Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1919 — Indian Tribe Inhabiting Attu Island. Alaska, Said to Be the Poorest People [ARTICLE]

Indian Tribe Inhabiting Attu Island. Alaska, Said to Be the Poorest People

Windswept Attu Island; a bit of Alaska at the tip of the Aleutian string, farther west than any other part of North AmericS, is the home of a tribe of about 14)0- Aleut Indians, said to be the poorest people, financially; on earth. Nature, however, provides these faraway Indians a living. From Attu and the nearby islands and from the surrounding Waters they get eggs, fish, geese,, seals, occasionally a walrus, berries, and, lately, blue fox. From the far south 'Pacific the Japan current brings fuel. Driftwood’ thought to be from the Philippine islands,' Hawaii and other southern lands is scattered along Attu’s beaches. No trees groW"on the island. For clothes the natives use goods brought from the outside world by occasional traders. Those lacking in the cloth of the whites make their garments from grass am) skins. Like the Indian tribes of old, a native chief leads these Aleuts and acts as their head in all matters, trading, hunting, fishing, tis well as in the counci 1 s oTffie tribe, and m -the-Russian services to which the natives still adhere. Russians first settled on the island in 1747, when they sailed west of the Commodore islands, off Kamchatka, and established an important trading post on Attu. The Russians, planted herds of cattle and goats, but in a few years both the Russians and their stock left for other parts.