USA > Alaska > Our Arctic province, Alaska and the Seal islands > Part 18
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 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48
The traders say that recently a great desire has come upon the natives to possess granite ware cooking utensils and drinking cups, or those porcelain or silicon-plated iron vessels which we designate by that name ; they do not require washing, and can be easily wiped out and never rust. Tin-ware is at a great discount among them- it rusts. The odor of coal-oil will be noticed among many others in the barraboras of the Aleutians and Kadiaks in these days, for the general use of this fluid has been established. The glass lamps and the smell suggestive of that illuminant can be plainly detected by any stranger who goes into a village up there now, in spite of the fishy and other indigenous strong aromas, which are in themselves equally odious and penetrating. However, an old Aleutian fogy will occasionally insist upon using a primitive stone lamp, with a wicking of moss or strips of cotton cloth.
A marked fondness for pictures, old engravings, chromos, in
168
OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
fact anything that goes in the line of caricature or illustration, is manifested by the Aleutes. They paste all sorts of scraps from newspapers, magazines, and theatrical posters, which the traders give them, upon the walls of the barrabora. The Russians early took notice of this trait, and the priests of the Greek Church made good use of it by distributing richly-colored and gilded portraits of holy men and women, the Imperial family, and mythological church groups.
As the Aleut, his wife and children, and a relative or two, per- haps, are living in the barrabora, he enjoys a warm and comfort- able shelter as long as he keeps it in good repair. He does not place what he has of surplus supply in a cellar-such fish, fowl, or meat as he may have in excess of immediate consumption is hung up out- side of his door on a wooden frame, or " laabaas." Here it is be- yond the reach of dogs, and is quite secure, inasmuch as he lives in no danger or dread of theft from the hands of his neighbors.
He is a fish-eater, like a vast majority of the rest of native Alas- kans. He has cod, halibut, salmon, trout, and herrings in over- flowing abundance, and all swim close to his door. He hooks and nets his piscine food-supply all the year round as it rotates with the seasons. He varies this steady diet with all the tea, sugar, and hard bread, or flour, that he can purchase from the trader's store ; some other little articles in the grocery line, such as canned Cali- fornia fruits, are especially agreeable to his palate. These natives call on the trader for biscuits, or sea-crackers, not because they like this hard bread best, but on account of the scarcity of fuel wherewith to properly bake up flour.
While fish is the staff of Aleutian daily life, yet nature has vouchsafed many simple luxuries to those people : these are sea- urchins, or echinoderms, and the eggs and flesh of the several spe- cies of water-fowl peculiar to and abundant in such latitudes. Then, in August and September, the valleys, hillsides, and margins of the sea are resorted to by the natives for the huckleberries, the " moroshkies," the crowberries, and giant umbelliferous stalks of the Archangelica, found ripe and ripening there. The Aleutian huckleberries are much better than those of the Sitkan district, and are really the only good indigenous fruit, according to the evidence of our palates.
Another peculiarity of an Aleutian village, which strikes a stranger's eye, is the irregular but frequent coming and going of
5
OONALASHKAN NATIVES COD-FISHING An Aleutian Fisherman and Bidarka hooking " Treesca " in Oolachta Harbor, Oonalashka Island
169
THE GREAT ALEUTIAN CHAIN.
a number of old women, and younger ones, to and from the moun- tains ; they always return with a burden of what appears to be coarse grass upon their backs, in such huge bundles that the bear- ers are quite hidden from view. These females, while not literally hewers of wood, are really working as hard. They are gathering the only natural resource which is afforded them for fuel. When long and tedious journeys along the coast fail to reward a search for drift-logs, which are found here and there in scant number at the best, then the women repair to those spots on the mountain sides where the slender strawberry-like runners of the crowberry* have grown and intergrown into thick masses. These they pull from the earth, as we would gather dried grasses. A large bundle is made for each woman in the party, and then, assisting each other to load up, they stagger down the hillside trails, under these heavy burdens, back to their respective barraboras. This " sheeksa " is then air-dried, or weathered several weeks, so as to get it ready and fit for use in those odd Russian ovens or "peechka" stoves. It is twisted into short wisps, two or three of which at one time are ignited, and thrust as they blaze, into the oven ; then the door of the peechka is closed tightly and promptly. This makes a hot fire for a few moments ; every particle of the heat is absorbed by the thick, brick walls of the oven, so that, as it radiates slowly, the small apartment within the earthen walls of the barrabora is kept at a tropical temperature, for several hours at a time, without a renewal of this fire. To-day, however, at Oonalashka, and at three or four other central sea-otter villages, the natives are buying cord- wood and coal from the traders. The wood is brought from Kadiak, while the coal comes up as ballast from San Francisco in the traders' vessels.
Housed and fed in this manner, the entire Aleutian population have been, and are living ; as their children grow up and inherit the parental homes, or branch out, after marrying, to erect barra- boras of their own, they repeat the same methods of their ancestry. In a normal condition the Aleut is a quiet, peaceful parent, affec- tionate but yet not demonstrative; he is kind to his wife and imposes no real burden upon her which he does not fully share
* Empetrum nigrum. The fruit is a small black berry very much like that borne upon those hedges of an English privet, which grows in our garden here at home.
170
OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
himself. The children grow up without harsh discipline ; still they are not the recipients of marked attention. The family life, when the head or the hunter is at home, is one of very simple routine ; he is in bed most of the time, striving to balance that account of the very many sleepless nights he has passed in his bidarka scour- ing sea-otter reefs during his recent three months' trip, to Saanak or the Chernaboors. The others rise at broad day-light, light their blubber-fire in the outside kitchen, and prepare a slight breakfast of crackers, tea, and boiled fresh fish. This meal is carried into the living-room, where the "peechka " has been started up, so as to thoroughly warm that apartment. If this native is the possessor of a little iron stove, of our own make, then all heating and cooking is done on the one fire made in it and the smoke of that burning fat and oil with which so much of their fuel of drift-wood and sheeksa is mixed, goes up the pipe and leaves no annoying trace behind. Between the members of the household there is never much conver- sation-the topics are few, indeed, beyond the ordinary routine of irregular meals, and the desultory rising and retiring of a family. This monotony of their lives is very much enlivened by exercises of the church, to which they are constantly going and coming from. But when they meet in a neighboring barrabkie, or receive friends in their own, then tongues are loosened, and conversation flows freely, especially over cups of tea between the old men and women ; the latter are incessant talkers under such genial encouragement.
Although the Aleut does not give you, at first, the least idea that he has ever had any severe training of a heroic order, yet it is a fact that most of the young men, ere they become recognized hunters, had to " win their spurs," as it were. The old men always impress upon the native youth that great importance of strictly ob- serving the customs of their forefathers in conducting the chase, and that neglect in this respect will surely bring upon them disaster and punishment ; therefore the young men are encouraged to go to sea in gales of wind, and make difficult landings with their bidarkas at surf-washed places. Before the advent of Russian priests, every village had one or two old men at least, who considered it their especial business to educate the children ; thereupon, in the morning or the evening when all were at home, these aged teachers would seat themselves in the centre of one of the largest village yourts or "oolagamuh :" the young folks surrounded them, and listened attentively to what they said-sometimes failing memory
171
THE GREAT ALEUTIAN CHAIN.
would cause the old preceptors to repeat over and over again the same advice or legend in the course of a lecture. The respect of the children, however, never allowed or occasioned an interruption of such a senile oration.
But to-day their education, in so far as the strict sense of the term goes, is received from the priests and deacons of the Greek Church. They seem to have abandoned all the shamanism, the mummery and savagery of their primitive lives eagerly and willing- ly for those practices and precepts of the Christian faith ; in this strange accord the Kadiakers also joined. No recourse to violent measures was ever resorted to by the Russian missionaries, who were always met more than half-way by these singular heathen. An Aleut is the better Christian when fairly compared with the Kaniag-the latter is not half as sincere or faithful.
Stepan Glottov, in 1759, wintered, first of all white men, at Oomnak Island, and he lived there then in perfect peace and quiet with the natives ; so amicable were his relations with these people, that he persuaded their chief to be baptized, and to allow a little son to go with Glottov to Kamchatka, where the youth lived several years, then returned, well versed in the Russian language, and assumed the title of supreme chief of the Aleutians ; this is the earliest record made of the conversion of these people. In 1795 the first priest or missionary came among them ; and never, from that time to the present moment, has a representative of that church ever been treated otherwise than well by these islanders.
The Aleutian brain has streaks of genuine philosophy and a keen sense of humor. A priest once reproached an aged sire for allowing a worthless son to worry and vex the household. "Why, Ivan," said he, " do you, who are so good, and Natalie, your wife, also most excellent, permit this rude child to so deport himself ?" "Ah, father," replied the old man with great emotion, "not out of every sweet root grows a sweet plant !"
This inherent religious disposition of the Aleut is the reason why we find a Greek church or a chapel in every little hamlet where his people live. The exclusion of all other sects, however, is natural, since the character of the ornate service and frequent " prazniks," or festivals of that chosen denomination, suits him best. The Greek Catholic Bishop of the Alaskan diocese now resides in Oonalashka. He used to make Sitka his headquarters, but the de- population of the whites there after the transfer of the country
172
OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
made that spot too lonely for him, and he soon removed to San Francisco. A few years ago a final transfer was made to Illoo- look. As far as possible the natives support their own respective chapels, erect the church structures, keep them in repair, and make an annual contribution sufficient to support a reader, or " deacon," so that the order of daily services shall be constantly in operation. When a community is too poor, however, to do this, then the bishop has money supplied to him by the Russian Home Church Fund, which he uses to maintain the proper conduct of those chap- els situated at impecunious settlements. Of course these outlying and far-distant hamlets of the Aleutian archipelago are unable to secure and pay, each one, for the services of a regularly ordained resident priest. Therefore a parish priest, either from Oonalashka, Belcovsky, Sitka, or even San Francisco, is in the habit of making a tour of the entire Alaskan circuit once in every year or two, so as to administer the higher offices of the church, such as baptism, marriage, etc.
Most amusing is that intense outward piety of these grimy peo- ple-they greet you with a blessing and a prayer for your good health in the same breath, and they part from you murmuring a benediction. They never sit down to their rude meals without asking the blessing of God ; never enter a neighbor's house with- out crossing themselves at the threshold ; and in most of the bar- raboras a little image-picture of a patron saint will be found in one corner, high up on a shelf, to which the face of every member of the family is always turned when they rise and retire-the head bowed and the cross sign made before this "eikon," in humility and silence. These people also carry the precepts and phraseology of the church upon their lips, constantly repeating them during holy weeks and pious festivals.
The fact that among all the savage races found on the northwest coast by Christian pioneers and teachers, the Aleutians are the only practical converts to Christianity, goes far, in my opinion, to set them apart as very differently constituted in mind and disposition from our Indians and our Eskimo of Alaska. To the latter, how- ever, they seem to be intimately allied, though they do not mingle in the slightest degree. They adopted the Christian faith with very little opposition, readily exchanging their barbarous customs and wild superstitions for the rites of the Greek Catholic Church and its more refined myths and legends.
173
THE GREAT ALEUTIAN CHAIN.
At the time of their first discovery, they were living as savages in every sense of the word, bold and hardy, throughout the Aleu- tian chain, but now they respond, on these islands, to all outward signs of Christianity, as sincerely as our own church-going people. The question as to the derivation of those natives is still a mooted one among ethnologists, for in all points of personal bearing, intel- ligence, character, as well as physical structure, they seem to form a perfect link of gradation between the Japanese and Eskimo, not- withstanding their traditions and their language are entirely distinct and peculiar to themselves ; not one word or numeral of their nomenclature resembles the dialect of either. They claim, how- ever, to have come first to the Aleutian Islands from a " big land in the westward," and that when they came there first they found the land uninhabited, and that they did not meet with any people, until their ancestors had pushed on to the eastward as far as the peninsula and Kadiak. Confirmatory of this legend, or rather highly suggestive of it, is the fact that repeated instances have occurred within our day where Japanese junks have been, in the stress of hurricanes and typhoons, dismantled, and have drifted clear over and on to the reefs and coasts of the Aleutian Islands. Only a short time ago, in the summer of 1871, such a craft was so stranded, helpless and at the mercy of the sea, upon the rocky coast of Adak Island, in this chain ; the few surviving sailors, Japanese, five in number, were rescued by a party of Aleutian sea- otter hunters, who took care of them until the vessel of a trader carried them back, by way of Oonalashka, to San Francisco, and thence they returned to their native land.
A number of the males in every Aleutian village will be found who can read and write with the Russian alphabet. This education they get in the line of church exercises, inasmuch as they are all conducted in the Russian language, though the responses for the congregation usually are made by Aleutian accents. An Aleut grammar and phonetic alphabet, adapted to the expression of the Russian language, is used in all of these hamlets. It was prepared by that remarkable man, Veniaminov, in 1831 : a large number of the books were printed, and they have been in use ever since. The young men and boys are taught as they grow up, by the church deacon usually, to read, first in the Aleut dialect, then in the Rus- sian. The traders take advantage of this understanding among these people, and facilitate their bartering very materially. They
174
OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
give every hunter a pass, or grocer's book, in which he keeps a reg- ular account, charging what he may need, in advance of payment, so enabling his family to get what it requires during his long ab- sence on the hunting-grounds. In short, that book is a regular letter of credit at the store, and the traders have found it the best way of influencing the natives in their favor, and also of aiding the superior hunters.
This method of credit has developed, and made manifest the truth of a strong statement in which Veniaminov declared his belief that these people were really honest at heart, totally unlike all other savages in Alaska, or elsewhere on the American continent, for that matter. Many of the hunters, when they are about to de- part for a long four or five months' sea-otter chase, and consequent absence for such length of time from home, go to the trader and tell him to restrict their wives from overdrawing a certain pecuniary limit, which they fix of their own idea as to what they can afford. This action, however, is the purpose of true honesty only, for those same hunters, when they get back, after first religiously settling every indebtedness in full, make at once a heavy draft upon any surplus that they may have, going so far in the line of extravagance and singular improvidence, in some instances, as to purchase, on the spur of the moment, music-boxes worth two hundred dollars each, or whole bolts of silk and costly packages of handkerchiefs, neckties, and white linen, and many other things of a like nature, wholly unwarranted by the means of the hunter, or of any real service to him or his family.
The church " prazniks," or festivals, are very quiet affairs, but when the Aleut determines to celebrate his birthday or " eman nimik," he goes about it in full resolution to have a stirring and vociferous time. Therefore he brews a potential beer by putting a quantity of sugar, flour, rice, and dried apples (if he can get the latter) into a ten or twenty-gallon barrel, which is filled with water. He sends invitations out to his friends so dated as to bring them to the barrabkie when a right degree of fermentation in the kvass- barrel shall have arrived ; sometimes the odor of that barrel itself is sufficient to gather them in all on time. Some one of the natives who is famous for natural and cultivated skill in playing the accor- dion or concertina, is given the post of honor and the best of the beer ; he or she, as the case may be, soon starts the most hilarious dancing, because Aleutes are exceedingly fond of this amuse-
175
THE GREAT ALEUTIAN CHIAIN.
ment, especially so when stimulated by beer. If the apartment is large enough, the figures of an old Russian quadrille are gone through with, accompanied by indescribable grimaces and gro- tesque side-shuffles of the dancers, the old women and young men being the most demonstrative. Usually, however, a single waltzing couple has the floor at one time, whirling around with the liveliest hop-waltz steps, and as it settles down out of breath, a fresh pair springs up from the waiting and watching circle. The guests rapidly pass from their normal sedateness into the varying stages that rotate between slight and intense drunkenness.
These kvass orgies, on such occasions, are the only exhibitions of disorder that the people of the Aleutian Islands and Kadiak ever afford. At Belcovsky, and at every point where the sea-otter in- dustry is most remunerative to the native hunter, there you will find the greatest misery, due wholly to those beery birthday cele- brations as sketched above.
Some traders often give entertainments to the natives, in which they wisely offer plenty of strong tea, with white sugar-lumps, and nothing else ; these parties are quite reputable and highly en- joyed by all concerned. The floor of the warehouse, or the living- rooms of the trader himself, are cleared, and this allows ample space for a full-figured cotillon or quadrille, or a dozen or two of dancing couples. The ball-room of the chief trading-firm at Oonalashka is a very animated and extensive prospect when an evening-party of this sort is in fine motion. The familiar strains of "Pinafore," the " Lancers," "John Brown," and " Marching through Georgia," rise in piercing strength from the vigorous men and women who are squeezing the accordions, and every now and then a few of the young Aleutes break out into a short singing refrain, using English words to suit the music, as they caper in the high-tide of this festivity. It is the young men, however, only, who thus vocalize ; the women, when sober, old and young, are always silent, with downcast eyes, and are very abject in de- meanor.
The great feminine solace in a well-to-do native hut is recourse to a concertina or accordion, as the case may be. These instru- ments are especially adapted to the people. Their plaintive, slow measure, when fingered in response to native tunes and old Slavonian ballads, always rise upon the air in every Aleutian hamlet, from early morning until far into night. An appreciation
176
OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
of good music is keen : many of the women can easily pick up strains from our own operas, and repeat them correctly after listen- ing a short while to the trader or his wife play and sing. They are most pleased with sad, wailing tunes, such as "Lorena," the " Old Cabin Home," and the like.
Thus we note those salient characteristics of Aleutians, who are the most interesting and praiseworthy inhabitants of Alaska. There are not a great many of them, however, when contrasted numerically with the Indians and the Eskimo of this region ; but they come closer, far nearer to us in good fellowship and human sympathy. We turn, therefore, from them again to resume our contemplation of the country in which they live. The sun is burn- ing through a gray-blue bank of sea-swept fog, ever and anon shining down brilliantly upon the beautiful, vividly green moun- tains, and glancing from the clear waters of Oonalashka's harbor. It tempts us to walk, to stroll, when the trader tells us that we can easily cross over to Beaver Bay, where Captain Cook anchored and refitted in 1778. So we go, and a patient, good-humored native trots ahead to keep us on the road and bring us back safely, lest the fog descend and shut all in darkness which is now so light and bright. A narrow foot-trail that is deeply worn by the pigeon-toed Aleutes into moss and sphagnum, or fairly choked by rank- growing grasses and annuals in low warm spots, winds around and over the divide between Oonalashka village and Borka. As we reach the rippling, rocky strand of Beaver Bay, a cascade arrests our at- tention on account of its exceeding beauty. Tumbling down from the brow of a lofty bluff of brown and reddish rocks, a rivulet falls in a line of snowy spray, which reflects prismatic colors from the rocks and sunlight as it drops into the cold embrace of the sea. While we, resting on the grassy margin of the beach, enjoy this charming picture, our native turns his face to the bay, and he points out to us the pebbly shore where Captain Cook "hove down " his vessel, more than a century ago, and then scraped those barnacles and sea-weed growths from that ship's bottom. Here the English discoverer first came in contact with the natives of Oona- lashka, and there are people over on Spirkin or "Borka " Island, just across the bay from us, who will recite the legend of this early visit of that Englishman with great earnestness, circumspec- tion, and detail, so faithfully has the story been transmitted from father to son. Their own name of Samahgaanooda was changed
177
THE GREAT ALEUTIAN CHAIN.
voluntarily to English Bay, or " Anglieeski Bookhta," by which designation they themselves call the harbor to-day.
A broad expanse of this bay lies directly between us on the north side and the village of Borka, which is perched on a narrow beach-level shelf of an island that rises bold and abruptly, high from the sea. This hamlet is the most remarkable native settle- ment in all Alaska with respect to a strange and unwonted cleanli- ness which is exhibited in this community of one hundred and forty Aleutes, who are living here to-day in twenty-eight frame houses, bar- raboras, and a chapel. What makes it still more remarkable is the fact that these people are in close communication with their kindred of Oonalashka, who are distant only a few hours' journey by canoe and portage, and who are not especially cleanly to the slightest note- worthy degree. Those people of Borka are living in the cleanest and neatest of domiciles. They are living so without an exceptional instance, every hut being as tidy and as orderly as its neighbor. They have large windows in the small frame houses and barraboras, scrub and sand the floors, and keep their simple furniture, their beds, and window-panes polished and bright. Glass tumblers, earthen pots, and wooden firkins filled with transplanted wild-flowers stand on the tables and deep window-sills to bloom fresh and sweet all the year round. A modest, unassuming old Russian Creole trader, who has lived there all his life, and who was living recently, is credited with this influence for the better with the natives. Cer- tainly he is the only one who has ever succeeded in working such a revolution in the slovenly, untidy household habits of these amia- ble but shiftless people.
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.