Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1920 — "BLOND ESKIMO" ORIGIN TRACED TO EXPLORERS [ARTICLE]

"BLOND ESKIMO" ORIGIN TRACED TO EXPLORERS

Not More Than Dozen of Them in Victoria Land, Says J. R Crawford. Atavism explains the discovery of "blond Eskimos” to Victoria Land in the arctic, reported by Vllhjalmar Stefansson, In the opinion of James R. Crawford, a member of the second St efansson expedition, who has come out of the north for the first time in 15 years. ” The blond natives are “throw-backs”; ' of early white explorers, Crawford beUeves. He expressed surprise that the existence of an entire tribe of blonds was generally believed. He was with Stefansson when the blonds were discovered. “In Victoria Land," Crawford said, “there are probably three tribes or villages, comprising several hundred natlves, tn which these light Eskimos are found. But there are fewer than a dozen of the blonds, so far as we were able to learn, in the entire land. They had gray eyes, light eyebrows, reddish brown hair, and their skins are slightly lighter than that of their brothers, although not noticeably do. “The natives made it known that they had never seen white men before, and probably they had not,” Crawford said. “But their ancestors did see white men, probably looking for a new land, who never lived to get back to civilisation. “There was one little girl who possessed the most pronounced markings of blondness, the daughter of two dusky natives whose hair was black and who had black, beady eyes. The parents knew of no reason for the reddish hair wnH gray eyeft of their offspring.” Crawford, who was married shortly after «he bad returned to civilization on the steam whaler Herman, which had picked him up on a floe near Victoria Land; intends to take his bride north with him when the ice breaks in the spring.