USA > Alaska > Alaska, the great country > Part 28
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The recent rapid development of Alaska, and the ap- propriation of the native food-supplies by miners, traders, canners, and settlers, present a problem that must be
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solved at once. In regard to the Philippines, we were like a child with a new toy ; we could not play with them and experiment with them enough; yet for forty years these dark, gentle, uncomplaining people of our most northern and most splendid possession - beautiful, glori- ous Alaska -have been patiently waiting for all that we should long ago have given them : protection, interest, and the education and training that would have converted them from diseased and wretched beings into decent and useful people.
According to Lieutenant Emmons, the condition of the Copper River Indians is exceptionally miserable ; and of all the native people, either coastal or of the interior, they are most needy and in want of immediate assistance. Reduced in number to barely two hundred and fifty souls, scattered in small communities along the river valleys amidst the loftiest mountains of the continent and under the most rigid climatic conditions, their natural living has been taken from them by the white man, without the establishment of any labor market for their self-support in return.
Prior to 1888 they lived in a very primitive state, and were, even then, barely able to maintain themselves on the not over-abundant game life of the valley, together with the salmon coming up the river for spawning purposes. The mining excitement of that year brought several thou- sand men into the Copper River Valley, on their way to the Yukon and the Klondike.
They swept the country clean of game, burnt over vast districts, and frequently destroyed what they could not use. About the same time the salmon canneries in Prince William Sound, having exhausted the home streams, ex- tended their operations to the Copper River delta, decreas- ing the Indians' salmon catch, which had always provided them with food for the bitter winters.
Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau
Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, Seattle
" WOLF "
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These Indians are simple, kind-hearted, and have ever been friendly and hospitable to the white man. They re- spect his cache, although their own has not always been respected by him.
At Copper Centre, which is connected by military wagon road with the coast at Valdez, flour sells for twenty- four dollars a hundredweight, and all other provisions and clothing in proportion ; so it may be readily under- stood that the white people of the interior cannot afford to divide their provisions with the starving Indians, else they would soon be in the same condition themselves. Therefore, for these Indians, too, -fortunately few in number, - the government must provide liberally and at once.
CHAPTER XXXVII
AT sunset on the day of our landing at Belkoffski we passed the active volcanoes of Pogromni and Shishaldin, on the island of Unimak. For years I had longed to see Shishaldin ; and one of my nightly prayers during the voyage had been for a clear and beautiful light in which to see it. Not to pass it in the night, nor in the rain, nor in the fog; not to be too ill to get on deck in some fashion - this had been my prayer.
For days I had trembled at the thought of missing Shishaldin. To long for a thing for years; to think of it by day and to dream of it by night, as though it were a sweetheart ; to draw near to it once, and once only in a lifetime - and then, to pass it without one glimpse of its coveted loveliness ! - that would be too bitter a fate to be endured.
In a few earnest words, soon after leaving Valdez, I had acquainted the captain with my desire.
It was his watch when I told him. He was pacing in front of the pilot-house. A cigar was set immovably between his lips. He heard me to the end and then, with- out looking at me, smiled out into the golden distance ahead of us.
" You fix the weather," said he, " and I'll fix the moun- tain."
I, or some other, had surely "fixed " the weather.
No such trip had ever been known by the oldest member of the crew. Only one rainy night and one sweet half-
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cloudy afternoon. For the rest, blue and golden days and nights of amethyst.
But would the captain forget ? The thought always made my heart pause; yet there was something in the firm lines of his strong, brown face that made it impossi- ble for me to mention it to him again.
But on that evening I was sitting in the dining room which, when the tables were cleared, was a kind of general family living room, when Charlie came to me with his angelic smile.
" The captain, he say you please come on deck right away."
I went up the companion-way and stepped out upon the deck ; and there in the north, across the blue, mist- softened sea, in the rich splendor of an Aleutian sunset, trembled and glowed the exquisite thing of my desire.
In the absolute perfection of its conical form, its chaste and delicate beauty of outline, and the slender column of smoke pushing up from its finely pointed crest, Shishaldin stands alone. Its height is not great, only nine thousand feet; but in any company of loftier mountains it would shine out with a peerlessness that would set it apart.
The sunset trembled upon the North Pacific Ocean, changing hourly as the evening wore on. Through scarlet and purple and gold, the mountain shone; through lav- ender, pearl, and rose; growing ever more distant and more dim, but not less beautiful. At last, it could barely be seen, in a flood of rich violet mist, just touched with rose.
So steadily I looked, and with such a longing passion of greeting, rapture, possession, and farewell in my gaze and in my heart, that lo ! when its last outline had blurred lingeringly and sweetly into the rose-violet mist, I found that it was painted in all its delicacy of outline and soft splendor of coloring upon my memory. There it burns
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to-day in all its loveliness as vividly as it burned that night, ere it faded, line by line, across the widening sea. It is mine. I own it as surely as I own the green hill upon which I live, the blue sea that sparkles daily be- neath my windows, the gold-brilliant constellations that move nightly above my home, or the song that the meadow- lark sings to his mate in the April dawn.
The sea breaks into surf upon Shishaldin's base, and snow covers the slender cone from summit to sea level, save for a month or two in summer when it melts around the base. Owing to the mists, it is almost impossible to obtain a sharp negative of Shishaldin from the water.
They played with it constantly. They wrapped soft rose-colored scarfs about its crest ; they wound girdles of purple and gold and pearl about its middle ; they set rayed gold upon it, like a crown. Now and then, for a few seconds at a time, they drew away completely, as if to contemplate its loveliness ; and then, as if overcome and compelled by its dazzling brilliance, they flung them- selves back upon it impetuously and crushed it for several moments completely from our view.
Large and small, the islands of the Aleutian Archipel- ago number about one hundred. They drift for nearly fifteen hundred miles from the point of the Aliaska Pen- insula toward the Kamchatkan shore ; and Attu, the last one, lies within the eastern hemisphere. This chain of islands, reaching as far west as the Komandorski, or Com- mander, Islands - upon one of which Commander Behr- ing died and was buried - was named, in 1786, the Catherina Archipelago, by Forster, in honor of the liberal and enlightened Empress Catherine the Second, of Russia.
The Aleutian Islands are divided into four groups. The most westerly are Nearer, or Blizni, Islands, of which
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the famed Attu is the largest; the next group to east- ward is known as Rat, or Kreesi, Islands; then, Andrea- noffski Islands, named for Andreanoff, who discovered them, and whose largest island is Atka, where it is said the baskets known as the Attu baskets are now woven.
East of this group are the Fox, or Leesi, Islands. This is the largest of the four Aleutian groups, and contains thirty-one islands, including Unimak, which is the largest in the archipelago. Others of importance in this group are Unalaska, formerly spelled Unalashka; Umnak ; Akutan ; Akhun ; Ukamak; and the famed volcano islands of St. John the Theologian, or Joanna Bogoslova, and the Four Craters. Unimak Pass, the best known and most used passage into Behring Sea, is between Unimak and Akhun islands. Akutan Pass is between Akutan and Unalaska islands; Umnak Pass, between Unalaska and Umnak islands. (These u's are pronounced as though spelled 00.)
Unalaska and Dutch Harbor are situated on the Island of Unalaska. By the little flower-bordered patlı leading up and down the green, velvety hills, these two settlements are fully two miles apart ; by water, they seem scarcely two hundred yards from one another. The steamer, after landing at Dutch Harbor, draws her prow from the wharf, turns it gently around a green point, and lays it beside the wharf at Unalaska.
The bay is so surrounded by hills that slope softly to the water, that one can scarcely remember which blue water-way leads to the sea. There is a curving white beach, from which the town of Unalaska received its ancient name of Iliuliuk, meaning " the beach that curves." The white-painted, red-roofed buildings follow this beach, and loiter picturesquely back over the green level to the stream that flows around the base of the hills and finds the sea at the Unalaska wharf.
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This is one of the safest harbors in the world. It is one great, sparkling sapphire, set deep in solid emerald and pearl. It is entered more beautifully than even the Bay of Sitka. It is completely surrounded by high mountains, peak rising behind peak, and all covered with a thick, green, velvety nap and crowned with eternal pearl.
The entrance way is so winding that these peaks have the appearance of leaning aside to let us slide through, and then drawing together behind us, to keep out the storms ; for ships of the heaviest draught find refuge here and lie safely at anchor while tempests rage outside.
Now and then, between two enchantingly green near peaks, a third shines out white, far, glistening mistily - covered with snow from summit to base, but with a dark scarf of its own internal passion twisted about its out- wardly serene brow.
The Kuro Siwo, or Japan Current, breaks on the west- ern end of the Aleutian Chain ; half flows eastward south of the islands, and carries with it the warm, moist atmos- phere which is condensed on the snow-peaks and sinks downward in the fine and delicious mist that gives the grass and mosses their vivid, brilliant, perpetual green. The other half passes northward into Behring Sea and drives the ice back into the " Frozen Ocean." Dall was told that the whalers in early spring have seen large ice- bergs steadily sailing northward through the strait at a knot and a half an hour, against a very stiff breeze from the north. In May the first whalers follow the Kamchat- kan Coast northward, as the ice melts on that shore earlier than on ours. The first whaler to pass East Cape secures the spring trade and the best catch of whales.
The color of the Kuro Siwo is darker than the waters through which it flows, and its Japanese name signifies " Black Stream." Passing on down the coast, it carries a
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warm and vivifying moisture as far southwest as Oregon. It gives the Aleutians their balmy climate. The average winter temperature is about thirty degrees above zero ; and the summer temperature, from fifty to sixty degrees.
The volcano Makushin is the noted " smoker " of this island, and there is a hot spring, containing sulphur, in the vicinity, from which loud, cannon-like reports are frequently heard. The natives believe that the moun- tains fought together and that Makushin remained the victor. These reports were probably supposed to be fired at his command, as warnings of his fortified position to any inquisitive peak that might chance to fire a lava interrogation-point at him.
In June, and again in October, of 1778, Cook visited the vicinity, anchoring in Samghanooda Harbor. There he was visited by the commander of the Russian ex- pedition in this region, Gregorovich Ismaïloff. The usual civilities and gifts were exchanged. Cook sent the Russian some liquid gifts which were keenly appre- ciated, and was in return offered a sea-otter skin of such value that Cook courteously declined it, accepting, instead, some dried fish and several baskets of lily root.
The Russian settlement was at Iliuliuk, which was dis- tant several miles from Samghanooda. Several of the members of Cook's party visited the settlement, not- ably Corporal Ledyard, who reported that it consisted of a dwelling-house and two storehouses, about thirty Russians, and a number of Kamchatkans and natives who were used as servants by the Russians. They all lived in the same houses, but ate at three different tables.
Cook considered the natives themselves the most gentle and inoffensive people he had ever "met with " in his travels ; while as to honesty, " they might serve as a pattern to the most civilized nation upon earth." He was convinced, however, that this disposition had been
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produced by the severities at first practised upon them by the Russians in an effort to subdue them.
Cook described them as low of stature, but plump and well-formed, dark-eyed, and dark-haired. The women wore a single garment, loose-fitting, of sealskin, reaching below the knee -the parka ; the men, the same kind of garment, made of the skin of birds, with the feathers worn against the flesh. Over this garment, the men wore another made of gut, which I have elsewhere de- scribed under the name of kamelinka, or kamelayka. All wore " oval-snouted " caps made of wood, dyed in colors and decorated with glass beads.
The women punctured their lips and wore bone labrets. " It is as uncommon, at Oonalashka, to see a man with this ornament as to see a woman without it," he adds.
The chief was seen making his dinner of the raw head of a large halibut. Two of his servants ate the gills, which were cleaned simply " by squeezing out the slime." The chief devoured large pieces of the raw meat with as great satisfaction as though they had been raw oysters.
These natives lived in barabaras. (This word is pro- nounced with the accent on the second syllable; the correct spelling cannot be vouched for here, because no two authorities spell it in the same way.)
They were usually made by forming shallow circular excavations and erecting over them a framework of drift- wood, or whale-ribs, with double walls filled with earth and stones and covered over with sod.
The roofs contained square openings in the centre for the escape of smoke; and these low earth roofs were used by the natives as family gathering places in pleasant weather. Here they would sit for hours, doing noth- ing and gazing blankly at nothing.
The entrance was through a square hole in, or near, the roof. It was reached by a ladder, and descent into
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the interior was made in the same way, or by means of steps cut in a post. A narrow dark tunnel led to the inner room, which was from ten to twenty feet in diameter.
These barabaras were sometimes warmed only by lamps ; but usually a fire was built in the centre, directly under the opening in the roof. Mats and skins were placed on shelves, slightly elevated above the floor, around the walls. Many persons of both sexes and all ages lived in these places ; frequently several dwellings were connected by tunnels and had one common hole-entrance. The filth of these airless habitations was nauseating.
Their household furniture consisted of bowls, spoons, buckets, cans, baskets, and one or two Russian pots ; a knife and a hatchet were the only tools they possessed.
The huts were lighted by lamps made of flat stones which were hollowed on one side to hold oil, in which dry grass was burned. Both men and women warmed their bodies by sitting over these lamps and spreading their garments around them.
The natives used the bidarka here, as elsewhere.
They buried their dead on the summits of hills, rais- ing little hillocks over the graves. Cook saw one grave covered with stones, to which every one passing added a stone, after the manner fancied by Helen Hunt Jackson a hundred years later; and he saw several stone hillocks that had an appearance of great antiquity.
In Unalaska to-day may still be seen several barabaras. They must be very old, because the native habitations of the coast are constructed along the lines of the white man's dwellings at the present time. They add to the general quaint and picturesque appearance of the town, however. Their sod roofs are overgrown with tall grasses, among which wild flowers flame out brightly.
(Unalaska is pronounced Oö-na-las'-ka, the a's having
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the sound of a in arm. Aleutian is pronounced in five syllables : A-le-oo'-shi-an, with the same sound of a.)
The island of Unalaska was sighted by Chirikoff on his return to Kamchatka, on the 4th of September, 1741.
The chronicles of the first expeditions of the Russian traders - or promyshleniki, as they were called - are wrapped in mystery. But it is believed that as early as 1744 Emilian Bassof and Andrei Serebrennikof voyaged into the islands and were rewarded by a catch of sixteen hundred sea-otters, two thousand fur-seals, and as many blue foxes.
Stephan Glottoff was the first to trade with the natives of Unalaska, whom he found peaceable and friendly. The next, however, Korovin, attempted to make a settle- ment upon the island, but met with repulse from the natives, and several of his party were killed.
Glottoff returned to his rescue, and the latter's expedi- tion was the most important of the earlier ones to the islands. On his previous visit he had found the highly prized black foxes on the island of Unalaska, and had carried a number to Kamchatka.
I have related elsewhere the story of the atrocities perpetrated upon the natives of these islands by the early promyshleniki. During the years between 1760 and 1770 the natives were in active revolt against their oppressors ; and it was not until the advent of Solovioff the Butcher that they were tortured into the mild state of submission in which they were found by Cook in 1778, and in which they have since dwelt.
Father Veniaminoff made the most careful study of the Aleutians, beginning about 1824. It has been claimed that this noble and devout priest was so good that he per- ceived good where it did not exist; and his statements concerning his beloved Aleutians are not borne out by
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the promyshleniki. Considering the character of the latter, I prefer to believe Veniaminoff.
The most influential Aleuts were those who were most successful in hunting, which seemed to be their highest ambition. The best hunters possessed the greatest num- ber of wives ; and they were never stinted in this luxury. Even Veniaminoff, with his rose-colored glasses on, failed to discover virtue or the faintest moral sense among them.
" They incline to sensuality," he put it, politely. " Be- fore the teachings of the Christian religion had enlightened them, this inclination had full sway. The nearest con- sanguinity, only, puts limits to their passions. Although polygamy was general, nevertheless there were frequently secret orgies, in which all joined. . . . The bad example and worse teachings of the early Russian settlers increased their tendency to licentiousness."
Child-murder was rare, owing to the belief that it brought misfortune upon the whole village.
Among the half-breeds, the character of the dark mother invariably came out more strongly than that of the Rus- sian father. They learned readily and intelligently, and fulfilled all church duties imposed upon them cheerfully, punctually, and with apparent pleasure.
Under the teaching of Veniaminoff, the Aleuts were easily weaned from their early Pantheism, and from their savage songs and dances, described by the earlier voyagers. They no longer wore their painted masks and hats, al- though some treasured them in secret.
The successful hunter, in times of famine or scarcity of food, shared with all who were in need. The latter met him when his boat returned, and sat down silently on the shore. This is a sign that they ask for aid; and the hunter supplies them, without receiving, or expecting, either restitution or thanks. This generosity is like that of the people of Belkoffski; it comes from the heart.
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The Aleutians were frequently intoxicated ; but this condition did not lead to quarrelling or trouble. Murder and attempts at murder were unknown among them.
If an Aleut were injured, or offended, after the intro- duction of Christianity, he received and bore the insult in silence. They had no oaths or violent epithets in their language ; and they would rather commit suicide than to receive a blow. The sting that lies in cruel words they dreaded as keenly.
Veniaminoff found that the Aleuts would steal nothing more than a few leaves of tobacco, a few swallows of brandy, or a little food ; and these articles but rarely.
The most striking trait of character displayed by the Aleut was, and still is, his patience. He never complained, even when slowly starving to death. He sat by the shore ; and if food were not offered to him, he would not ask. He was never known to sigh, nor to groan, nor to shed tears.
These people were found to be very sensitive, however, and capable of deep emotion, even though it was never re- vealed in their faces. They were exceedingly fond of, and tender with, their children, and readily interpreted a look of contempt or ridicule, which invariably offended in the highest degree.
The most beautiful thing recorded of the Aleut is that when one has done him a favor or kindness, and has after- ward offended him, he does not forget the former favor, but permits it to cancel the offence.
They scorn lying, hypocrisy, and exaggeration; and they never betray a secret. They are so hospitable that they will deny themselves to give to the stranger that is in need. They detest a braggart, but they never dispute -not even when they know that their own opinion is the correct one.
Veniaminoff admitted that the Aleuts who had lived among the Russians were passionately addicted to the use
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of liquor and tobacco. But even with their drunkenness, their uncleanness, and their immorality, the Aleutian char- acter seems to have possessed so many admirable, and even unusual, traits that, if the training and everyday influ- ences of these people had been of a different nature from what they have been since they lost Veniaminoff, they would have, ere this, been able to overcome their inherited and acquired vices, and to have become useful and desir- able citizens.
They were formerly of a revengeful nature, but after coming under the influence of Veniaminoff, no instance of revenge was discovered by him.
They learned readily, with but little teaching, not only mechanical things, but those, also, which require deep thought - such as chess, at which they became experts.
One became an excellent navigator, and made charts which were followed by other voyagers for many years. Others worked skilfully in ivory, and the dark-eyed women wove their dreams into the most precious basketry of the world.
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CHAPTER XXXVIII
WE sailed into the lovely bay of Unalaska on the fourth day of July. The entire village, native and white, had gone on a picnic to the hills.
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We spent the afternoon loitering about the deserted streets and the green and flowery hills. One could sit contentedly for a week upon the hills, -as the natives used to sit upon the roofs of their barabaras, -doing nothing but looking down upon the idyllic loveliness shimmering in every direction.
In the centre of the town rises the Greek-Russian church, green-roofed and bulbous-domed, adding the final touch of mysticism and poetry to this already enchanting scene.
At sunset the mists gathered, slowly, delicately, beauti- fully. They moved in softly through the same strait by which we had entered -little rose-colored masses that drifted up to meet the violet-tinted ones from the other
end of the bay. In the centre of the water valley they met and mixed together, and, in their new and more mar- vellous coloring, pushed up about the town and the lower slopes. Out of them lifted and shone the green roof and domes of the church ; more brilliantly above them, napped thick and soft as velvet, glowed the hills ; and more lus- trously against the saffron sky flashed the pearl of the higher peaks.
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