USA > Alaska > Among the Alaskans > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13
Ignorant and degraded as they are, they yet have rude traces of that artistic spirit common to all the Japhetic people. With
36
AMONG THE ALASKANS.
the most wretched tools they achieve elab- orate carvings on their totems, on knife- and spoon-handles and on little images, and no one who has studied the carvings of Mon- gol races-as those of Siam and China- will fail to notice a remarkable similarity of idea and treatment between them and the Alaskan specimens.
Having entered Alaska, the Ugrian and the Mongolian tribes required space for subsistence and room for their nomadic methods of life, and, being unrestrained by religion, law or civilization, fierce jeal- ousies broke out between them. Murders, cruelties, oppressions, deathless hates, were rampant, and from such causes they became divided into so many distinct and generally hostile tribes and families. As there was constant warfare and ever-fresh cause of enmity and ever-recurring reprisals, there was no confederation nor permanent alli- ance among these people. The country therefore remained a wilderness. Berries and dried fruits, dried flesh and fish, af- forded the people sustenance; their dwell- ings were of the rudest; they prepared
37
A STORY OF THE PAST.
skins for clothing, made tools of stones and bones, were hunters and fishers. There was no nationality, no improvement. They could say of their home :
" So far I live to the northward, No man lives north of me; To the east are wild mountain-chains, And beyond them meres and plains; To the westward all is sea ;"
and they were lost out of the interests of the nations.
Among the wandering tribes of Siberia traditions of the departure of the parents of the Alaskans yet linger. They say that ages ago their ancestors, finding the sea filled with solid ice, drove vast herds of reindeer before them and went far to the north-east, to a land whence they have never returned. Among the families that remained upon the Aleutian islands are found cave-dwellers, as notably on King's Island, with homes and habits similar to those of the ancient Cave-Dwellers in Cen- tral and Western Europe.
The first contact of Russia with Alaska came through the fur-trade. Out of Siberia
38
AMONG THE ALASKANS.
and Kamtchatka the Russians moved to the Aleutian islands, and finally to Alaska. The first traders, or promishléniks, were men of the lowest character and the gross- est ignorance. Their vessels were of the rudest sort, and their conduct toward the natives produced war and hate. When, in 1766, servants of the Russian govern- ment entered the place occupied by the promishléniks, outrages on all humanity characterized their procedure. Their prov- erb was, "Heaven is high; the czar is distant." The Aleuts did not pay tribute to Russia until 1779. In 1783, Baranoff, who had been a common sailor, but who was also a man of great energy, was made governor of all Russian possessions in America. His course was marked by rapine and bloodshed, antagonizing all efforts for the improvement of the natives. In 1793, when the empress Catherine com- manded Greek Church missionaries to go to Alaska to instruct the natives in religion, she also ordered convicts to be shipped from Siberia to teach them agriculture. News of the unscrupulous conduct and
39
A STORY OF THE PAST.
abuses of power of Baranoff moved the Russian government, in 1804, to send Resánoff, a wise and good man, to redress grievances. Resánoff died in 1807, and Baranoff lost no time in reverting to his former wrong-doings. In 1824 and 1827 conventions were signed, first between the United States and Russia, settling the boun- daries of Russian America and the rights of the waters, and then between England and the United States, leaving territory west of the Rocky Mountains open to all parties for ten years. The Russians now built forts, sent more settlers and released the Aleuts from the payment of taxes, but forced them to trade entirely with Russian companies ; and they also explored, to some extent, the Alaskan mainland. We are told that "the Aleuts were subject to the most horrible outrages; they were treated as beasts rather than as men. An Aleut's life was of no value."
In fact, in the nine years between the years 1799 and 1808 they were reduced in number nearly one-half, and between the years 1808 and 1870 to one-fifth of
40
AMONG THE ALASKANS.
that remaining half. " They were utterly crushed by the early traders."
In 1859 the Russian government made another effort to right wrongs and relieve the natives from the oppressions of the traders. Schools for boys and girls were established. Three hospitals were opened, and an asylum for the old and the poor was established. But the advantages of all these institutions were coolly reserved by the white people for themselves and their creole families. An effort was also made by the imperial government to stop the sale of liquor, and, in 1862, Russia refused to renew to the fur company the charter which had been so greatly abused.
Persecuted and destroyed on every hand, denied all comfort and eaten up by disease, the natives, as Veniaminoff says, were seized with a "great hunger for the word of God" and a desire to find the way to heaven. But we will give some fuller sketch of the progress of Russian missions.
On June 30, 1793 the empress Catherine of Russia had issued an order that mission- aries should be sent to her colonies in
41
A STORY OF THE PAST.
America. The first teachers of the Greek Church who expatriated themselves in obe- dience to this command were eleven monks, under the leadership of Jóasaph, an elder in the Augustinian order of the Russian State- Church. In 1796, Jóasaph was made a bish- op, and, returning to Russia for consecra- tion, secured funds for building a church, which was erected the same year, in Kadiac. Kadiac was for many years the headquar- ters of the Greek Church in Alaska.
This island of Kadiak lies off Cook's In- let, and here, in 1792, a year and more be- fore the arrival of the Greek missionaries, a school had been established for Indian and creole children and for the few Rus- sian youth belonging to the families of the employés of the Russian fur company. About 1799 a school of the same kind was established at Sitka, then called New Arch- angel. Instruction was given in the Rus- sian language, in arithmetic and in religion as held by the Greek Church.
In 1799, Bishop Jóasaph and his mission- aries, starting on a voyage of visitation to the scattered villages along the coast and
42
AMONG THE ALASKANS.
over the islands, were overwhelmed in a winter storm, shipwrecked and drowned; only one missionary remained alive. For eleven years this lonely monk remained in the Russian colonies, holding his post with a persistency that has in it much of the he- roic. We can imagine his solitary journey, his burial of the dead. As he stands by the open graves a wonder creeps into his mind whether he shall die here and be laid in the earth without ceremony or prayer. He preaches in the church at Kadiak ; he goes on preaching missions to other places, passing over the way where his brethren perished; he teaches in the school; he baptizes the infants. Russia and his Church have forgotten him. The summer of 1809 is closing ; another winter of his solitude is upon him. He stands in the harbor of St. Paul, sharing the intense eagerness of all about him at the sight of a Russian ves- sel approaching the little town. There
will be news from home! But now, among the throng of servants of the fur company, of sailors and traders, behold a gowned ecclesiastic. Help has come to him at last.
na!
H
SITKA FROM THE SOUTH, IN 1867.
45
A STORY OF THE PAST.
The work of establishing schools and churches, as carried on by two men, was slow. The Alaskans were found eager. to learn, quick in acquiring, ready to accept the forms of the Greek faith. Only those who resided permanently near the stations of the fur company received any instruc- tion : there was no seeking out of the tribes of the interior.
Meanwhile, the entire native population received evil from the white men; vices spread among them, if enlightenment did not. To the cruelties of their natural bar- barism were added the immoralities fostered by their new masters, and the dark races began slowly to melt away, devoured by their own sins.
In December, 1822, three more priests arrived from Russia, sent by the govern- ment; but they seemed to be men with little faith in what they taught and with little zeal for souls.
In 1823 a truly missionary spirit arrived in Russian America. Innocentius Veniami- noff began his labors in Unalashka. Pure in life, enlightened in belief, greatly desi-
46
AMONG THE ALASKANS.
rous of spreading the gospel, a man of ability and wisdom, Veniaminoff was really the founder of the Greek Church in Alaska. Funds for the work were not lacking. Be- side what the Greek Church did pecuni- arily for their missions in Alaska, all that the Presbyterian Church has contributed sinks into insignificance.
Some of our people thought that we " were doing too much for Alaska " when seven thousand six hundred dollars were spent in building the McFarland Home ; when ten thousand dollars were asked for four stations, and "hundreds of packages were sent annually" to our workers in that field. Compare with this the money given there by Russia. The Russian fur company were taxed six thousand six hun- dred dollars yearly for missions ; the Greek Church mission fund gave two thousand three hundred and thirteen dollars and seventy-five cents annually to the same cause; eleven hundred dollars came from the candle-tax; and private individuals gave so liberally that a surplus accumu- lated to the amount of thirty-seven thou-
47
A STORY OF THE PAST.
sand five hundred dollars, which was loaned at five per cent., the interest being used on the field.
Veniaminoff was made bishop in 1840; in 1841 he established an ecclesiastical school at Sitka, and in 1845 further en- larged and endowed this school, so that it was raised to the rank of a Greek church- seminary.
The work of the Greek Church in Alas- ka increased under Veniaminoff until it had seven missionary districts, with eleven priests and sixteen deacons, with a propor- tionate number of schools; and in 1869 it claimed over twelve thousand baptized members.
Veniaminoff received the due reward of wisdom and zeal: he was advanced from one high station in his Church to another. Alaska lost him when he was made Metro- politan of Moscow, but his interest in the wel- fare of the American colony did not cease.
If the schools in Alaska had been effect- ive in proportion to their number, some good might have been accomplished by them. Little, however, was taught but the
48
AMONG THE ALASKANS.
rites of the Greek Church and the Russian language. The attendance of Indians was not encouraged ; whites and half-breeds made up the list of pupils.
As Finns, Swedes and Germans were employed in Alaska by the Russian fur company, a Lutheran missionary was sent in 1845 to preach to members of the Lutheran Church; he was maintained by the Russian government. In 1852 this missionary was succeeded by Mr. Wintec, who remained until the purchase, when Russia withdrew his support. These min- isters were commissioned in the interests of members of their own Church, spoke only German and Swedish, and, being ig- norant of the Indian dialects, made no impression on the natives and did not undertake evangelistic work among them In 1860 a colonial school was opened; in 1862, out of its twenty-seven students, only one was a native.
Veniaminoff had in 1825 established at Unalashka his first station, a school for natives, and by 1860 it had seventy- three pupils, the girls preponderating.
49
A STORY OF THE PAST.
A school for natives on Amlie Island had thirty pupils. No effort was made to civ- ilize the natives, to establish them in vil- lages, to Christianize them, to teach them agriculture or the arts of domestic life, but Russia gave them laws, schools and Greek churches. They were not urged to enjoy any of these privileges, but they were open to them.
A territory so distant from the home- country as was Alaska from Russia was rather a drain upon the national purse than a source of profit. Settlers and soldiers were sent so far away to little purpose, and in time of war the colony might be a positive disadvantage. Rus- sia and England have never harmonized in policy. The Great Bear of the North and the Lion of England delight in a mutual display of teeth and claws. Rus- sian America, lying close upon British America, would, in the event. of war, be open to English occupation, and to protect it demanded a diversion of forces, the send- ing of ships, men, stores and arms for im- mense distances, the defence being rather
4
50
AMONG THE ALASKANS.
an affair of national pride than for the pro- tection of a land of which Russia could utilize the resources. These were among the reasons which urged Russia to divest herself of a territory that Secretary Sew- ard was eager to acquire for the United States.
In 1867 this purchase was completed. The flag of Russia was hauled down, and the Stars and Stripes floated in its place ; Russian America was renamed by its In- dian title, Alaska-Al-ak-shak, " the great land." New Archangel took its native name of Sitka, and two little islands were leased to the "Alaska Commercial Compa- ny " at a rental sufficient to pay the inter- est on the purchase-money of the entire territory.
When Alaska was delivered to the Unit- ed States, the Russian schools and churches were for the most part closed; the Russians, with other Europeans who had been in the employ of the fur company, returned to Europe; the Lutheran minister retired with his flock. A few United States sol- diers were placed in the former Russian
51
A STORY OF THE PAST.
forts ; the employés of the Alaska Com- mercial Company began their work; the newspapers exhausted their sarcasm and condemnation ; the Church seemed not to. think of Alaska as a part of "all the world " covered by her divine commission, saw not the thirty thousand dusky forms marching down on death, heard no wail: "We go down in the dark !" The land was left without law, government, teach- ers, preachers, schools or charities. :
CHAPTER III.
A NEW VIEW OF AMERICAN CITIZENS.
W HEN the United States purchased Alaska, thirty thousand human be- ings and very nearly six hundred thousand square miles of territory were acquired. Our new citizens, then, cost two hundred and forty dollars per head, and each one came dowered with over twelve thousand
acres of land. It is true that there was much of snow-buried, bare-rock, desolate land in the new country, reaching as it did far away into those Arctic regions where the white bear finds his home, but it is also true that not often are farms of twelve thou- sand acres found without waste-lands. Such was the cost of our new population ; such was their heritage. We would now inquire into the character and the quality of the individuals, and the value, the prospects and the possibilities of their inheritance.
52
HERALD ISLAND, IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN.
55
A NEW VIEW.
First, then, as to the character, the cus- toms and the beliefs of the Alaskan tribes.
The Russians, after an occupation of Alaska for over one hundred years, had left the natives very much as they found them. Those near the coast and the trad- ing-stations had to a certain extent learned to wear white men's clothing; they had ac- quired ideas of trade and of money. A few had been taught the Russian and the German language, had learned to read and had received some vague notions of the rites of the Greek Church; but the mass of the people, the tribes of the interior, were in the same condition of barbarism as before the Russians entered their coun- try. The Aleuts, or Indians of the islands, had the closest association with the Rus- sians, assumed their customs, clothing, language and belief. By marriage they se- cured such an admixture of Russian blood and so many creole children that the na- tive characteristics nearly disappeared, while physical traits remained. This intermin- gling of races had its usual effect, and the less civilized melted away : the Aleuts,
56
AMONG THE ALASKANS.
from twenty thousand, diminished to four thousand.
The Alaskan Indians are, in general, well and strongly made, capable of great physical endurance, healthy, long-lived, hardy hunters and fishers, bold, warlike. The ratio of births is greater than in civil- ized communities, but the death-rate among children is excessive, as the mothers are extremely ignorant in regard to nursing and rearing their little ones. A surgeon of the United States marine revenue ser- vice reports that where white settlers or missionary teachers had succeeded in per- suading the natives to live in cleanliness, to ventilate their dwellings and keep them properly warmed, to cook their food and use a sufficient change of clothing, almost no medical service was needed, and "the condition of the habitations and people and freedom from sickness furnished a striking illustration of the advantage of living under good sanitary conditions."
By three fatal gifts the white man has
* Surgeon Robert White, United States navy : Cruise of United States Steamer Rush in Alaskan Waters.
57
A NEW VIEW.
decimated the population of Alaska-by im- purity, by whisky, by the small-pox. The original diseases of the people were due chiefly to the influence of the climate on races who did not understand how to pro- tect themselves with clothing and shelter from cold or dampness. Catarrhal, pulmo- nary and rheumatic affections were the most common forms of sickness. Vice has in- troduced a long line of more fatal dis- orders, has spread epilepsy and scrofula, and, as says a surgical report, has " rendered the people especially prone to the engraft- ing of strumous affections and to succumb to attacks of acute disease."
The Americans, not deterred by the dire- ful physical effect which Russian association had bestowed on an ignorant and helpless race, no sooner entered the country than they taught the Indians to distill liquor, and now intemperance with its long train of diseases is reducing the tribes. During fifty years small-pox has at intervals pre- vailed epidemically, and has caused great mortality, as no one has been interested to protect Indians by vaccination.
58
AMONG THE ALASKANS.
Let us now look at the manner of life of these people. We need no longer expect to find, along the south coast, Alaskans living like Greenlanders in houses of snow and ice. Their warm climate forbids such forlorn habitations, but provides abundant lumber for dwellings. On the islands cave- dwellings and half-subterranean houses are found. On the mainland the abodes are all of one general type: a wooden plat- form upholds a large house of hewn planks set on end. The houses are from forty to fifty feet square. The fire is in the centre ; the smoke fills the room, and finally escapes by a large opening in the roof. The whole family-sometimes thirty persons-may be found in this one-roomed house. The smoke. occasions eye-troubles ; the close air breeds fevers and skin-diseases ; the promiscuous crowding forbids all decency of domestic life. Outside of the large houses are small dark, half-built huts, where women are shut up to care for themselves in sickness, when they need the tenderest attention, and young girls are kept as prisoners for six months or two years at a time. Before the houses
TOTEM-POLES, FORT WRANGELL.
61
A NEW VIEW.
are erected huge carved poles or tree- trunks bearing the totems of the inhabit- ants. The son takes the family totem, or animal emblem, of his mother, and the suc- cession of these totem-carvings indicates the genealogy of the owner of the house.
The Indians now purchase clothing and heavy goods from the white traders, but garments of dressed deer- and bear-skins, and parki, or gowns of bird-skins with the feathers on, are much used. Blankets in bright or dark colors are favorite articles of trade and dress. The Alaskan women are often skillful in dressing, sewing and embroidering deer-skin garments; the tough fibres of a long grass, dyed and split, are much used for the latter work.
Domestic utensils and comforts are few : blankets, beds of skins, matting woven of coarse grass for screens, beds and wall- linings, baskets so closely woven of tough grass or the inner bark of the cedar that they will hold water, and in which meat is boiled by dropping into the baskets of water red-hot stones, dishes made of woven grass,-these are some of the native manu-
62
AMONG THE ALASKANS.
factures. They also make weapons, tools, ladles, forks, knives and spoons from stone, bone and horn, and these articles are fre- quently elaborately carved. Little boxes, needle-cases, combs, masks and ornaments are among their native-made treasures ; mit- tens, hoods, leggins, shoes and moccasins are admirably made of seal-skin. Prob- ably no race makes better canoes than the Alaskan.
For food there is an abundance of fish, flesh, fowl and small fruits. : The seas and rivers swarm with all sorts of delicious fish ; the woods are full of deer; the un- dergrowth provides millions of bushels of berries; the coast is covered with edible algæ of admirable medicinal qualities ; aquatic and forest birds abound. During the summer the Indians are constantly en- gaged in picking and drying berries, fish- ing and drying fish, hunting and drying meats and birds, packing and pressing al- gæ into esculent cakes and drying small fat fish for candles. The oulikon fish, which abound in the Stickeen and Nasse Rivers, afford oil for fuel, lights and medicinal use,
63
A NEW VIEW.
and the fat, of a bland taste and capable of being long preserved, is a chief article of diet.
Thus we have briefly our new citizen's home, food and clothing. What is the course of his daily life ? When he is born, he is washed, well rubbed with grease, and then tightly rolled up in a skin or blanket padded with grass; his limbs are thus closely confined, and the bundle is unfast- ened but once a day, when the grass pad- ding is changed. If he cries too loudly or too long, his head is held under water to teach him to be still. If the babe is a boy and has a curly lock on his head, he is des- tined to be a shaman or doctor ; if he has any resemblance or mark of an ancestor who is dead, he is supposed to be that per- son returned, and gets his name.
Children are sometimes put to death be- cause the parents think they are too nu- merous. This happens more frequently in the case of girls than of boys. The infant is carried out into the woods, its mouth is filled with grass to stifle it, and it is left to perish. In view of her own life of degra-
64
AMONG THE ALASKANS.
dation, misery, abuse, her despised condi- tion, often violent death and horrible denial of burial, it cannot be wondered at when the Alaskan mother on the upper Yukon believes death more merciful than life to her daughter. Indeed, if the girl must come to a fate similar to that of the mother, infanticide is the greatest kindness. And only the beneficent entrance of the gospel can make the life of an Alaskan woman such that it shall be well for her to cherish the existence of her baby-girl.
The infant who is allowed to live, being rolled up in its grass and skin padding, gets very little care during the first year of its life. The child is not kept clean ; its mother often indulges in gluttony and drunkenness, so that she is unfit to nurse it, and consequently a great many little ones perish in their first year. Unswathed at last and allowed to shift for itself, fed liber- ally on crude food, seal-fat, dried meat and dried fruit, and exposed to the inclemency of the weather, many children die of colds or stomachic diseases before they are five years old.
A NEW VIEW. 65.
At about this age the children, both boys and girls, are taught to catch and clean fish or spend weeks in summer gathering ber- ries. As they grow older they learn the simple arts of their race-to make houses, canoes, clothing and carving. At ten or twelve years of age the Alaskan girl is shut up in a perfectly dark and fireless hut so small that she cannot stand erect in it. Here she remains from three months to two years, seeing no one, no one ap- proaching her but her mother, who brings her food, and may possibly take her out in the darkness of night if she is carefully wrapped in blankets. If the girl survives this horrible probation, she is brought out, given new clothes, has a metal pin driven through her under lip, her face and neck tatooed and a feast is given. If she is very pale and frail from her long seclusion, and if she marries immediately, the end of her existence is supposed to be attained.
When an Alaskan is sick, he calls for the shaman, or doctor, who is believed to be possessed with the devil, and therefore very wise. The shaman demands gifts and
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.