To-day, judging from all the obtained evidence, which comprised
information, the witnessing of a potlatch at Tanana at which were
assembled practically all the Indians above Nulato, and a visit below
the Tanana of nearly all the villages where the Indians still live, the
total number of the Tinneh on the lower Tanana (from Fairbanks to the
mouth of the river) and on the Yukon from Tanana to Anvik, can scarcely
be estimated to reach 1,000. It is probably well below that number.
Moreover, not one-half of the adults and much fewer among the young
are still full bloods. Disease, bad liquor (Yukon), and mostly as yet
imperfect accommodation to changing conditions are steadily diminishing
the numbers. Since our visit many have died from influenza, especially
at Anvik. Their future is not hopeful. On the Tanana, however, and with
the more educated in general, conditions are better, and much good is
being done by the four missions on the two rivers (Nenana, Tanana,
Anvik, and Holy Cross).
The old Indian settlements along the Yukon are gone, with a few
exceptions. On some of the sites, as at Tanana, Nulato, Kaltag, etc.,
there are new villages bearing the old names but built by or in
imitation of whites and sheltering a mixed population. The very names
of not a few of the older Indian sites have gone into oblivion; or the
natives call those they still know by a corruption of a white man's
name, such as "Ulstissen" (for Old Station). Anvik alone has kept its
original site and some of its old character, the mission and the white
trader being across the river.
In the Eskimo part of the Yukon, below Holy Cross, conditions on the
whole appear to be somewhat better. There has also been a diminution
in population. The majority of the old villages have ceased to exist,
while under the influence of whites some new settlements or names
have appeared. Yet there are respectable remnants of the Eskimo, and,
being better workers than the Indian and seemingly more coherent,
they manage to sustain themselves somewhat better than he does. Their
greatest handicap is disease. The beneficial effect among them of the
old Russian Mission has declined, but there are a number of Government
schools which have a good influence. They are more tractable, sensible,
and in some respects perhaps more able than the Indians.
But there exists to-day no clear-cut demarcation, geographical,
cultural, or even physical, between the two people. Anvik, the last
Indian village downstream, is in every respect at least as much Eskimo
as Indian; more or less Eskimo-like physiognomies are seen again and
again among the Indians; and Indianlike features are common among the
Eskimo. There has either been an old and considerable admixture on both
sides, or there are some fundamental similarities of the two groups;
perhaps both.