest fondness for them in various undemonstrative
ways. The women on the Innoko River were excessively filthy in
dress and person, but most of the Indians of the Yukon Valley are as
cleanly as is customary among Indians.

Customs and Beliefs

In the account of the burial customs and religious festivals can be
found many of the beliefs and observances of some of the Yukon
Indians.

The land of the dead is situated underground and the shade of the
dead sinks down to it and travels away along a beaten path to the
great village where the shades live in a world formed as a shadowy
likeness to the present life.""

The shades experience the emotions and feelings familiar to them
on earth. The custom of blood revenge for the murder of any person
falls to his family and the soul is uneasy and dissatisfied until his
death has been atoned for by the death of his slayer. In the case of
the latter's death, or escape by going beyond reach of the avengers,
then his nearest of kin or one of his family must pay the penalty.

The duty of carrying out the blood vengeance falls to the dead
man's son or failing in this to his brother or nearest of kin. This is
looked upon as a duty which must be performed. An infant child
sometimes inherits a feud in this way and consummates the revenge
15 or more years after the first murder was done. However, by the
payment of a satisfactory price, the murderer may atone for the
deed and stop the feud without bloodshed. In order to do this, the
matter must be submitted to a council of the elders and the
price, agteed upon by them and accepted by the dead one's relatives,
is then paid to the relatives through the council and the affair is con-
sidered to be amicably settled. I knew of a case at Nulato when a
young man killed an Indian and the latter's brother and friends
pretended to compromise the matter and accepted payment from
the father of the murderer and, on the first opportunity, the old man
was shot down in cold blood for his son's deed. The Indians justified
themselves with the plea that the compromise had no binding force
on them because they had made it with the man without the in-
tervention of the usual council of elders."^

The strip of country back from the coast from Norton's to
Kotzebue's sounds is a debatable land between the Malemiut In-

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 41

nuits and the Indians of the interior and an opportunity is rarely
lost on either side to kill one of the others. The country in question is
a hunting ground for reindeer [caribou] by both parties and each side
watches its opportunity to ambush one of its hereditary foes.

Formerly, regular war parties went from one side to the other but
of late years this has become almost unknown. Great suspicion and
dislike still exist between the Innuits and Indians, but the constant
communication between these people that the presence of the fur
traders has brought about is doing away with much of the ancient
prejudice."^

Among the Anvik Indians, when a girl has her first menstruation
she is considered unclean and a corner of the hut where she lives is
shut off from the rest of the house by hanging up grass mats and
she is obliged to remain in this confinement for a year. During this
period she must keep her fur hood drawn over her head and a black
band is drawn with soot or charcoal across her eyes from temple to
temple just as is done with a dead person. She must eat only stale
food during all of this time and must not go about nor join the fami-
ly in any of their work or pastimes.

If the family moves during this time she is carried out and put in-
to the sledge or boat and covered up and thus taken to the new place
and left in a corner as before. She is permitted to go out of the house
only in the middle of the night.

When first shut up she is obliged to wear a pair of small mittens
just large enough to admit her fingers. These mittens are joined by a
short band of ornamented strips of fur extending across the back of
her neck and keeping the mittens on a level with her breast. She
must keep these mittens with her during the entire year but wears
them only at first.

Throughout this year her urine is thrown in some secluded place
where no men go, for it is considered to be unclean and would
destroy a hunter or fisherman's success if he should be con-
taminated by it in any way.

At all subsequent recurrence of the menses women are not permit-
ted to eat fresh food of any kind and are unclean for a few days.

At the expiration of the year the girl takes a bath, her old clothes
are thrown away, and she is given an entire new suit, A fillet of
reindeer [caribou] skin or moose skin ornamented with fringe or
tassels is worn about her head as a mark of maturity. This is often

42 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

made of birch bark covered with skin and is worn for a year after the
expiration of her period of confinement."''

When a women is confined with child among these people she is
not separated from the family and the old women serve as mid-
wives.**

When an Anvik Indian desires a girl for his wife he chooses some
old person as a messenger and sends to ask the girl if she will be his
wife. If she consents, the messenger goes to the girl's parents for
their consent without which she may not marry. If the parents con-
sent, the messenger takes their reply to the lover. The latter then
has a fine suit of woman's clothes made and with a deerskin for a
bed, [they] are taken to the girl by messenger. The girl is dressed in
the new clothes and the lover goes to the wood and gets a load of
firewood which he cuts up and places before the door of his lover's
house. He also makes her some new wooden dishes. After all of these
things have been accepted, the lover takes the girl as his wife and
the couple usually live with his parents, but should he have brothers
and his wife's people be without sons, he sometimes lives with them.
Very soon after marriage the husband is expected to make a fish
trap and puts it out so as to provide for his family.

A girl often has several offers before she is married. Even when
willing to marry her suitor, the parents will refuse consent if the
youth is a very poor hunter or not able to provide for his wife as they
think right. The refusal of the consent of the parents, real or
adopted, always ends the matter.*^

After a man is married, his wife may be taken from him by a rival.
If his wife has her regard estranged by another man and the lover
wishes to take her, the husband may keep her only by conquering
his rival in a trial of strength. Custom demands that before a lover
can take a wife from her husband he must show himself the best
man. A meeting is appointed and the husband and lover have a
wrestling match in the presence of the entire village. The victor in
this takes the woman. The lover always assures himself of the
woman's favor before he enters a contest and if victorious he con-
tinues to live on in the same village with the woman's former hus-
band in the most friendly way. If he loses, he is forced to give up his
hopes. Very rarely the rivalry for a woman's favor leads to blood-
shed, but this is strongly condemned by the community.^"

Among all of the Yukon Indians the old men are respected and

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 43

consulted and usually obeyed by the younger ones. The shamans
and the most powerful men or the best hunters are the men of most
weight in deciding any important question. The shamans are jealous
of their power and use all the means in their power to keep up their
influence. Of late years the younger men are losing some of the
respect and obedience they formerly gave to the elders.*'

The Anvik people, or those of them who still observe the ancient
rites, will not sell fish to white men for three or four days after they
are caught in winter, fearing that the bones may be given to the
dogs before the expiration of that time. In such case, the shades of
the fish would be offended and would keep any other fish from enter-
ing the trap of the person who had offended them.

In summer they will sell fish the day they are caught, if the buyer
will agree not to eat the fish until the next day.

The Tanana Indians are very careful to preserve all the bones of a
lynx and place them where they shall not be disturbed by a dog. If
the flesh of a lynx is sold to a fur trader, the Indian insists that all of
the bones shall be preserved and returned to him that he may keep
them from being touched by a dog. They say that if a dog eats any of
the bones of a lynx then the person who caught it will not get any
more lynxes in his snares."

Any unusual capture in a trap is always feared as of ill omen. In
one case, a Tanana Indian caught a wolverine in a lynx snare and
found the wolverine hanging quite dead. To catch so notoriously
cunning an animal as a wolverine in a simple trap like this was
almost beyond precedent and the hunter returned home at once not
daring to touch his capture. He consulted the old men of the village
and the shamans and studied over this strange thing for some days.
Finally, his cupidity overcame his superstitious fears so that he
returned and drew the animal out of the snare, but, to deceive the
shade of the animal and shift any evil consequences from his own
shoulders, he uttered over and over again as he was doing so "g —

d americanski, g — d americanski" a combination of English

and Russian which he had picked up from the traders. He returned
to his village quite elated over his happy solution of the trouble and
told how he had overcome any evil that might arise by throwing it
upon the traders."

The Yukon Indians from Nulato to Fort Yukon have superstitious
dread of interfering with the nest of the Canada jay saying that it

44 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

will cause a very cold, bad spring. The fur traders at the mouth of
the Tanana managed, for a large reward, to get me a nest of this bird
from one of the Indians and, as it chanced, that spring became a
very cold and stormy one. The old Indians at once united in denoun-
cing the cause of this in the person of the young man who had flown
in the face of the ancient wisdom and taken a jay's nest.

The Shageluk Indians believe in the existence of a huge pike in
Shageluk Lake which they say is as large as a birch canoe. One of
the Anvik men told me that he had been pursued and driven ashore
on Shageluk Lake by this pike and the Shageluk men told me a cir-
cumstantial tale of one of their fellow villagers being attacked by it
on the lake. First, the fish bit a piece out of the man's paddle and
then tore a large hole in the canoe so that it sank and the man was
drowned.

The canoe and paddle drifted ashore and showed the marks of the
fish's teeth. The pickerel of the Yukon are of such a small size that
this fish must be almost wholly mythical though it is firmly believ-
ed in by the people living about the lake.^*

Until the country came into the hands of the Americans, the Kol-
chan Indians wore the usual painted Chippewayan dress of dressed
moose or deerskin. The active trade carried on since that time has
broken down the ancient customs to such an extent that at present
(1880) these people dress wholly in clothing bought of the Innuits or
of the fur traders and the old pattern is seen no more. The old Chip-
pewayan style of dress is being replaced all along the Yukon Valley
by clothing bought of the traders or made on patterns introduced in
this way and the distinctive dress of a few years back is being rapid-
ly lost.^^

Villages and Houses

The Yukon Indians have steadily decreased in number for years
and without any apparent chance for regaining their former
numbers. One tribe above Fort Yukon is very scantily supplied with
women owing to the fearful hardship the men force their wives to en-
dure in bringing meat to camp after hunts and similar drudgery.
The result has been to cause the women to die so rapidly that the
men have been forced to seek wives among the people along down
the Yukon. The women obtained in this way went as did their
predecessors and the men from that district have great trouble get-
ting wives. In the vicinity of Nuklukayet several famine years have
cut down the number of people.

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES

45

The Kol-chans living on the Innoko River and adjacent territory
were once a numerous tribe having several hundred men. Smallpox
and other diseases have reduced their numbers until the total
number of men and boys of this tribe today (1880) cannot exceed 60
to 65. During my visit to the Innoko, the fur trader of that district

Fig. 4. A kashim on the Innoko River (approximately 16 ft. square). Drawn and
described by E. W. Nelson. 1, Entrance shed; 2, Underground entrance passage; 3,
Inner entrance; 4, Draft tunnel to fireplace; 5, Fireplace or pit; 6, Plank floor; 7,
Smoke hole in roof; 8, Dirt floor; 9, Earth cover to house.

and I estimated the total number of people left in this tribe not to
exceed about 125. To make matters still more hopeless, the women
are nearly all barren and game is scarce.^^

These people (Kol-chans) have built themselves half-underground
houses, like those of the Innuits in general plan, for some years and
three or four years ago they built kashims in several of their
villages. The latter now serve as sleeping places for the men and in
them are held the festivals.

The sweat house where I witnessed a festival on the Innoko River
was built half underground and as its plan differs somewhat from
the usual style, the following section and description will explain its
main features. It had the usual smoke hole in the roof. The middle of
the room in a square about 8 ft. across was floored with rough hewn
planks. These covered the shallow pit used for a fireplace, the planks
being removed when a fire is made. All around the room off these
planks was a beaten dirt floor. The walls of the house were of small
logs and the sides and roof were covered with a thick layer of earth.
There were no sleeping benches around the sides of the interior of
this or any of the other Innoko sweat houses I saw. A small shed
covered the entrance outside and an underground passage led into
the house and up through the floor at the front end of the room. On
the inside of the room this opening had a raised ledge about it to cut
off any draught. From the entrance passageway a small tunnel leads

46 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

under the floor to the fireplace thus affording the necessary draught
there. The following is a cross-section of this sweat house made on
the spot (fig. 4). This house was about 16 ft. square and 8 ft. high."

The lowest village on the Innoko River, about 35 miles above its
mouth, has raised storehouses and sledge platforms, or frames, and
half underground houses very much like a village of the Yukon In-
nuits. At this place the summer village of light brush and bark-
covered huts stood close beside the winter village made of the
underground houses mentioned.^^

Anvik village is built on a low spit at the mouth of Anvik River
and is being gradually washed away by the river and rebuilt a little
farther back each year. The houses are modeled after those of the ad-
jacent Innuits. There is a large sweat house here of the ordinary pat-
tern. The walls of the houses are made of saplings and the roofs are
usually covered with wicker panels from old fish traps, laid on poles
and covered with slabs of spruce or birch bark. A sleeping platform
built of poles usually occupies the back end of the hut. These sum-
mer villages contain no kashims.

Implements and Trade

At the Anvik summer village just below the mouth of Anvik
River I saw a number of very large clay pots. They were about 2 ft.
high and 18 in. across. For such large vessels their walls were very
thin. These pots were uniformly shaped as follows: they are placed
on the ground and a fire of sticks built about them to heat the water
and thus cook their contents. The women make them by kneading a
stiff clay with hair or fine feathers and then bake them with a hot
fire inside and out for half a day.^^

The people of Anvik and Shageluk Island are noted all down the
Yukon for their fine wooden tubs and dishes, or kantags, and every
summer the people from this district go down the Yukon and along
the adjacent coast carrying these things for trade with the Innuits.
In this way they buy seal oil and sealskins for lights and for making
their boots and covering their umiaks.

Although the canoes used by the Indians of the Yukon are all
made of birch bark, yet the Indians of Anvik and the Shageluk have
adopted the Innuit umiak and make long summer trading voyages
in them. The Anvik old men who are not able to travel about and at-
tend to traps occupy their time in making kantags or wicker fish
traps for trade.

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 47

Dried salmon form another article of trade which these Indians
take to the seacoast. Their voyages are usually made in the fall after
the fishing season is over.*"

A fine jadeite celt was found, several years ago on the side of a
mountain, a day's journey above Nulato and north of the Yukon. An
Indian was cutting down a spruce tree and found this celt complete-
ly imbedded in its trunk. I was fortunate enough to secure this
specimen and the Nulato Indians told me that not far from where it
was found is the locaHty where they went formerly and found rough
pieces of jadeite like this which they traded to distant tribes.^'

The unit of value used in trading among Yukon Indians is a prime
beaver skin or a marten skin. All other furs and articles £ire bought
as fractions of a "skin" or multiples of a skin in value."

Raven Tale of the Stolen Wife: From Anvik Indians

(Among the Indians of the lower Yukon, from Nulato to the vicini-
ty of Paimiut, and particularly among the Anvik Indians, the inter-
course has been so free and long-continued with the adjoining In-
nuits that a great number of legends, festival observances, and
other customs have been taken by them from the Innuits. That the
adoption has been by the Indians from the Innuits is sufficiently
proved when the fact is known that the custom or belief is general
among the Innuits and only found among Indians along the border
of Innuit territory.— E.W.N.)

In a large village on the lower Yukon very long ago there lived
four brothers and three sisters. All but the youngest brother and
sister were married. All of the brothers and sisters were very hand-
some people, especially the two younger ones.

One night the youngest brother could not get to sleep until nearly
morning for something seemed to trouble him. When he awoke it
was midday and everyone had gone out of the sweat house except
himself and a strange looking object, lying close to the entrance
way, upon a dogskin and with a dogskin blanket drawn over it. He
arose and went out brushing close by the strange object as he did so
for he had never before seen dogskins used in this way.

When he got outside he saw drawn up on the river bank a canoe
covered with fishskin. The strange apearance of this canoe caused
him to make an exclamation of surprise and he saw at once that it
must belong to the curious being he had seen in the sweat house. He

48 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

thought, "Perhaps this man has come for my sister." He asked and
found that his sisters had crossed the river for berries and he went
out to the mountains to hunt for reindeer [caribou].

Soon after this, the Raven, who had been in the sweat house
disguised by the dogskins, came out and crossed the river in his
canoe. Then he took the canoes of the sisters and towed them across
the river to the village and left them. After doing this Raven went
back and cut a spruce root and began making wooden dishes and
ladles (the custom of a lower Yukon Indian lover) and worked at this
the rest of the day. Toward evening the two oldest sisters came
down to the river bank and, their canoes being gone. Raven took
them across in his and the two women went home without thinking
anything wrong. The Raven went back and took the youngest sister
in his canoe, but when he had pushed out into the river he turned up
the stream and paddled away from the village with great swiftness.

At this the girl shrieked for her people until she was unable to do
so any longer and then began to cry very bitterly; all the time Raven
was paddling swiftly and silently away. At last the girl began to up-
braid him and asked him why he was taking her away. He answered
that he wished her for his wife and was taking her to his home up the
river. The girl continued to cry and told him that she did not wish a
husband, but he paid no attention.

When she became hungry Raven gave her one of his new wooden
dishes in the bottom of which was a nice piece of reindeer [caribou]
meat and some back fat. This he gave her telling her at the same
time that he would always feed her well Uke this when she was his
wife. Again she told him that she did not wish to be a wife and beg-
ged him to let her go home. Day and night Raven paddled steadily
onward, never stopping, and the canoe seemed to dart onward like
an arrow.

In this way many days passed by and the Yukon began to get nar-
row. Autumn came and the canoe (whose fishskin cover had long
since changed into birch bark) glided on day and night, and it
became so cold that ice formed on the paddle-blade at night.

Then the Yukon became quite narrow and Raven pointed to a high
mountain ahead and said, "My home is near that mountain and we
will get there soon." They went on until the river narrowed to a deep
creek and had high rocky walls on both sides as it cut through the
mountains. Not far beyond this was Raven's summer village, close
to the high mountain.

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 49

As they came in sight of the houses they saw a mink come swim-
ming toward the canoe and Raven exclaimed angrily, "There is that
wretched mink again" and he fitted an arrow to his bow and shot it,
but the mink dived to escape it and came up close to the canoe and
cried out, "Ah! You rascally Raven, you wish to kill me do you?
Good-for-nothing. You just missed doing it. Another wife is it? You
are a bad Raven; why are you always carrying off young women?
Are you not satisfied with those you have now but you must steal
others?" The mink dived again and swam down the river and the
canoe kept on.

When they were close to the Raven's house he gave the girl some
fine new clothes and he put on a rich coat of sable [marten] skins
himself and then told her to follow him into the village where his
four brothers were waiting for him. Now, after the mink had passed
Raven and gone a short distance he stopped and thought "Ah! That
bad Raven. He wished to kill me, and he barely missed me too, with
all his other badness. But I will be revenged, I will go and find this
girl's people and betray his hiding place." With this the mink
started off and traveled down the river. He stopped at night in every
village he came to and stealing quietly into the entrance passages of
the houses would lie there and listen to what was said by the people.
He was sure to hear the girl spoken of when he came to her village.

After he had traveled a very long time and been in many villages
without success, he came, at last, to a very large place. When he
went into the passageway of a house there he heard the people talk-
ing about the lost girl and crying for her. Just then one of the people
caught a glimpse of mink and called for a light, and they searched
but saw nothing. When they went back into the house, mink chang-
ed himself into a dwarf man dressed all in mink fur, even to the tips
of his fingers, and walked into the house.

The moment he went in the young brother of the lost girl cried
out, "Here is a guest. It is the first we have had and perhaps he can
tell us of my sister. But first give him food and water and treat him
well, and then we will question him." The brother then hurried out
to call the other brothers from the sweat house.

As soon as mink entered the house the lost girl's mother took him
up in her arms eager to question him, but put him down again to
give him food and water. When mink had taken food and water the
mother caught him up again and questioned him eagerly while the
others gathered about. Mink told them of Raven's treachery and of

50 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

his journey to tell them of it. Then all of the active young men in the
village agreed to go and punish Raven.

They made new arrows and when all were ready they started out
guided by mink. The war party traveled on month after month dur-
ing all the winter and in the long days of spring they came to the
head of the Yukon and saw, on the other side of the river, the moun-
tain that sheltered Raven's home.

Mink then told them to stay where they were and await a signal
from him and he would go and see what lay before them. He quickly
changed his form into a mink again and burrowed into the snow and
tunneled across the river coming up the other bank close to Raven's
door. In front of the door were two of Raven's brothers guarding the
entrance. These brothers were each made of the right half of a man,
the left side being entirely lacking.

As mink came near he heard them making a great outcry about
mink and the men who were with him, but they did not stir from
their place on each side of the door. Mink watched for a chance and
darted by the guards and into the house and hid under a pile of
wooden dishes without being seen. Raven sat on the sleeping bench
in the house beside his stolen wife.

Mink watched and when Raven looked the other way he rattled
the dishes. At this the girl went over to pick up some that had fallen
down. As she raised one of them mink showed himself to her and
said in a low voice, "Do not sleep tonight. Your people will come for
you tonight."

At this moment the two guards rushed in and caught Raven by
the hair and shook him crying, "Wake up! Who is your wife talking
to? We saw her mouth speak and many people are coming to fight
you," and the guards went back to their place outside the door.
When the guards went out the girl said, "What are your brothers
crying about now? I suppose a mouse is stirring outside." When
Raven heard this he forgot about the warning and believed his
wife.

Every little while the brothers ran into the house and caught
Raven by the hair and shook him fiercely and cried out their alarm,
but every time Raven's wife would persuade him to pay no heed to
it. While standing by the door the brothers kept up a constant cry of
"hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo" which became very low every now and then
when they became sleepy and dozed and louder when they awoke.

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 51

Waiting until the guards were dozing, mink escaped by them and
returned to his friends. When the night had nearly passed the war
party drew around Raven's house, but found it closed tightly all
over, as if made of a solid stone, and the guards were asleep inside.
They searched about until they found a crevice in the roof through
which they could see Raven seated below.

They began shooting arrows at him and Raven ran wildly about in
the house until one of the arrows killed him. Then they pulled off the
roof and as they did so one of the guards flew away into the sky and
the other one vanished into the ground.

The brothers were very glad to get their sister again and from an
adjoining house they released many captive women who had been
stolen from their friends by Raven. One of these, a very pretty girl,
the youngest brother took home with him as his wife. Mink went
back with the brothers and married the sister he had helped rescue."

Raven's Search for His Friend's Wife: From the Anvik Indians

Four brothers once lived in a large village on the Yukon River.
Three of the brothers were married, but the youngest one was not.
The three oldest brothers were ordinary hunters, but the youngest
one delighted in hunting and was always successful.

At last his mother spoke to the young man saying, "My son, why
do you not take a wife? You are the best hunter in the village and
you should choose someone to share with you." To which he replied
that he did not wish for a wife and would rather live as he was. After
this he went on as before, hunting every day and sleeping in the
sweat house at night.

One night he was lying in his place, opposite the entrance to the
sweat house, when he saw Raven, who was always lying on a bed
near the entrance way, get up and go directly to him. For in those
days Raven lived in this village with men. When Raven came to the
young man, he said, "Why do you not choose you a wife? You are
the best hunter here and you should have some one to do your sew-
ing and your other housework." To this the hunter replied as before
that he did not wish to marry and, if he did, there was no one in the
village whom he cared for. "I do not know the young women," said
Raven, "as I do not go about in the village, but I have heard that
there is a fine young woman living far down the river."

Then Raven went back to his bed and laid down. When everyone
was asleep he stretched out his feet from under his blankets, show-

52 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

ing the three toes on each foot, and got up. When he had gone out-
side carefully, he looked about him and saw four storehouses close
at hand. One of these belonged to the young hunter and to this
Raven went. In it he found a fine coat of sable [marten] skins also
fine breeches and boots. After he had put on these he looked about
and found a piece of deer fat which he put under his belt and then
started down the river.

He traveled on for many days and after passing several villages he
finally came to a very large place. He stopped at the edge of the
village and looked about him.

Very soon two women came toward a house close by and Raven
ran quickly ahead and laid down beside the door. The women came
along and were talking about a very nice young woman who had no
husband and lived in the next village below this one, on the river.
The women could not see Raven very plainly, and mistook him for a
clod of earth. When Raven heard this and heard one of the women
say that she did not think the young woman would ever have a hus-
band, he thought, "Ah! I will make this young woman a visit
tomorrow."

Raven traveled on and the next night came to the village where
the girl lived and found it to be a very large one. As he came near he
heard a dog howl once and then everything was quiet. He went on
very cautiously and, near the edge of the village, saw a house that
had its entrance guarded by two great dogs as large as bears, one be-
ing tied to the door post on each side. Raven at once thought that
the girl must live here, and he stood there for a long time trying to
think how he could pass the dogs.

After a time he searched in his hair and drew out a louse, and from
under his belt he took a crumb of the reindeer fat which he had
brought from the storehouse, for he ate very little and only once in
every two or three days on his way to this place. He rubbed the
louse and the fat together in the palm of his hand and then threw
them to the dogs.

The latter ate them up at once and then began to fawn upon
Raven and made no effort to stop him from going into the house.
When he came to the end of the dark entrance passage he felt about
for a door and could find nothing but a narrow crevice. Into this
crack Raven put his bill and, after thinking a while, he raised his
hand and struck himself a sharp blow on the back of the head. When

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 53

he did this he instantly turned into a slender bone needle and the
force of the blow drove him through the crack and he fell inside on
the floor. As soon as he touched the floor he turned back again into
his proper shape.

Then he looked about and saw that the only person in the room
was a woman lying asleep on one side. He went up to her and saw
that she was very nice looking. Raven felt ashamed and hesitated
for some time and then he went up to the woman and shook her
gently. This he repeated several times without awaking her and
then he said to himself, "I do not think this one is so very fine," and
he began to feel all about the walls until, right opposite the en-
trance, he found a crack at which he worked until a door came open
and showed an inner room. On one side of this room lay the most
beautiful young woman Raven had ever seen and he felt still more
ashamed than when in the outer room.

After hesitating for a time he went up to her and shook her light-
ly. She was wrapped from head to foot in her blanket and did not
stir. Then Raven took her up under his right arm and, carrying her
out of the house, started back up the river with her still under his
arm.

After traveling all night he became very tired and stopped to rest.
Then the girl awoke and he told her that he was taking her to be the
wife of a fine young man who was the best hunter in his village and
who had no wife. To this she made no answer. Raven gave her some
reindeer [caribou] fat to eat and, after resting, they traveled on
agsdn.

So they went on and on until, one evening, they came to Raven's
village. Raven thought for a minute and then drew a small rawhide
cord from his pocket and tied one end about the girl's waist. Then he
took the other end and carried it into the house.

He found the young hunter sitting opposite the entrance with his
father and brothers on the sides. Raven placed the end of the cord in
the hunter's hand and told him to draw it in. He did so and very
soon in came the beautiful girl Raven had brought him. Raven took
back his cord and told the hunter that he had brought him this fine
young girl for his wife and he must care for her kindly. The hunter
was much pleased and promised to do so.

Raven took off the fine clothing he had taken from the hunter's
storehouse and, leaving it on the floor, he went back to his place in
the sweat house near the door.

54 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

The hunter loved his wife very much and hunted for her more suc-
cessfully than ever. Thus they lived happily until she fell ill. She had
a headache and pains all over her body. The hunter sat with her day
and night, quite giving up hunting and trying to help his wife.

After watching her for several days, he became very tired and
while sitting by her side one evening his eyes closed for a minute
and his head nodded, heavy with sleep. He was awake again in a
moment and was very much alarmed to see that his wife had dis-
appeared. He gave the alarm and, with his brothers, searched about
the village all night without finding her. Morning came and the en-
tire village joined in the search and they looked far and near, but,
although she was gone, not even a track in the snow could be found
to tell where.

Several days passed during which the hunter never rested in his
search. During this time he had been joined by Raven and, after
thinking a while, the latter started off by himself and visited several
neighboring villages without finding the woman.

Then he started up the river and traveled a very long distance
until he came, finally, to a very large village close to which arose a
high mountain. Raven flew up and perched upon the highest rocks
on this mountain top. Here he sat and watched the people passing
from house to house below him.

As evening drew near a young woman came out of the sweat
house and went for water. She was close to the door on her way back
when Raven, who had been trying to think of some way to get a look
at her face, felt in his belt and found a small stone which he cast
down. It fell at the woman's feet and when she looked up Raven saw
that it was his friend's wife.

At the same time she saw Raven perched on top of the cliff, but
s£iid nothing. She took the water into the sweat house and, coming
out again, went behind the house and looked up. Raven felt in his
belt and drew out a piece of cord as long as his finger. This he took in
his right hand and made a throwing motion with it.

When he did this the loose end of the cord began to stretch out far-
ther and farther until it reached right down to the woman's feet. She
took up the end and made it fast to her wrists. Raven then drew in
on the other end and pulled her safely up to him on the mountain
top. He had just untied the cord from her wrists when he saw a great

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 55

broad-shouldered fellow come out of the sweat house and look
around.

Raven knew him at once as the one who had stolen the woman,
and, making a noose at one end of the cord, he threw it down again
and it encircled the man's neck. Raven began pulUng away at once
and dragging the man up the hillside. The man struggled and cried
out at first, but was dead when he reached the top. Then Raven took
a stone and broke every bone in his body and threw him back into
the village.

They then traveled back down the river and reached their own
village after a long time. The hunter was filled with joy to have his
wife again and Raven told him how he had taken her from the
shaman who had stolen her. Raven went back to his place by the
door of the sweat house."

Tale of the Returned One: From an Old Man at Anvik

A man died and his shade left his body and started for the land of
the dead. He started off underground and followed a broad road
with smaller ones branching off from it here and there. These he saw
were roads leading to the places inhabited by the shades of the dif-
ferent kinds of animals. He kept on, overtaking the shades of many
men and, after passing one village occupied by the shades of men, he
came to the village occupied by the shades of dogs. Here two shades
guided him around this village telling him that it was not safe to go
through it.

Before long he came to a stream as black as night, and made so by
the sweat of dead men. He crossed this in a canoe he found on the
shore and went on by another village. Then he came to another
stream very clear and bright and formed of the tears of those who
mourn for the dead.

He passed this in a canoe and, on the fifth night, came to where
the road ended abruptly against the foot of a high cliff. On the top of
this cUff he saw great numbers of shades which he knew were those
of good people living there in a land of plenty with a pleasant light.
In all the lower land where he was it was gloomy and unpleasant.

While he stood looking up at the cliff, an old man called out and
told him to go away on another road there was near him and to
beware looking at any of the shades he should meet on the way, even
if they called to him.

56 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

He started off on this road as directed and in four days he reached
his grave and going back into his body he arose and went home
again, where he told what he had seen.

He saw many villages of shades scattered along the road and
learned that the worse a man was when alive the shorter distance he
could go into the land of the shades, and the more unpleasant his
surroundings were. The shades of liars, thieves, and murderers have
but little to eat. The shades of good people and those who die an
ordinary death travel on until they reach the high land at the end of
the road and are happy in a land of plenty.®^

Tale of the Two Shamans: From Nulato Indians

Near the Yukon River once stood a village containing many peo-
ple. One day a strange sickness began to attack the people there and
man and women would suddenly fall on their backs and die, while
the fear and sorrow of the survivors was very great.

At that time the Raven shaman lived in their village and the peo-
ple ran to him with many rich presents of furs and other things and
begged him to help them before they all died. He accepted their
offerings and prepared himself for the trial.

When he was ready he went outside of the sweat house and walk-
ed slowly around it examining the snow. Just behind the sweat
house he found an ermine track leading from under the house out in-
to the woods. Ending his search here Raven cried, "Ah-h! Perhaps
you are what I am after."

Then he followed the track far away from the village until it
changed, at last, into the track of a man. He followed this for several
days until it led him to a large village. Raven looked about and saw
a house near the sweat house and he entered it and sat for a time in
the manner of a guest until he heard the men of the village come out
of the sweat house where they had been taking a sweat bath. He
went to the doorway and peered through a crack at the men, but was
disappointed and said to himself, "It was none of those men," but,
just then, a large powerful man came out with his eyes shut tightly,
being bUnded by the smoke in the sweat house. Seeing him Raven
thought, "That is the one," and, as he thought this, the Ermine
shaman, whose back was toward Raven, cried out, "Who is looking
at me? Some stranger is looking at me."

Before long the men went back into the sweat house and Raven

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 57

went with them. Then the women brought in food and the Ermine
shaman asked Raven to eat with him. Raven went and sat down by
him and tried to think of some way to kill him.

The Ermine shaman suddenly exclaimed, "You need not try to
hurt me. I know what you are thinking about, and you had better
eat with me." At first Raven was afraid to eat until the Ermine
shaman began and then he did the same, still trying to think of
something to do to the food to kill the Ermine shaman. "Do not try
to hurt me, for I am watching you," said the latter. When there was
only a small morsel of food in the dish. Raven managed to insert in-
to it a small black object and it was swallowed by the Ermine
shaman.

Soon afterw£u-d they laid down and in a little while Ermine
shaman became very ill and cried to the Raven, "What did you do to
the food? If you do not cure me of this sickeness that you have given
me you will be sorry." To this the Raven [replied] "Why did you go
and make so many of my friends die? Now I have you and you will
not get well for I will not help you." The Ermine shaman groaned
and said, "Cure me, for if you do not your life will end with mine."
Raven would not help him and started back home.

As he went on he began to feel himself becoming more and more ill
from the spells of the Ermine shaman and he hastened on night and
day to reach home before he died. When he reached his village he
was so ill that his people had to carry him into the sweat house.
There he lived just long enough to tell the people the cause of his
death and what he had done for them when he died.

His grave box was made and in it with him was placed his bag
with the flint and steel for making fire and about the box were
strewn his bear spear, snowshoes, bow and arrows, and axe. When
the body was placed in the box the shade felt itself sinking slowly
down, down, until he found himself standing on the bank of a river
just like the Yukon near his village.

Scattered about him, on the snow that covered the land and the
frozen river, lay the tools and articles that had been placed about his
grave box. After he had gathered them up he looked about him and
saw the tracks of the Ermine shaman leading away up the frozen
river on the ice and he followed the track.

By and by he saw the Ermine shaman walking slowly along and
when he saw Raven he stopped and waited for him to come up. As he

58 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

drew near Raven thought, "Ah! If I could only kill him again that
would end him." Ermine shaman felt this thought at once and said,
"Have you not done enough, that you still wish to do me harm? We
are both dead now and that should be enough." "All right," said
Raven, "let us travel on together, as we are going the same way." So
they went on and at nightfall they came to the ramparts of the
Yukon. (This is 300 miles above Nulato, their supposed starting
place.)

With his axe Raven cut a pile of logs and they built a fire and,
seated by it, they ate of the food their friends had placed on their
graves when they were buried. Each gave the other some of his food
and then they went to sleep.

The next morning they arose and Raven placed together the
charred ends of the logs left from their fire saying, "Our friends in
coming after us to the land of the dead will see our fireplace here and
will always, hereafter, make this their first stopping place."

Then he turned to the Ermine shaman and cried, "Well! Which
way are you going to take now?" The latter answered by pointing in
the direction of the North Star and said, "I am going there."
"Where are you going?" he asked; and Raven pointed over the
eastern horizon. "Very well, I am going," said the Ermine shaman
and he began floating slowly up toward the sky.

He had gone but a little way from the ground when Raven raised
his bear spear and cast it at him with so true an aim that it pierced
the shaman in the small of the back where it stuck fast. When the
spear struck him the Ermine shaman cried out in pain, bent his
body forward, and threw back both hands, and, in this position he
floated up and became the constellation of the Great Bear. And ever
since he has turned around and around in the sky with the spear fast
in his back, as anyone can see.

The Raven then walked far off into the dawn and has ever since
been seen as the morning star in winter.^^

Raven Brings the Light: Nulato Indians

Very long ago people had the shapes of different kinds of animals,
some being bears, some wolves, and of other kinds, and the earth
was hidden by darkness.

It was so dark that when anyone went out to search for food the
people formed a long hne, by holding to one another's coats, extend-
ing from the village so that no one should be lost.

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 59

In one large village were gathered some of all the different kinds
of people and when many ways to get light were tried in vain, the
people, at last, went to the Raven for help. They made Raven many
fine presents and asked him to help them.

Raven promised to try and he started to look for the Ught, part of
the time walking and part of the time flying, for he could change in-
to a man or a bird whenever he wished to do so.

After a time he came to a solitary house and he flew up on the top
of a soUtary tree growing near and waited. A man came out and
Raven called out in a loud voice, "Yu-khoi? Yu-khoi?" or, "Where is
the dawn? Where is the dawn?" The man looked up in surprise and
then, without speaking, he ran back into the house to tell the people
what he had heard.

Raven saw that he must go farther and flew away and away until
he was tired and lit on a tree near another house. The first person
who came out was asked the same question and ran into the house
without answering, hke the first.

For many days he traveled on until, at last, far away on the
horizon, he saw a faint gUmmering of light which became plainer
each day. Every day he came to a house where he asked for the dawn
without getting an answer. One day, when the light had become
quite bright, he asked the question again and the man told him that
just beyond lay a large village where an old chief lived with a young
daughter and kept the sun shut up in a bag. Raven hurried on and
when he saw the place close by he went back a little and, flying up
into a small tree, began plucking the leaves and covering himself
with them. Then he closed his eyes and thought, "I have on a
sableskin coat," and when he opened his eyes he found that he did
have on one. He took two rolls of birch bark and put them on his legs
and wished them into a nice pair of reindeer [caribou] skin breeches.
From birch bark he made a pair of moccasins and from other things
he made a complete suit of clothing for a young man. From the gum
and bark of the spruce he made a long-bladed knife and sheath. Then
he went on to the chief's house and was welcomed as a guest.

He stopped there for a long time, but could not find where the old
man kept the sun. He wishes for it and the chief's daughter is in love
with him and he marries her. Five days after they are married she
gives birth to a son. When he is two days old this boy walks about
and soon begins to cry. The old chief is very fond of the child and

60 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

gives it all kinds of toys to quiet it but cannot, for Raven is thinking
all the time, "Cry, cry harder."

At last Raven said to the child, "You must be crying for the sun
your grandfather has got shut up somewhere." At this the child
made more noise than before until the old man went to a hidden
recess and drew out a bag. From this he drew out the moon and
hung it up in the house where the boy could see it and the child
became quiet.

When the old man closed the bag, Raven saw that it contained
two other bright objects and he began to plan to secure both them
and the moon. The only difficulty being the old chief who never left
the house.

Having his plan ready. Raven made a voice cry out from outside,
"The dogs are eating your fish." Everybody except Raven and the
old man ran out. Raven jumped up as soon as they were gone and
cried "Don't you hear? The dogs will eat all of your fish; go ahead. I
will follow." And he hurried the old man out through the door before
he had time to think.

As soon as the old man was well into the passageway, Raven ran
back and putting the moon into the bag, flew out through the win-
dow in the roof with it just as the old man got outside. Raven lit on
the first tree and opened the bag. From it he took out the first piece
he found, which was the sun, and cast it up into the sky and daylight
spread all over the earth. He drew out a second piece and cast it up
in another direction and the moon appeared. The last piece he broke
into small bits and cast them up into the sky making the stars, the
two largest pieces making the morning and evening stars.

Having finished. Raven traveled back home again and whenever,
on his way, he came to one of the places he had passed when going
for the light the people made a feast for him and gave him fine
presents. When he reached home the people made him a great chief
and always supplied all of his wants so that he never had to work
any more.^^

Bird Myth

There is a pretty httle myth of the Nulato Indians that the Red-
poll Linnet went off to the lodge where the first fire was hidden and
stole some of it for men. It took a single coal of living fire in its beak
and flew away to give it to the people who had no fire, but in doing

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 61

this the fire burned a black mark across the bird's crown and gave
such a glow of rosy light upon its breast that the bird has kept these
marks ever since.

The lower Yukon Indians say that the Milky Way is the track by
Raven's snowshoes. They name the constellation of the Great Bear,
the Moose.

NOTES

1. This is the partner's potlatch described in considerable detail
by Osgood (1940, pp. 427-428; 1958, pp. 73-81) and to a lesser extent
by Chapman (1907, vol. II, pp. 32-34). Nelson missed some of its
significance, particularly those aspects related to honoring the
dead, but he rightly stressed its importance as a means of exchang-
ing goods. Although generally held between neighboring villages of
equal size, the partner's potlatch also served to facilitate exchange
between more distant communities. Among the Koyukon, and pro-
bably the IngaUk as well, this ceremony or its equivalent was also a
means of formalizing relations with neighboring Eskimos and
establishing useful trade contacts between two peoples who
sometimes viewed each other with suspicion and distrust
(VanStone, in press). Ceremonies to which guests from one village
are invited by messengers from another are widespread among Ber-
ing Sea Eskimos (Nelson, 1899, pp. 358-363; Hawkes, 1913).

2. Because of uncertainties concerning the extent of Nelson's
travels on the Innoko River, it is impossible to determine the village
in which he witnessed the performance of the potlatch for the dead.
He appears to have arrived on the fourth and last day of this, the
most solemn of all Ingalik ceremonies (Osgood, 1940, pp. 422-423;
1958, pp. 138-143). The fourth night of the potlatch for the dead is
always devoted to the hot dance (Osgood, 1958, pp. 143-146), which
Nelson describes here. Theoretically, at least, the hot dance was
supposed to increase the supply of game animals, but it also had an
important social function which compensated for the austerity of
the potlatch for the dead (Osgood, 1958, p. 143).

3. Nelson's account here more closely resembles Osgood's (1958,
pp. 138-143) than does his rendering of the previous ceremony. A
great feast of the dead which was held on the lower Yukon at Raz-
binsky (near Pilot Station) in January, 1880 is described in con-
siderable detail by Nelson (1899, pp. 366-379). It resembles the An-
vik ceremony.

62

VAN STONE: NELSON'S NOTES 63

4. Nelson's account is more detailed than Osgood's (1940, p. 423;
1958, p. 134) and differs from it in the apparently greater length of
the ceremony described and the emphasis on the use of masks.
Nelson (1899, pp. 379-393) also provides a detailed description of the
equivalent, but more complex, ceremony as performed by the
Eskimos of the Yukon-Kuskokwim region. Shageluk Island, refer-
red to at the beginning of Nelson's description of the Anvik bladder
festival, is a local name for the island formed by the Innoko and
Yukon rivers and Shageluk Slough.

5. Osgood's account (1940, pp. 423-425; 1958, pp. 135-137) of the
doll ceremony closely resembles this one, although he describes it as
taking place in the fall as the first festival of the winter series.
Nelson's reference to (Russian) Mission indicates that the ceremony
was also performed by the Eskimos of Ikogmiut, but he was unable
to obtain an account of the Eskimo version because the Russian Or-
thodox priest stationed at that settlement had been almost totally
successful in preventing the people from performing it (Nelson,
1899, p. 379).

6. Osgood's account (1940, pp. 425-427; 1958, pp. 81-96) of this
ceremony is far more detailed and complete. He also describes and
illustrates masks used in the mask dance as does Chapman (1907,
vol. II, pp. 16-32). Unlike Nelson, both these authors emphasize the
importance of the Ingalik belief that the performance of a mask
dance would increase the supply of economically important animals,
characteristics of which were depicted in the dances.

7. This description of the preparation of a body after death is more
detailed than Osgood's (1958, p. 151). The latter seems to indicate
that the body was laid out in an extended position on a mat, but Par-
sons' (1921-1922, p. 69) informant describes the deceased as being
propped in a seated position so that it could witness the events
associated with mourning.

8. Osgood's (1958, p. 151) informant reported that the deceased
was usually carried out through the door on its way to the kashim
(Nelsons's "sweat house"), but later changed his mind and claimed
that the body was always removed through the smoke hole. This
procedure, confirmed by Parsons' (1921-1922, p. 69) informant, was
repeated when the body was removed from the kashim (Osgood,
1940, p. 410).

9. According to Osgood (1958, pp. 149, 154), the body remained on

64 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

a coffin rack near the cemetery to await the spring or fall burial
season and was then interred in a coffin. This type of burial was con-
sidered most desirable, although Osgood (1958, pp. 149-151)
describes other methods.

10. Osgood (1958, pp. 151-154) describes an elaborate ceremony in
the kashim associated with coffin burial. The body is placed in the
coffin on its back in a flexed position. Coffins, coffin houses, and the
coffin rack are also described by Osgood (1940, pp. 409-414).

11. At the time of Nelson's visit, the village of Anvik was located
on a flat point of land at the mouth of the Anvik River. The opposite
bank of the river, site of the present village, is higher and the bluff
below is the location of the present-day cemetery. No traditional cof-
fins are now visible.

12. The coffins of shamans were often more carefully made than
those of ordinary people and were sometimes elaborately or-
namented (Parsons, 1921-1922, p. 70). Hrdlicka (1944, p. 213) il-
lustrates painted coffin houses which he encountered along the In-
noko River.

13. See Osgood (1958, pp. 154-155). He does not mention a return
by relatives to the grave or its reopening, although there could be
gatherings around the coffin racks before burial (Osgood, 1940, p.
412; 1958, p. 157). The large graveyard to which Nelson refers may
have been associated with the village of Old Bonasila about 15 miles
below Anvik on the same side of the river.

14. This special treatment for the graves of shamans is not
reported in other sources, although Osgood (1940, pp. 414-415) does
describe a specially constructed shaman's grave house.

15. Osgood (1940, pp. 415-416; 1958, p. 150) notes that the bodies
of suicides, of individuals who were found frozen to death,
murdered, or killed in war were cremated. The ashes were left un-
disturbed.

16. It is noteworthy that Nelson makes so many references to the
opening of old graves when other sources fail to mention this prac-
tice.

17. See Osgood (1958, p. 156). He makes no mention, however, of
self-mutilation.

18. This was probably a graveyard associated with the village of
Holikachuk. Zagoskin visited this settlement, which he called

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 65

Khuligichagat, in February, 1844, and noted five winter houses oc-
cupied by "not over 70 inhabitants of both sexes" (Zagoskin, 1967,
pp. 235, 307). In 1880 Holikachuk was listed as having a population
of 70 living in 12 houses (Archives of the Russian Orthodox Church
in Alaska, parish records: Kvikhpak mission, church register).
Although the photographs to which Nelson refers are no longer with
the manuscript, a single negative in the photographic collections of
the National Anthropological Archives entitled "Indian Graves on
the Innoko River" would appear to have been taken by him on this
trip and is reproduced here (fig. 3). A grave pole is described by
Osgood (1940, p. 415).

19. See note 12. One of the grave boxes iUustrated by Hrdlidka
(1944, p. 213) is decorated with paintings of caribou.

20. According to Osgood (1958, pp. 154-155), a person could in-
dicate before his death whether he wished to have his personal
possessions burned, placed in or near his coffin, or distributed to
friends.

21. Neither Osgood nor Parsons mention offerings made at
graves.

22. Possibly the now-abandoned village of Dementi located op-
posite the mouth of the Iditarod River. This settlement, called Ttali-
ty by Zagoskin (1967, pp. 236-237, 307), was visited by the explorer
in February, 1844 at which time it consisted of three winter houses
and had a population of 45. Petr Kolmakov reached this settlement
in 1839 and it was here that he learned of the destruction of the
Ikogmiut post and decided to turn back. The inhabitants are said to
have shown him the shortest route to the Kuskokwim (Zagoskin,
1967, p. 236).

23. Nelson obviously suspected that these beliefs were the result
of teachings by the Russian Orthodox Church.

24. The sale of breech-loading firearms to the natives of Alaska
was prohibited by law in 1875 and they rapidly became valuable
items of contraband. Commercial whaling vessels which visited
Kotzebue Sound and Norton Sound after 1850 traded these
weapons to the coastal Eskimos who, in turn, traded them to the In-
galik and other Athapaskans. However, such weapons were also
available at Alaska Commerical Company posts all along the middle
and lower Yukon well before the order forbidding their importation

66 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

was withdrawn in 1896 (Annual report of the Governor of Alaska for
1888, vol. 3, p. 994).

Both the moose and caribou populations of the lower Yukon ap-
pear to have fluctuated greatly in the nineteenth century. Zagoskin
(1967, p. 238) described them as being "numberless" in the 1840's
due to a plentiful food supply throughout the Ingalik area. In the
spring of 1867 William Healy Dall, a member of the Western Union
Telegraph Company Expedition, is said to have seen more than
4,000 skins of caribou fawns hanging up in a village near Anvik, but
Nelson (1887, p. 286) observed that at the time of his travels fewer
than half a dozen animals were taken in that area. Similarly, in 1869
Captain Charles Raymond (1871, p. 27) observed many large herds
of caribou in the high country of the upper Anvik River, but by the
mid- 1 880 's and perhaps earlier the number of these animals had
begun to decline (Nelson, 1887, pp. 237-238). Moose, on the other
hand, appear to have decUned by 1870 (Raymond, 1873, p. 171), but
then reappeared and spread to the lower Yukon in the decade be-
tween 1870 and 1880 (Nelson, 1887, p. 287; Petroff, 1884, p. 5).

The decline in the numbers of moose and caribou is usually at-
tributed by nineteenth-century observers, as Nelson does here and
elsewhere, to the increased use of firearms, particularly the breech-
loading rifle (Raymond, 1871, p. 27; Petroff, 1884, p. 5; Nelson,
1887, pp. 237-238, 288; Chapman, 1914, p. 3). Although the
availability of firearms undoubtedly played a role at specific times,
this explanation does not account for the reappearance of these
animals in large numbers at later times and in different patterns. It
is probable that habitat changes, particularly those caused by fire,
were of greater importance than the use of firearms (VanStone, in
press).

25. The taking of small game was of considerable importance to
the Ingalik as it often provided virtually the only food available
when supplies of dried fish were running low. The quantity of small
game apparently varied considerably from year to year and when
they were not plentiful, starvation or near-starvation could result.
Bad floods in the spring frequently killed many small animals, a fact
of which the Ingalik would be very much aware the following winter
(Chapman, 1898, p. 573; Mertie and Harrington, 1924, p. 86; E. B.
Lucas to J. W. Wood, April 27, 1926, Archives and Historical Col-
lections, the Episcopal Church, Alaska papers, box 42).

26. By the 1880's steel traps appear to have been used fairly ex-
tensively in western Alaska, although in Zagoskin 's time the Rus-

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 67

sians had difficulty introducing them. The Indians preferred their
traditional trapping methods and the iron parts of those traps
which they did obtain were quickly converted into knives, hatchets,
rings, and other useful items (Nelson, 1887, pp. 247-248, 279;
Zagoskin, 1967, p. 221). It is clear, however, that traditional trap-
ping methods were still in use at the time of Nelson's journey.

27. This statement concerning well-defined trapping territories in-
herited patriUneally is tantaUzing and of considerable potential im-
portance to an understanding of Ingalik social organization.
However, the information cannot be verified in any other source.

28. Zagoskin (1967, p. 198) reported that black and brown bears
were plentiful in the vicinity of Anvik and that these animals were
hunted with pointed lances as they came out of hibernation in the
early spring. Other methods of hunting bear are described by
Osgood (1940, pp. 40-42; 1958, p. 244).

29. Dip net fishing is described by Osgood (1958, p. 236). The con-
struction of traps is also described in some detail by Osgood (1940,
pp. 226-227).

30. Since fishing was also an integral part of winter subsistence
activities, serious famine occured only when there were failures of
fish and game in winter and the salmon run in summer.

31. Although Osgood (1958, p. 237) refers to the ownership of
fishing sites, he provides no details concerning the manner in which
they were obtained or transferred from one generation to another.

32. The use of the gill net is described by Osgood (1940, pp.
214-215).

33. Fishing for loche or burbot (Lota lota) is described in detail by
Osgood (1940, pp. 229-230; 1958, p. 241).

34. For other descriptions of lamprey fishing, see Chapman (1904,
pp. 262-263), Osgood (1958, p. 40), and Zagoskin (1967, p. 203). Dip
nets with a three-quarter-inch mesh were used for lampreys
(Osgood, 1940, p. 211).

35. Glazunov was met at Anvik by Indians behaving in the man-
ner described here by Nelson (VanStone, 1959, p. 43). When
Zagoskin explored the Innoko in the winter of 1844, the inhabitants
of the villages he visited were both friendly and helpful in spite of
the fact that only a few years had elapsed since the smallpox
epidemic of 1838-1839 for which native peoples held the Russians
responsible (Zagoskin, 1967, pp. 231-242 passim, 248).

68 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

36. The village referred to here is probably Holikachuk.

37. Population figures for the Yukon Ingalik villages obtained by
Zagoskin (1967, p. 307) and Glazunov (VanStone, 1959) suggest
that they may have lost fully two-thirds of their inhabitants as a
result of the smallpox epidemic of 1838-1839. This is a much higher
mortahty rate than is apparent from the meager information
available for other areas of west-central Alaska. It is probable that
the adjacent Innoko River villages were similarly affected.

38. Trade networks involving the Ingahk and Norton Sound
Eskimos were still functioning at the time of Nelson's travels as
this story indicates. During the summer of 1879 when he was at St.
Michael, Ingalik Indians from Anvik descended the Yukon in
umiaks to exchange their well-made wooden bowls and dishes for
seal oil and other coastal products (Nelson, 1899, p. 232). The Anvik
River and its tributaries, however, were a much more common route
to the coast for the Ingalik.

39. This is probably an exaggeration. See note 30.

40. Nuklukayet was a Koyukon settlement and trading post at
the mouth of the Tanana River near the present village of Tanana.

41. See Osgood (1959, pp. 68-73) for a fuller description of Ingahk
attitudes toward property.

42. Osgood (1959, p. 69) notes that a rich man was often the object
of jealousy on the part of less successful individuals. If a wealthy
person did not share during times of hardship, he could be killed or
have his cache robbed.

43. St. Michael had been the center of trade in western Alaska
during the Russian period, but beginning in the early 1880's its role
as a cosmopolitan center increased considerably. The more intensive
trade of the Alaska Commerical Company gave the community an
atmosphere of excitement and affluence that it had not enjoyed
under the Russians. Beginning in late June, Indians and Eskimos
gathered there hoping to trade with the company agents who had
come down the Yukon to meet the annual supply ship. Natives who
traded at St. Michael had an opportunity to choose from a trader's
goods at a time when his stock was largest and most diverse. While
waiting for the ship, the Eskimos and Indians traded with each
other and, as Nelson notes here, took part in games, dancing, and
other amusements (Elliott, 1886, pp. 413-414; Nelson, 1887, pp.
12-13; Porter, 1893, pp. 253-254).

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 69

44. Osgood (1959, pp. 103-106) describes the Ingalik as believing
in a four-level universe, two levels of which were beneath the surface
of the ground. The one closest to the surface was the abode of the
soul or yeg of most persons.

45. For a detailed discussion of blood revenge among the Ingalik,
see Osgood (1958, pp. 53-56).

46. It is probable that early observers exaggerated the enmity ex-
isting between Eskimos and Indians in this area, although Nelson's
statements are more balanced than most. Nineteenth-century Rus-
sian and American travelers may have been influenced in their
judgement about relations between the two peoples more by casual
conversations revealing ethnic prejudice than by actual evidence of
warfare and violence which they witnessed or could confirm from
rehable sources. Profitable trade relations existed between the In-
galik and their Eskimo neighbors (Osgood, 1958, pp. 28, 62;
Zagoskin, 1967, pp. 137, 168, 191, 197) and the disruption of such
relations for any length of time by bloody conflicts would seem
unlikely. It is possible, of course, that hostihties between the In-
galik and Eskimos were reinforced by the Russian and American
presence in the area.

47. This account is in essential agreement with Osgood's (1958,
pp. 183-189) fuller statement. For a description of headbands worn
during a girl's seclusion and other paraphernalia used in connection
with menstruation, see Osgood (1940, pp. 406-408). A brief, personal
account of a girl's seclusion at the time of her first menstruation is
found in Parsons (1921-1922, pp. 57-58).

48. For a detailed account of childbirth, see Osgood (1958, pp.
171-173).

49. Osgood (1958, pp. 189-196) emphasizes the role of the boy's
mother and grandmother in the selection of a wife. A modified form
of bride service is reported by Parsons (1921-1922, p. 63). Post-
nuptial residence is not clearly defined by Osgood or other sources
and it is probable that residence patterns were flexible and in-
dividual choice played a significant role as among other
Athapaskan groups where bilaterality was characteristic. Thus Peu--
sons (1921-1922, p. 61) notes that for the first two or three years
after marriage a woman hved with her husband in her p£u*ents'
home, after which the man built his own house in the immediate
vicinity. Osgood's informants, on the other hand, reported that a

70 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

young married man brought his wife to his parents' home for a
period of time and then built his own house wherever he chose to do
so (Osgood, 1958, pp. 196-198).

50. Osgood (1959, pp. 53, 204) notes that wrestling was one of the
commonest expressions of interpersonal aggression among the In-
galik and cites an example similar to the one described by Nelson.

51. It is clear from Osgood's (1958, pp. 56-61) discussion that a
shaman was very jealous of his power, particularly with reference to
other shamans in the same or neighboring villages. There are many
recorded instances of conflict between shamans and the first mis-
sionaries to work among the Ingalik. The former struggled to main-
tain their prestige and hold on the people, while the latter frequently
measured the success or failure of their efforts directly in terms of
the extent to which they were able to triumph at the expense of the
shamans (VanStone, in press).

52. Parsons' (1921-1922, p. 54) Ingalik informant mentioned a
number of traditional practices that were apparently still carried
out as late as the early 1920's. Birds were plucked and animals skin-
ned and disemboweled before they were sold to the Anvik mission,
and the meat of bears and lynx was not sold to white people.

53. The skin of the wolverine was highly valued by the Ingalik and
served primarily for decoration. A successful trapper of these
resourceful and dangerous animals gained considerable prestige
(Osgood, 1958, p. 247). Nelson (1887, pp. 248-249) includes this
story about the profane trapper in his published account of the
wolverine and its habits.

54. Until the mid-1960's the village of Shageluk was located along
a narrow strip of land separating Shageluk Lake from the Innoko
River. By 1972 most residents had moved to a new location approx-
imately 2 miles down river. Giant fish are a common element in the
Alaskan Eskimo nonempirical environment (Burch, 1971, p. 156).

55. Nelson's comments concerning clothing worn by Indians on
the upper Innoko River were equally applicable to the Ingalik and
other Yukon peoples. From the earliest days of the fur trade, at-
tempts were made to discourage the Indians from using valuable
furs for clothing. When Zagoskin was at Nulato he noted that some
Indians who visited the trading station began to observe the
definite advantages of the summer clothing worn by members of the
expedition. Therefore, they began to ask the manager for calico

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 71

shirts, blankets, cloth dresses, and caps, and some even wanted
shoes (Zagoskin, 1967, p. 185). By the late 1880's cotton drilling,
unbleached muslin, and calico were staple items of trade at Anvik
(J. W. Chapman to W. S. Langford, July 27, 1887, Archives and
Historical Collections, the Episcopal Church, Alaska papers, box
15).

56. A legacy from the Russians, and later the Americans, to the
Eskimo and Indian population of west-central Alaska was the in-
troduction of communicable diseases which spread rapidly and
decimated a population with no opportunity to build up an immuni-
ty to them. The smallpox epidemic of 1838-1839 may have been
unique in the early years of European contact. However, epidemics
and other periods of illness, some severe and others of short dura-
tion, not only continued in west-central Alaska but increased as the
native population was increasingly exposed to contact with out-
siders.

Population figures for the Innoko River in the late nineteenth cen-
tury are difficult to ascertain, in part because of the confusing ter-
minology characteristic of historical source materials for the area.
Zagoskin (1967, p. 307) lists six settlements on the Innoko River
below the entrance of Holikachuk Slough. The combined population
of five of these was 285 in 1844. The tenth federal census in 1880
enumerated 150 persons living on "Chageluk slough and Innok
river" (Petroff, 1884, p. 12). Nelson's figure presumably refers only
to those living above the confluence of the Innoko River and
Holikachuk Slough. However, as noted in the introduction, there is
no way of knowing how far up the Innoko River his explorations
extended.

57. In some respects, the structure described and illustrated by
Nelson more closely resembles an Eskimo kashim in southwestern
Alaska (VanStone, 1968, pp. 252-258; 1970, pp. 33, 35-38) than it
does the Ingalik kashim described by Osgood (1940, pp. 290-302).
Nelson's statement about the antiquity of kashims in Innoko
villages is probably inaccurate, but, in fact, the definite existence of
prehistoric structures of this type in settlements along the river has
not been documented.

58. This would appear to be another reference to Dementi,
although elsewhere Nelson mentions a settlement, presumably
Holikachuk, at the mouth of the Innoko (see p. 31, note 18). Osgood
(1958, p. 30) noted that Ingalik summer villages were frequently

72 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

built on lower land directly in front of winter settlements.

59. The manufacture of pottery by the Ingalik is described by
Osgood (1940, pp. 146-419). DeLaguna (1947, pp. 140-149, figs.
26-33, pis. xxii-xxiv) describes and illustrates pot and lamp
fragments which she excavated in the area in the summer of 1935.
The great majority of decorated sherds belong to the Yukon Lined
and Line-dot types, styles of surface treatment indentified at
Eskimo sites on the coast (Oswalt, 1955, pp. 37-38).

60. See note 38. The manufacture of birch bark canoes by the In-
galik is described in detail by Osgood (1940, pp. 359-373). He notes
that umiaks based on the Eskimo type from St. Michael (Nelson,
1899, pis. Ixxvii, Ixxviii, 38) were occasionally constructed by
wealthy Ingalik or purchased by them from the Eskimos (Osgood,
1940, p. 380).

61. In western Alaska jade is found only on the Kobuk River and
on Seward Peninsula, but it was traded extensively (see Nelson,
1884, pp. 426-427; 1899, p. 230).

62. At the beginning of the American period, Dall (1870, p. 499)
noted that beaver pelts were the traders' standard of value as they
had been during the Russian period, and that one pelt was worth 20
lead balls or 2 fathoms of strung beads. Four mink pelts, two
marten, or two white fox were equal in value to a beaver. By 1885
the unit of trade in the Yukon district was the pelt of a red fox or
marten and its cash value was $1.25 (Porter, 1839, p. 120). Accord-
ing to these rates, a prime beaver pelt was worth two "skins"; a
black bear, four; a lynx, one; and a land otter, two or three "skins,"
depending on condition. Items of trade that could be obtained with
one "skin" included 5 yds. of drilling, 1 lb. of tea or gunpowder, one-
half pound of powder and a box of caps, 1 lb. of shot, and 5 lbs. of
sugar. A 50 lb. sack of flour could be obtained for four "skins."

63. Two shorter and somewhat different versions of this story
have been recorded by Chapman (1914, pp. 28-32).

64. This story is not duplicated in other collections of folk tales
from the Ingalik and neighboring peoples.

65. This story has some elements in common with one obtained by
Nelson at Andreavsky and said to be known all along the lower
Yukon (Nelson, 1899, pp. 488-490). Although the description of the
land of the dead in this Anvik story differs somewhat from other In-
galik accounts (Chapman, 1914, pp. 8-10; Osgood, 1959, pp.

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 73

103-106), it shares with them references to the ability, once possess-
ed by human beings, to return from the dead.

66. This story is not recorded in other compilations of myths from
the lower Yukon. Shamanistic rivalry, however, is a characteristic
feature of Eskimo and Indian stories.

67. Stories in which Raven brings the light are recounted for the
Koyukon (Jette, 1908, pp. 304-305), the Eskimos of Paimiut
(Nelson, 1899, pp. 483-485), and the Ingalik (Chapman, 1914, pp.
22-26). The latter account is closest to the version given here.

REFERENCES

Archives and Historical Collections, the Episcopal Church
MS. Alaska papers of the domestic and foreign missionary society, 1884-1952, 105
boxes. Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, Texas.

Archives of the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska

MS. Parish records: Kvikhpak mission, church register. Xerox copy in the Alaska
Historical Library, Juneau.

BuRCH, E. S. Jr.

1971. The nonempirical environment of the arctic Alaskan Eskimos. South-
western Jour. Anthropol., 27, no. 2, pp. 148-165.

Chapman, J. W.

1898. Annual report of Christ Church Mission. Spirit of Missions, 64, pp. 572-573.

1904. The Yukon River and its value to the Alaska mission. Spirit of Missions,
69, pp. 260-264.

1907. Notes on the Tinneh tribe of Anvik, Alaska. Congr. Int. Amer., xv® session,
2, pp. 7-38.

1914. Ten 'a texts and tales from Anvik, Alaska. Publ. Amer. Ethnol. Soc, 6.
Chernenko, M. B.

1967. Lavrentiy Alekseyevich Zagoskin. An account of his life and works. In:
Michael, Henry N., ed.. Lieutenant Zagoskin's travels in Russian America, 1842-
1844. The first ethnographic and geographic investigations in the Yukon and
Kuskokwim valleys of Alaska, Arctic Institute of North America, anthropology
of the north, translations from Russian sources, no. 7. Toronto.

Dall. W. H.

1870. Alaska and its resources. Lee and Shepard, Boston.
DeLaguna, F.

1947. The prehistory of North America as seen from the Yukon. Mem. Soc. Amer.
Archaeol., no. 3.

Elliott, H. W.
1886. Our arctic province, Alaska and the Seal Islands. Charles Scribner's Sons,
New York.

Fedorova, S. G.
1973a. New data on Russian geographic and ethnographic investigations in

74

*

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 75

Alaska (first half of the 19th century). Pa|>er presented at the IX Int. Cong.
Anthropol. Ethnol. Sci., Chicago. Sept., 1973.

1973b. The Russian population in Alaska and California. Late 18th century— 1867.
Translated and edited by R. A. Pierce and A. S. Donnelly. Materials for the
study of Alaskan history, no. 4. Kingston, Ontario.

Goldman, E. A.
1935. Edward William Nelson - naturalist, 1855-1934. Auk, 52, no. 2, pp. 135-148.

Hawkes. E. W.
1913. The "Inviting-In" feast of the Alaskan Eskimo. Canada, Dept. of Mines,
Geol. Survey, memoir 45, no. 3, anthropol. ser. Ottawa.

HOSLEY. E.
1968. The Kolchan: delineation of a new northern Athapaskan Indian group.
Arctic, 21, no. 1, pp. 6-11.

Hrdlicka, a.
1944. Alaska diary 1926-1931. The Jacques Cattell Press, Lancaster, Pa.

jETTfi, J.

1908. On Ten 'a folk-lore. Jour. Royal Anthropol. Inst., 38, pp. 298-367.

Kraus. M. E.
1974. Native peoples and languages of Alaska (map). Alaska Native Language
Center, University of Alaska.

Lantis. M.

1954. Edward William Nelson. Anthropol. Pap. Univ. Alaska, 3, no. 1, pp. 5-16.

Mertie, J. B. AND G. L. Harrington
1924. The Ruby-Kuskokwim region, Alaska. U.S. Geol. Surv., bull. 754.
Washington.

Nelson, E. W.
1884. On the source of the jadeite implements of the Alaskan Innuits. Proc. U. S.

Nat. Mus., 6, 1883, pp. 426-427.
1887. Report upon natural history collections made in Alaska between the years

1877 and 1881. Washington.
1899. The Eskimo about Bering Strait. Eighteenth annual report. Bur. Amer.

Ethnol., pt. 1. Washington.

Osgood, C.
1940. Ingalik material culture. Yale Univ. Publ. Anthropol., no. 22. New Haven.

1958. Ingalik social culture. Yale Univ. Publ. Anthropol., no. 53. New Haven.

1959. Ingalik mental culture. Yale Univ. Publ. Anthropol., no. 56. New Haven.

Oswalt. W. H.

1955. Alaskan pottery: a classification and historical reconstruction. Amer.
Antiquity, 21, no. 1, pp. 32-43.

76 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

Oswalt, W. H., ed.

1960. Eskimos and Indians of western Alaska 1861-1868: extracts from the diary
of Father Illarion. Anthropol. Pap. Univ. Alaska, 8, no. 2, pp. 101-118.

Parsons, E. C.
1921-1922. A narrative of the Ten'a of Anvik, Alaska. Anthropos, 16-17, pp. 51-71.

Petroff, L
1884. Report on population, industries and resources of Alaska. Washington.

Porter. R. P., comp.
1893. Report on population and resources of Alaska at the 11th census: 1890.
Washington.

Raymond, C. W.
1871. Report of a reconnaissance of the Yukon River, Alaska Territory. July to

September, 1869. 42nd Congress, 1st session. Senate exec. doc. no. 12.

Washington.
1873. The Yukon River region of Alaska. Jour. Amer. Geogr. Soc, 1870-1871, pp.

158-192.

Russian-American Company Records
MS. 1802-1867: communications sent. File microcopies of records in the U. S.
National Archives, no. 11. Washington.

Sherwood, M.
1965. Exploration of Alaska: 1865-1900. Yale Univ. Press.

United States Department of the Interior. Annual Report of the Governor
OF Alaska

1888. Report of the Governor of Alaska for 1888, vol. 3, pp. 959-1,012.
VanStone, J. W.

1959. Russian exploration in interior Alaska. An extract from the journal of
Andrei Glazunov. Pacific Northwest Quart., 50, no. 2, pp. 37-47.

1967. Eskimos of the Nushagak River: an ethnographic history. Univ. Wash.
Press.

1968. Tikchik village: a nineteenth century riverine community in southwestern
Alaska. Fieldiana: Anthropol., 56, no. 3, pp. 215-368.

1970. Akulivikchuk: a nineteenth century Eskimo village on the Nushagak River,
Alaska. Fieldiana, Anthropol., 60.

IN press. Ingalik contact ecology: an ethnohistory of the lower-middle Yukon,
1790-1935. Fieldiana: Anthropol.

Whymper, F.
1869. Travel and adventure in the territory of Alaska. Harper & Brothers, New
York.

Wrangell, F. p. von
1970. The inhabitants of the northwest coast of Alaska. Translated and edited by
James W. VanStone. Arctic Anthropol, 6, no. 2, pp. 5-20.

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES 77

Zagoskin, L. a.
1956. Puteshestviya i issledovaniya leytenanta Lavrentiya Zagoskina v Russkoy
Amerike v 1842-1844 g.g. Editing, notes, and commentary by M. B. Chemenko,
G. A. Agranat, and Y. E. Blomkvist. State Publishing House of Geographic
Literature, Moscow.
1967. Lieutenant Zagoskin's travels in Russian America, 1842-1844. The first
ethnographic and geographic investigations in the Yukon and Kuskokwim
valleys of Alaska. Edited by Henry M. Michael. Arctic Institute of North
America, anthro|)ology of the north, translations from Russian sources, no. 7.
Toronto.

INDEX

Ahtna Indians, 12

Alaska Commercial Co., 67, 68

Andrea vsky, 72

Anilukhtakpak. See Holy Cross

Anvik River, 3, 8, 10, 11, 36, 38, 46; as
route to the coast for Ingalik In-
dians, 68

Anvik viUage, 3, 5, 10, 11, 14, 37, 47,
66, 67; cemetery at, 29; cemetery
near, 29-30; ceremonies at, 17, 18,
21-28; description of, 46; location of,
64

Eskimo: influenced culture of Ingalik,
14, 15; trade with Ingalik Indians,
65, 68, 69; warfare against Indians,
41, 69

Fishing: methods of, 36-37

Fort Yukon, 6, 43, 44

Fox Point Island, 8

Fredericks, S. A., 10; accompanies
Nelson, 1, 8

Fur trade: development of, 14; expan-
sion of, 3; units of value in, 47

Baird, Spence, 7, 8

Bethel, 4

Bladder festival: activities of messen-
gers during, 17; analysis of, 25;
borrowed from Eskimo, 17, 22, 25

Bonasila, 3, 11

Bristol Bay, 17

Buckland River, 4, 5

Caribou: fluctuations of populations in

19th century, 66; hunting of, 34;

reasons for population decline, 66;

significance of habitat changes for,

66
Chagelyuk River. See Innoko River
Cook Inlet, 1, 3, 4, 12

DaU, WiUiam H., 66, 72
Death, behavior of relatives of de-
ceased at time of, 30, 31, 33, 64
Dementi, 4, 65, 71

Elliott, Henry W., 7
Episcopal Church: mission on lower
Yukon, 11

Georgetown, 11

Glazunov, A., 3, 12, 68; explorations

of, 1, 67
Goltsan. See Kolchan Indians
Grayling village, 10; home of former

Holikachuk residents, 13

Holikachuk: tribal designation, 13
Holikachuk Slough, 8, 9, 10, 71
Holikachuk village, 8, 10, 65, 71; ceme-
tery at, 64; cultural and hnguistic
affiliation of, 13
Holy Cross, 3, 5, 11
Hosley, E., research on Ingalik, 13
Hudson's Bay Co., 7

Iditarod River, 4, 5, 65

Ikogmiut, 3, 4, 5, 27; destruction of, 4;

Russian Orthodox mission at, 12, 65
Iliamna Lake, 1
Illarion, Hieromonk, 13; interest in

native peoples, 12
Ingalik Indians: attitudes toward

children, 40; attitudes toward fur

traders, 38, 67; attitudes toward

78

VANSTONE: NELSON'S NOTES

79

game, 43, 70; attitudes toward pro-
perty, 39, 68; bear hunting by, 67;
behavior of relatives of deceased, 30
31, 33; belief in land of the dead,
69; blood revenge among, 69; burial
of shamans by, 30; cemeteries of, 29,
30, 31, 64, 65; ceremonies of, 14, 17,
18-28, 62, 63; childbirth among, 42;
culture influenced by Eskimo, 14,
15; dip net fishing by, 67; fear of
witchcraft among, 39; fondness for
singing and dancing, 68; girls' puber-
ty rites of, 41-42, 69; grave boxes of,
29, 31, 33, 64, 65; importance of
small game to, 66; interpersonal
aggression among, 70; lamprey fish-
ing by, 37, 67; legends of, 47-56,
61, 72-73; manufacture of canoes by,
46, 72; manufacture of wooden
vessels by, 46; marriage among, 42,
69; occupation of Kuskokwim valley
by, 12; ownership of fishing sites by,
36, 67; pottery making by, 46, 72;
resemblance of houses to those of
Eskimo, 46; residence patterns of,

69, 70; role of shamans among, 31,
43, 70; settlements of, 64, 65, 68,

70, 71; subdivisions of, 11; super-
stitions of, 44; trade with Eskimos,
14, 34, 38, 47, 65, 68, 69; trapping by,
34, 35, 36, 66-67; trapping territories
of, 35, 36, 67; treatment of body at
death, 28, 63; use of firearms by, 65,
66; use of masks by, 27, 28; use of
umiak by, 46, 72; weapons of, 34;
wrestling for wives among, 42

Innoka River. See Innoko River

Innoko River: confusing geographical
nomenclature of, 8-9, 10; cultural
and linguistic characteristics of in-
habitants, 13; exploration of, 3, 4, 5,
8, 10; meaning of name, 10; popula-
tion of, 71; settlements on, 71. See
also Tlegon River

Innoko River Indians: settlements of,
46, 65, 68

Ittege River. See Innoko River

Jade: importance as trade item, 72

Kashim: antiquity of on Innoko River,
71; decorated during bladder festi-
val, 23-24; decorated for doll festival,
25-26; description of, 45-46, 71

Khuligichagat. See Holikachuk village

Kobuk River. 72

Kokrines, 5

Kolchan Indians: description of kash-
im among, 45, 46; dress of, 44; popu-
lation decline of, 45; usage as tribal
name, 12-13

Kolmakov, Fedor, 4

Kohnakov, Petr F., 5, 10, 12, 13, 65;
explorations by, 4

Kolmakovskiy Redoubt, 3

Kotzebue Sound. 4, 5, 40, 65

Koyukon Indians, 11. 13. 14; bear
hunting by. 36; ceremonies of. 62;
legends of. 56-61; trade by, 47

Koyukuk River, 3, 5

Kraus, M.: linguistic research of, 13

Kuskokwim River, 3, 4, 5, 10. 11

Kyltchanes. See Kolchan Indians

Lime Hills. 3

Magimiut. See Old Bonasila

Malakhov, Petr V., 5; explorations of,
3-4

Malemiut: relations with Yukon In-
dians, 40, 41; trade with Ingalik, 34

McGrath, 4, 11

McQuesten. L. N.: provides informa-
tion to Nelson, 11

Messengers: activities during bladder
festival, 17

Mikhailovskiy Redoubt, 1, 3, 4, 6. See
also St. Michael

Missionaries: relations with shamans,
70

Moose: fluctuations of population in
19th century, 66; hunting of, 34;
reasons for population decline, 66;
significance of habitat changes for,
66

Nelson, Edward W.: assigned to St.
Michael, 7, 8; early life, 7; explora-
tions of, 8, 10; evaluation of his

80

FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 70

notes, 11-15; interest in natural his-
tory, 7, 8; later life of, 10-11; leaves
Alaska, 10; makes collection of Eski-
mo ethnographic specimens, 8;
obtains information from L. N.
McQuesten, 11; pubUshes "Eskimo
about Bering Strait," 11; route
followed by, 8, 10

Norton Sound, 1, 14, 40, 65, 68

Nowitna River, 5

Nuklukayet, 68; famine at, 39, 44

Nulato, 3, 5. 6, 11, 37, 40, 43, 47, 70

Nushagak River, 3, 4

Old Bonasila, 3; cemetery at, 64
Osgood, Cornelius: research on Ingalik
Indians, 11, 12, 13, 14

Paimiut, 5, 47

Pilot Station, 62

Prince William Sound, 12

Raymond, Capt. Charles W., 66; ex-
plorations by, 6

Razbinsky, 62

Roman Catholic Church: mission on
lower Yukon, 11

Russian-American Co., 1, 3, 4, 6

Russian Mission. See Ikogmiut

St. Michael, 6, 7, 10, 38, 39, 72; im-
portance as trading center, 68. See
also Mikhailovskiy Redoubt

Seward Peninsula, 72

Shageluk Island, 22, 27, 33, 46, 63

Shageluk L{(ke, 70

Shageluk River. See Innoko River

Shageluk Slough, 3, 7, 8, 63, 64

Shageluk village, 8, 11, 21, 70

Shagelyk Slough. See Shageluk
Slough

Shamans: attitudes toward death of,
31; burial of, 30, 64; relations with
missionaries, 70; role among Ingalik,
70

Shiltonotno River. See Innoko River

Signal Service, 7

Smallpox: epidemic of 1838-1839, 4,
67, 68, 71

Stony River, 3, 4, 12
Swift River, 12

Takotna River, 4

Tanaina Indians, 12, 14

Tanana Indians, 14; attitude toward

game of, 43; attitude toward traders

of, 43
Tanana River, 11, 68
Tanana village, 68
Tatlawiksuk River, 12
Tlegon River, 4, 10. See also Innoko

River
Trapping: methods of, 34 35, 46,

66-67; season of, 34; territories, 35,

36, 67
Ttality. See Dementi

Unalakleet River, 3, 5
Upper Innoko Indians, 5
Upper Kuskokwim: tribal designation,
13

Western Union Telegraph Co. Expedi-
tion, 7, 66; explorations by members
of, 6

Wrangell, Baron F. P. von, 12

Yukon Delta, 1, 3

Yukon Indians: belief in land of the
dead, 40; blood vengeance among,
40; borrowing from Eskimo by, 47;
dress of, 44, 70-71; famine among,
36, 39, 67; fishing methods of, 36,
37; fondness for singing and dancing,
39; population decline of, 44; rela-
tions with Malemiut, 40, 41; respect
for aged among, 42, 43; supersti-
tions of, 43, 44; units of value in
trading, 72; value of furs to, 47;
warfare with Eskimos, 41, 69

Yukon River: evaluation of explora-
tions of, 7; explorations of, 1, 3, 4, 5,
6,8

Zagoskin, Lieut. L. A., 1, 9, 12, 64, 65,
67, 68, 70, 71; explorations of, 4, 5, 6;
his use of the term Kolchan, 13

^OUNOfi;,

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