Alaskan Eskimos Research Articles

Cutaneous Pain Threshold in the Native Alaskan Indian and Eskimo

<i>Cutaneous Pain Threshold in the Native Alaskan Indian and Eskimo</i>

On the Status of Some Arctic Mammals

Contains a study of mammals of arctic Alaska, mainly from the Brooks Range, each species discussed in terms of holarctic distribution. The information was obtained during investigations by the Animal-borne Disease Branch of the Arctic Health Research Center, Anchorage, Alaska, during which 4,500 mammals were collected. Alaska has about 30 widely distributed species, many circumboreal. These and their varieties are described in systematic order. The grizzly or brown bear wolf, arctic hoary marmot, ground squirrel, tundra vole, narrow-skulled or gregarious vole and caribou are treated in some detail, and the relationship of the caribou to Alaskan Eskimo economy is described. The Romanzof Mts. of the Brooks Range and Arctic Village near the southern limits of the Brooks Range on the East Chandalar River are briefly described. Photographs show skulls, tables give cranial measurements, and maps show Alaskan distribution of various species.

POLIOMYELITIS IN CANADIAN ESKIMOS

Studies of the basic immunology of poliomyelitis in Canadian Eskimos have been continued. The sera of 24 Eskimos living at Lake Harbour and of 99 at Pangnirtung, Baffin Island, have been tested for poliomyelitis antibody by means of the Lansing virus neutralization test. Poliomyelitis occurred in Lake Harbour in 1943 but has not been recorded in Pangnirtung. Eighteen of the 24 sera from Lake Harbour contained antibody, but only 10 from the 99 Pangnirtung residents. The positive sera from Pangnirtung were all in persons aged 18 and over. These results are compared with those previously reported by the authors with the sera of Eskimos at Chesterfield Inlet, and with those reported by Paul with the sera of North Alaskan Eskimos. The evidence suggests that poliomyelitis virus is world-wide in distribution.

Immunity to poliomyelitis.

Excerpt The Board of Regents of the American College of Physicians has conferred a great honor on me and on the University and the Institute, which I represent, and on the country from which I come...

Replica Studies of the Surfaces of Teeth from Alaskan Eskimo, West Greenland Natives, and American Whites

Replica Studies of the Surfaces of Teeth from Alaskan Eskimo, West Greenland Natives, and American Whites

BODY SIZE IN INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF DATA FROMOKINAWA, FRANCE, SOUTH AFRICA, AND NORTH AMERICA

This paper focuses attention upon racial differences in body size during the first decade of life. It brings together findings from studies on Okinawans; South African Bantu-speaking Negroes; North American Negroes; American Chinese and Japanese residents of California; Alaskan Eskimos; Mexicans living in California, Texas and Mexico; Navaho and Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Arizona; European Whites living in Marseilles, France; and North American Whites of the United States and Canada.

Excavations in Alaska

Dr. H. L. Shapiro and Dr. F. G. Rainey, of the American Museum of Natural History, have been excavating five hundred arctic tombs at Point Hope, Alaska. The five hundred skeletons are said to form one of the largest collections of the sort ever found at a site in America. The two anthropologists sought remains of an ancient and unknown people, whom Dr. Rainey first discovered in expeditions of 1939 and 1940. Also they sought later Eskimo burials which would aid in showing what relationship the lost ancients had to the later Eskimos. The mysterious unknown people had a remarkably big town with well—planned streets, more than a hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle; and about two thousand years ago they abandoned this settlement. They are looked upon as a lost race, because their ivory arts are unlike those of known Alaskan Eskimos, ancient or modern. Also, it is explained, they lacked many typical Eskimo implements, and were more dependent on land than on the sea for their resources.

Research Items

The Aleut, Dr. Waldemar Jochelson, as the leader of the ethnographical section of the great Ria-boushinsky Kamchatka-Aleutian Expedition, spent the years 1909–10 in the investigation of the arch¦ology and ethnology of the Aleutian Islands. The results, submitted to the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1916, remained unpublished owing to the War, until 1925, when an archæological volume was published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Dr. Jochelson has now issued, through the Institution, a monograph (Publication No. 433) dealing with the history, ethnology and anthropology of the Aleut. The expedition secured seventy skulls, of which fifty were in a sufficiently good state of preservation for measurement. They showed an average cranial index of 821 with a standard deviation of 27 and individual range of 78-88. As these skulls were from pre-Russian graves, the conclusion is that the Aleut were not a pure race. Measurements by Mme. Jochelson of 138 living individuals gave a cephalic index of 84 with a standard deviation of 33 and individual range of 76-94; this, allowing two units, agreeing substantially with the skull measurement. Thus it would appear that contact with the Russians did not affect head measurement. Comparison with neighbouring Indians and Pal¦oasiatics shows the Aleut to be higher than all in comparative head breadth: for example, cephalic index of Alaskan and Siberian Eskimo, 79 and 80 respectively; Koryak, Kamchadals and Yukagir, 78, 79, 80 respectively; and Indians Tlingit, Tshimshian, etc. not more than 82. Two explanations are possible: either a mixture with Athapascans, some of whom are so high as 84, or the acquisition of a superbrachycephalic index after a period of isolation. The latter would be a modification comparable to that attributed by Boas to the physical characters of immigrants to America or those found recently in Russia as the result of a starvation diet.

Caries and crowding in the teeth of the living Alaskan Eskimo

Caries and crowding in the teeth of the living Alaskan Eskimo

THE COFFEY-HUMBER PATENT

To the Editor: —Referring to Dr. MacDonald's letter inThe Journal, January 10, may I suggest that Dr. MacDonald procure from the Chemical Foundation the complete photostated file of the Coffey-Humber patent transaction. He will see that the patent office in April, 1930, refused to grant the patent in a masterly report on Coffey's preposterous claims, which were annihilated one by one by a patent examiner who dealt with them in a truly scientific fashion. He will also see (and it may surprise and shock him as much as it did me) that Ray Lyman Wilbur wrote the Patent Office requesting specially expeditious handling of the matter on account of his responsibility for the medical care of the American Indian and the Alaskan Eskimos. His next interesting discovery will be that Dr. Coffey's claims were resubmitted, July 1, 1930, and the patent granted on July 2 —an example of speed

Houses of the Alaskan Eskimo

Houses of the Alaskan Eskimo

Educating the Alaskan Eskimo

Educating the Alaskan Eskimo