USA > Alaska > Our Arctic province, Alaska and the Seal islands > Part 35
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
A drove of seals on hard or firm grassy ground, in cool and moist weather, may be driven with safety at the rate of half a mile an hour ; they can be urged along, with the expenditure of a great many lives, however, at the speed of a mile or a mile and a quarter per hour ; but that is seldom done. An old bull-seal, fat and un- wieldy, cannot travel with the younger ones, though it can lope or gallop as it starts across the ground as fast as an ordinary man can run, over one hundred yards-then it fails utterly, falls to the earth supine, entirely exhausted, hot, and gasping for breath.
The " holluschickie " are urged along over paths leading to the killing-ground with very little trouble, and require only three or four men to guide and secure as many thousand at a time. They are permitted frequently to halt and cool off, as heating them in- jures their fur. These seal-halts on the road always impressed me with a species of sentimentalism and regard for the creatures them- selves. When the men drop back for a few moments, that awk- ward shambling and scuffling of the march at once ceases, and the seals stop in their tracks to fan themselves with their hind flippers, while their heaving flanks give rise to subdued panting sounds. As soon as they apparently cease to gasp for want of breath, and are cooled off comparatively, the natives step up once more, clatter a few bones, with a shout along the line, and this seal-shamble begins again-their march to death and the markets of the world is taken up anew .*
* I heard a great deal of talk among the white residents of St. Paul, when I first landed and the sealing-season opened, abont the necessity of "resting " the hauling-grounds; in other words, they said if the seals were driven in re- peated daily rotation from any one of the hanling-grounds, that this would so
335
AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS.
I was also impressed by the singular docility and amiability of these animals when driven along the road. They never show fight any more than a flock of sheep would do ; if, however, a few old seals get mixed in, they usually grow so weary that they prefer to come to a stand-still and fight rather than move ; otherwise no sign whatever of resistance is made by the drove from the moment it is intercepted, and turned up from the hauling-grounds, to the time of its destruction at the hands of the sealing-gang.
This disposition of the old seals to fight rather than endure the panting torture of travel, is of great advantage to all parties con- cerned, for they are worthless commercially, and the natives are only too glad to let them drop behind, where they remain unmo- lested, eventually returning to the sea. The fur on them is of lit- tle or no value ; their under-wool being very much shorter, coarser, and more scant than in the younger ; especially so on the posterior parts along the median line of the back.
This change for the worse or deterioration of the pelage of the
disturb these animals as to prevent their coming to any extent again thereon, during the rest of the season. This theory seemed rational enough to me at the beginning of my investigations, and I was not disposed to question its accuracy ; but subseqent observation directed to this point particularly satis- fied me, and the sealers themselves with whom I was associated, that the driv- ing of the seals had no effect whatever upon the hauling which took place soon or immediately after the field, for the hour, had been swept clean of seals by the drivers. If the weather was favorable for landing, i. e., cool, moist, and foggy, the fresh hauling of the "holluschickie" would cover the bare grounds again in a very short space of time : sometimes in a few hours after the driving of every seal from Zoltoi sands over to the killing-fields adjacent, those dunes and the beach in question would be swarming anew with fresh arrivals. If, however, the weather is abnormally warm and sunny, during its prevalence, even if for several consecutive days, no seals to speak of will haul ont on the emptied space ; indeed, if these " holluschickie " had not been taken away by man from Zoltoi or any other hauling-ground on the islands when " tayopli " weather prevailed, most of those seals would have vacated their terrestrial Ioafing places for the cooler embraces of the sea.
The importance of clearly understanding this fact as to the readiness of the " holluschickie " to haul promptly out on steadily "swept" ground, pro- vided the weather is inviting, is very great ; because, when not understood, it was deemed necessary, even as late as the season of 1872, to "rest" the hauling-grounds near the village (from which all the driving has been made since), and make trips to far-away Polavina and distant Zapadnie-an unnecessary expenditure of human time, and a causeless infliction of physical misery upon phocine backs and flippers.
336
OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
fur-seal takes place, as a rule, in the fifth year of their age-it is thickest and finest in texture during the third and fourth year of life ; hence, in driving the seals on St. Paul and St. George up from the hauling-grounds the natives make, as far as practicable, a selection only from males of that age. It is quite impossible, low- ever, to get them all of one age without an extraordinary amount of stir and bustle, which the Aleutes do not like to precipitate ; hence the drive will be found to consist usually of a bare majority of three and four-year-olds, the rest being two-year-olds principally, and a very few, at wide intervals, five-year-olds, the yearlings sel- dom ever getting mixed up in it.
As this drove progresses along that path to those slaughtering- grounds, the seals all move in about the same way ; they go ahead with a kind of walking step and a sliding, shambling gallop. The progression of the whole caravan is a succession of starts, spas- modic and irregular, made every few minutes, the seals pausing to catch their breath, making, as it were, a plaintive survey and mute protest. Every now and then a seal will get weak in the lumbar region, then drag its posteriors along for a short distance, finally drop breathless and exhausted, quivering and panting, not to revive for hours-days, perhaps-and often never. During the driest driving-days, or those days when the temperature does not combine with wet fog to keep the earth moist and cool, quite a large number of the weakest animals in the drove will be thus laid out and left on the track. If one of these prostrate seals is not too much heated at the time, the native driver usually taps the beast over the head and removes its skin.
This prostration from exertion will always happen, no matter how carefully they are driven ; and in the longer drives, such as two and a half and five miles from Zapadnie on the west, or Pola- vina on the north, to the village at St. Paul, as much as three or four per cent. of the whole drive will be thus dropped on the road ; hence I feel satisfied, from my observation and close attention to this feature, that a considerable number of those that are thus re- jected from the drove, and are able to rally and return to the water, die subsequently from internal injuries sustained on the trip, superinduced by this over-exertion. I therefore think it highly improper and impolitic to extend drives of the "holluschickie " over any distance on St. Paul Island exceeding a mile, or a mile and a half-it is better for all parties concerned, and the business
ch
im
.11
14
NATIVES DRIVING "HOLLUSCHICKIE "
The Drove passing over the Lagoon Flats to the Killing Grounds under the Village of St. Paul. Looking S. W. over the Village Cove and the Lagoon Rookery
337
AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS.
too, that salt-houses be erected, and killing-grounds established contiguous to all of the great hauling-grounds, two miles dis- tant from the village on St. Paul Island, should the business ever be developed above the present limit, or should the exigencies of the future require a quota from all these places in order to make up the hundred thousand which may be lawfully taken.
As matters are to-day, one hundred thousand seals alone on St. Paul can be taken and skinned in less than forty working days, within a radius of one mile and a half from the village, and from the salt-house at Northeast Point ; hence the driving, with the ex- ception of two experimental droves which I witnessed in 1872, has never been made from longer distances than Tolstoi to the east- ward, Lukannon to the northward, and Zoltoi to the southward of the killing-grounds at St. Paul village. Should, however, an ab- normal season recur, in which the larger portion of days during the right period for taking the skins be warmish and dry, it might be necessary, in order to get even seventy-five thousand seals with- in the twenty-eight or thirty days of their prime condition, for drives to be made from the other great hauling-grounds to the westward and northward, which are now, and have been for the last ten years, entirely unnoticed by our sealers .*
The seals, when finally driven up on those flats between the east landing and the village, and almost under the windows of the dwellings, are herded there until cool and rested. Such drives are usually made very early in the morning, at the first breaking of day, which is half-past one to two o'clock of June and July in these latitudes. They arrive, and cool off on the slaughtering-grounds,
* The fur-seal, like all of the pinnipeds, has no sweat-glands ; hence, when it is heated, it cools off by the same process of panting which is so character- istic of the dog, accompanied by the fanning that I have hitherto fully de- scribed ; the heavy breathing and low grunting of a tired drove of seals, on a warmer day than usual, can be heard several hundred yards away. It is sur- prising how quickly the hair and fur will come out of the skin of a blood- heated seal-literally rubs bodily off at a touch of the finger. A fine speci- men of a three-year-old "holluschak " fell in its tracks at the head of the lagoon while being driven to the village killing-grounds. I asked that it be skinned with special reference to mounting ; accordingly a native was sent for, who was on the spot, knife in hand, within less than thirty minutes from the moment that this seal fell in the road, yet soon after he had got fairly to work patches of the fur and hair came off here and there wherever he chanced to clutch the skin.
338
OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
so that by six or seven o'clock, after breakfast, the able-bodied male population turn out from the village and go down to engage in the work of killing them. These men are dressed in their ordinary labor- ing-garb of thick flannel shirts, stout cassimere or canvas pants, over which the " tarbossar" boots are drawn. If it rains they wear
Peter Peeshenkov : Pribylov Sealer. [Attired in the costume of the killing guny, when at work in wet weather.]
their "kamlaykas," made of the intestines and throats of the sea- lion and fur-seal. Thus dressed, they are each armed with a club, a stout oaken or hickory bludgeon, which has been made particu- larly for the purpose at New London, Conn., and imported here for this especial service. Those sealing-clubs are about five or six feet in length, three inches in diameter at their heads, and the thickness of a man's forearm where they are grasped by the
Exx
1,
.15.1:
THE KILLING GANG AT WORK Method of slaughtering Fur Seals on the Grounds near the Village of St. Paul Sealers Knocking Down a "Pod "
The Drove in Waiting
Natives Skinning
339
AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS.
hands. Each native also has his stabbing-knife, his skinning-knife and his whetstone : these are laid upon the grass convenient, when the work of braining or knocking the seals down is in progress : this is all the apparatus which they employ for killing and skinning.
When the men gather for work they are under the control of their chosen foremen or chiefs ; usually, on St. Paul, divided into two working parties at the village, and a sub-party at North- east Point, where another salt-house and slaughtering-field is established. At the signal of the chief the labor of the day begins by the men stepping into that drove corralled on the flats and driv- ing out from it one hundred or one hundred and fifty seals at a time, making what they call a "pod," which they surround in a circle, huddling the seals one on another as they narrow it down, until they are directly within reach and under their clubs. Then the chief, after he has cast his experienced eye over the struggling, writhing " kautickie " in the centre, passes the word that such and such a seal is bitten, that such and such a seal is too young, that such and such a seal is too old ; the attention of his men being called to these points, he gives the word "Strike !" and instantly the heavy clubs come down all around, and every animal eligible is stretched out stunned and motionless, in less time, really, than I take to tell it. Those seals spared by order of the chief now struggle from under and over the bodies of their insensible companions and pass, hustled off by the natives, back to the sea.
The clubs are dropped, the men seize the prostrate seals by the hind flippers and drag them out so they are spread on the ground without touching each other, then every sealer takes his knife and drives it into the heart at a point between the fore flippers of each stunned form ; its blood gushes forth, and the quivering of the animal presently ceases. A single stroke of a heavy oak bludgeon, well and fairly delivered, will crush in at once the slight, thin bones of a fur-seal's skull, and lay the creature out almost lifeless. These blows are, however, usually repeated two or three times with each animal, but they are very quickly done. The bleeding, which is immediately effected, is so speedily undertaken in order that the strange reaction, which the sealers call "heating," shall be delayed for half an hour or so, or until the seals can all be drawn out and laid in some disposition for skinning.
I have noticed that within less than thirty minutes from the time a perfectly sound seal was knocked down, it had so " heated,"
340
OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
owing to the day being warmer and drier than usual, that, when touching it with my foot, great patches of hair and fur scaled off. This is rather exceptionally rapid metamorphosis-it will, however, take place in every instance, within an hour, or an hour and a half on these warm days, after the first blow is struck, and the seal is quiet in death ; hence no time is lost by a prudent toyone in di- recting the removal of the skins as rapidly as the seals are knocked down and dragged out. If it is a cool day, after bleeding the first "pod" which has been prostrated in the manner described, and after carefully drawing the slain from the heap in which they have fallen, so that the bodies will spread over the ground just free from touching one another, they turn to and strike down another "pod ;" and so on, until a whole thousand or two are laid out, or the drove, as corralled, is finished. The day, however, must be raw and cold for this wholesale method. Then, after killing, they turn to work and skin ; but if it is a warm day every pod is skinned as soon as it is knocked down.
The labor of skinning is exceedingly severe, and is trying even to an expert, demanding long practice ere the muscles of the back and thighs are so developed as to permit a man to bend down to, and finish well, a fair day's work. The knives used by the natives for skinning are ordinary kitchen or case-handle butcher-knives. They are sharpened to cutting edges as keen as razors, but some- thing about the skins of the seal, perhaps fine comminuted sand along the abdomen, so dulls these knives, as the natives work, that they are obliged to whet them constantly.
The body of the seal, preparatory to skinning, is rolled over and balanced squarely on its back ; then the native makes a single swift cut through the skin down along the neck, chest, and belly, from the lower jaw to the root of the tail : he uses for this purpose his long stabbing-knife .* The fore and hind flippers are then suc- cessively lifted, as the man straddles a seal and stoops down to
* When turning the stunned and senseless carcasses, the only physical dan- ger of which the sealers run the slightest risk, during the whole circuit of their work, occurs thus: at this moment the prone and quivering body of the "holluschak " is not wholly inert, perhaps, though it is nine times out of ten; and as the native takes hold of a fore flipper to jerk the carcass over on to its back, the half-brained seal ronses, snaps suddenly and viciously, often biting the hands or legs of unwary skinners : they then come leisurely and nncon- cernedly up into the surgeon's office at the village, for bandages, etc. A few
341
AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS.
his work over it, and a sweeping circular incision is made through the skin on them just at the point where the body-fur ends ; then, seizing a flap of the hide on either one side or the other of the abdomen, the man proceeds with his smaller, shorter butcher-knife,
men are bitten every day or two during the season on the islands, in this man- ner, but I have never learned of any serious result following any case.
The sealers, as might be expected, become exceedingly expert in keeping their knives sharp, putting edges on them as keen as razors, and in an instant detect any duIness by passing the balls of their thumbs over the suspected edges to such blades.
The white sealers of the Antarctic always used an orthodox butcher's " steel" in sharpening their knives, but these natives never have, and prob- ably never will abandon those little whetstones above referred to.
During the Russian management, and throughout the strife in killing by our own people in 1868, a very large number of the skins were cut through, here and there, by the slipping of the natives' knives, when they were taking them from the carcasses, and "flensing " them from the superabundance, in spots, of blubber. These knife-cuts through the skin, no matter how slight, give great annoyance to the dresser, hence they are always marked down in price. The prompt scrutiny of each skin on the islands by an agent of the Alaska Commercial Company, who rejects every one of them thus injured, has caused the natives to exercise greater care, and the number now so damaged, every season, is absolutely trifling.
Another source of small loss is due to a habit which the "holluschickie" have of occasionally biting each other when they are being urged along in the drives, and thus crowded once in a while one upon the other. Usually these examples of "zoobaden" are detected by the natives prior to the " knocking down," and spared ; yet those which have been nipped on the chest or abdomen cannot be thus noticed, and, until the skin is lifted, the damage is not apprehended.
The aim and force with which the native directs his blow determines the death of a fur-seal. If struck direct and violently, a single stroke is enough. The seals' heads are stricken so hard sometimes that those crystalline Ienses to their eyes fly out from the orbital sockets like hail-stones, or little pebbles, and frequently struck me sharply in the face, or elsewhere, while I stood near by watching a killing-gang at work.
A singular Inrid green light suddenly suffuses the eye of a fur-seal at intervals when it is very much excited ; as the "podding " for the clubbers is in progress and at the moment when last raising its head it sees the uplifted bludgeons on every hand above, fear seems then for the first time to possess it and to instantly gild its eye in this strange manner. When the seal is brained in this state of optical coloration I have noticed that the opalescent tinting re- mained well defined for many hours or a whole day after death. These re- markable flashes are very characteristic to the eyes of the old males during their hurly-burly on the rookeries, but never appear in the younger classes unless as just described, as far as I could observe.
342
OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
rapidly to cut the skin, clean and free from the body and blubber, which he rolls over and out from the hide by hauling up on it as he advances with his work, standing all this time stooped over the carcass so that his hands are but slightly above it, or the ground. This operation of skinning a fair-sized "holluschak " takes the best men only one minute and a half, but the average time made by the gang on the ground is about four minutes to the seal.
-
11/1 ---
-
-
...
1
1
The Carcass after Skinning-The Skin as taken therefrom.
Nothing is left of the skin upon the carcass, save a small patch of each upper lip on which the coarse mustache grows, the skin on the tip of the lower jaw, and its insignificant tail. After removal of the skin from the body of a fur-seal, the entire surface of the carcass is covered with a more or less dense layer, or envelope, of soft, oily blubber, which in turn completely conceals the mus- cles or flesli of the trunk and neck. This fatty substance, which
343
AMPHIBIAN MILLIONS.
we now see, resembles that met with in such seals everywhere, only possessing that strange peculiarity not shared by any other of its kind, of being positively overbearing and offensive in odor to an unaccustomed human nostril. The rotting, sloughing car- casses around about did not, when stirred up, affect me more un- pleasantly than did this strong, sickening smell of the fur-seal blubber. It has a character and appearance intermediate between those belonging to the adipose tissue found on the flesh of cetacea and some carnivora.
This continuous envelope of blubber to the bodies of the "hol- luschickie " is thickest in deposit at those points upon the breast between the fore flippers, reaching entirely around and over the shoulders, where it is from one inch to a little over in depth. Upon the outer side of the chest it is not half an inch in thickness, fre- quently not more than a quarter, and it thins out considerably as it reaches the median line of the back. The neck and head are clad by an unbroken continuation of the same material, which varies from one-half to one-quarter of an inch in depth. Toward the middle line of the abdominal region there is a layer of relative greater thickness. This is coextensive with the sterno-pectoral mass ; but it does not begin to retain its volume as it extends back- ward, where this fatty investment of the carcass upon the loins, buttocks, and hinder limbs fades out finer than on the pectoro- abdominal parts, and assumes a thickness corresponding to its depth on the cervical and dorsal regions. As it descends on the limbs this blubber thins out very preceptibly ; and, when reaching the flippers, it almost entirely disappears, giving way to a glistening aureolar tissue, while the flipper skin finally descends in turn to adhere closely and firmly to the tendinous ligamentary structures beneath, which constitute the tips of the swimming-palms.
The flesh and the muscles are not lined between or within by fat of any kind : this blubber envelope contains it all, with one exception-that which is found in the folds of the small intestine and about the kidneys, where there is an abundant secretion of a harder, whiter, though still offensive-smelling fat.
It is quite natural for our people when they first eat a meal on the Pribylov Islands to ask questions in regard to what seal-meat looks and tastes like. Some of the white residents will answer, saying that they are very fond of it cooked so and so ; others will reply that in no shape or manner can they stomach the dish. An
344
OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
inquirer must himself try the effect on his own palate. I frankly confess that I had a slight prejudice against seal-meat at first, hav- ing preconceived ideas that it would be fishy in flavor ; but I soon satisfied myself to the contrary, and found that the flesh of young seals not over three years old was as appetizing and toothsome as some of the beef, mutton, and pork I was accustomed to at home. The following precautions must be rigidly observed, however, by the cook who prepares fur-seal steaks and sausage-balls for our de- lectation and subsistence. He will fail if he does not :
1. The meat must be perfectly cleaned of every vestige of blub- ber or fat, no matter how slight.
2. Cut the flesh then into very thin steaks or slices and soak them from six to twelve hours in salt and water, a tablespoon of fine salt to a quart of fresh water. This whitens the meat and re- moves the residuum of dark venous blood that will otherwise give a slightly disagreeable taste, hardly definable, though existing.
3. Fry these steaks, or stew them à la mode, with a few thin slices of sweet "breakfast " bacon, seasoning with pepper and salt. A rich brown gravy follows the cooking of the meat. Serve hot, and it is, strictly judged, a very excellent meat for the daintiest feeder, and I hereby recommend it confidently as a safe venture for any new- comer to make.
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.