File:Alaska + its history, climate and natural resources (1898) (14780886771).jpg

Identifier: alaskaitshistory00swin (find matches)
Title: Alaska + its history, climate and natural resources
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Swineford, A(lfred) P
Subjects:
Publisher: Chicago, New York, Rand, McNally and co
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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mpor-ary exchange of wives is an established custom,to which the wives themselves make no objec-tion. A man whose wife is not sufficiently strongand robust to accompany him on a hunting ex-pedition effects an exchange for the wife of an-other who is better able to endure the fatigueand hardships of the contemplated journeyand when the chase is ended each wife returns toher own topek or igloo. Though short in stature, both the men andwomen, generally, except those of advanced age,are very strong and possessed of great powers ofendurance; were it otherwise, they could not liveand dress as they do and long exist in so rigor-ous a climate. They have no religion, no formof worship, believing in but one form of spirit,and that an evil one, to whom they ascribe theirevery misfortune, and whom they are wont tofrequently exorcise by incantation. They haveno means of keeping a record of their ages, butit is safe to assume that because of the hardshipsand exposures they are obliged to undergo in
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CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 209 their hard struggle for existence, none ever at-tain what would ordinarily be considered old ageamong a more favored people. They have, necessarily, summer and winterhabitations—the latter being almost entirely un-derground, and habitable only when the earth issohdly frozen; in warm weather, when theground thaws on the surface, the water takes andholds undisputed possession of their tenements;as soon as the ground freezes in the early fall,they are cleared of the ice and water, and thetopeks, which have afforded them shelter in themeantime, are abandoned till the summer comesagain, when they are driven by the water fromtheir igloos like rats out of their holes. Exceptthat they are a little more subterranean thesewinter houses are very similar to the barrabarasof the Aleuts. The name of their undergrounddwellings in their language is igloo. They oneand all consist of a single room not more than tenby twelve feet in dimensions, some not so large,and into suc

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