This report concerns the techniques for establishing successful working relationships between Armed Forces personnel and the Eskimos of isolated villages in western Alaska. The assumption is that the Armed Forces require satisfactory face-to-face relationships with Eskimos, and that the Armed Forces desire to minimize any disorganizing effects that their presence may have in a village.
This paper is restricted in applicability to those western Eskimos speaking the southern, or Yupik, dialect, These people live along the Bering Sea coast of Alaska, from the Alaska Peninsula northward to Seward Peninsula, and inland to the village of Holy Cross on the Yukon River, and the village of Napamute on the Kuskokwim River. While the generalities, in some instances, may have wider application, they all have the greatest factual probability in the region outlined above.