USA > Alaska > Our Arctic province, Alaska and the Seal islands > Part 38
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OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
By reference to my sketch-map of Northeast Point rookery the reader will notice a peculiar neck or boot-shaped point, which I have designated as Sea-lion Neck. That area is a spot upon which a large number of sea-lions are always to be found during the season. As they are so shy and sure to take to water upon the ap- pearance or presence of man near by, the natives adopt this plan : Along by the middle or end of September, as late sometimes as November, and after the fur-seal rookeries have broken up for the year, fifteen or twenty of the very best men in the village are se- lected by one of their chiefs for a sea-lion rendezvous at Northeast Point. They go up there with their provisions, tea, and sugar, and blankets, and make themselves at home in the barrabora and house which I have located on the sketch-map of Novastoshnah, prepared to stay, if necessary, a monthi, or until they shall get the whole drove together of two or three hundred sea-lions.
The "seevitchie," as the natives call those animals, cannot be approached successfully by daylight, so these hunters lie by in this house of Webster's until a favorable night comes along, one in which the moon is partially obscured by drifting clouds and the wind blows over them from the rookery where the sea-lions lie. Such an opportunity being afforded, they step down to the beach at low water and proceed to creep on all fours across surf-beaten sand and boulders up between the dozing herd, and the high-water mark where it rests. In this way a small body of natives, crawl- ing along in Indian file, may pass unnoticed by sea-lion sentries, which doubtless in that uncertain light see, but confound the forms of their human enemies with those of seals. When the creeping Aleutes have all reached the strip of beach that is left bare by ebb- tide, and is between the surf and those unsuspecting animals, at a given signal from their crawling leader they at once leap to their feet, shout, yell, brandishing their arms and firing off pistols, while the astonished and terrified lions roar, and flounder in every direc- tion.
If at the moment of surprise seevitchie are sleeping with their heads pointed toward the water, as they rise up in fright they charge straight on in that direction, right over the men themselves ; but those which have been resting at this instant, when startled, pointed landward, up they rise and follow that course just as desperately, and nothing will turn them either one way or the other. These sea-lions which charged for the water are lost, of
ALEUTES CAPTURING SEA-LIONS
Natives creeping up between a herd of dozing Sea-lions and the water, at low tide during a moonlight night, at Garden Cove, St. George's Island ; getting into position for " springing the alarm"
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bis
THE SEA-LION PEN
Method of corralling Sea-lions at Novastoshnah, St. Paul's Island, while the Natives are getting a Drove together for driving to the Village
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THE ALASKAN SEA-LION.
course ; * but the natives promptly follow up the land-turned animal with a rare combination of horrible noises and demoniacal gesticu- lations until the first frenzied spurt and exertions of the terrified creatures so completely exhaust them that they fall panting, gasping, prone upon the earth, extended in spite of their bulk and powerful muscles, helpless, and at the mercy of their cunning captors, who, however, instead of slaying them as they lie, rudely rouse them up again and urge the herd along to the house in which they have been keeping watch during the several days past.
Here at this point is a curious stage in such proceeding. The na- tives drive up to that "Webster's " house those twenty-five or thirty or forty sea-lions, as the case may be, which they have just captured -they seldom get more at any one time-and keep them in a corral or pen close by the barrabora, on the flattened surface of a sand- ridge, in the following comical manner : When they have huddled up the "pod," they thrust stakes down around it at intervals of ten to twenty feet, to which strips of cotton cloth are fluttering as flags, and a line or two of sinew-rope or thong of hide is strung from pole to pole around the group, making a circular cage, as it were. Within this flimsy circuit the stupid sea-lions are securely impris- oned, and, though they are incessantly watched by two or three men, the whole period of caging and penning which I observed, extending over nine or ten days and nights, passed without a single
* The natives appreciate this peculiarity of the sea-lion very keenly, for good and sufficient cause, though none of them have ever been badly injured in driving or " springing the alarm." I camped with them for six successive nights of September, 1872, in order to witness the whole procedure. During the several drives made while I was with them I saw but one exciting inci- dent. Everything went off in an orthodox manner, as described in the text above. The exceptional incident occurred during the first drive of the first night and rendered those natives so cautious that it was not repeated. When the alarm was sprung, old Luka Mandrigan was leading the van, and at that moment down upon him, despite his wildly gesticulating arms and vociferous yelling, eame a squad of bull "seevitchie." The native saw instantly that they were pointed for the water, and, in his sound sense, turned to run from under. ITis tarbosars slipped upon a slimy rock awash ; he fell flat as a flounder just as a dozen or more big sea-lions plunged over and on to his prostrate form in the shallow water. In less time than this can be written the heavy pinni- peds had disappeared, while the bullet-like head of old Luka was quickly raised, and he trotted back to us with an alternation of mirth and chagrin in his voice. IIe was not hurt in the least.
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OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
effort being made by the " seevitchie " to break out of their flimsy bonds, and it was passed by these animals, not in stupid quiescence, but in alert watchfulness, roaring, writhing, twisting, turning one upon and over the other.
By this method of procedure, after the lapse usually of two or three weeks, a succession of favorable nights will have occurred : then the natives secure their full quota, which, as I have said before, is expressed by a herd of two or three hundred of these animals.
When that comple- ment is filled, the natives prepare to drive their herd back to the village over the grassy and mos- sy uplands and interven- ing stretches of sand- dune tracts, fully eleven Elliot miles : preferring this to take the trouble of prod- ding such clumsy brutes, The Sea-lion Caravan. [ Natives driving a drove over the plain of Poiavina, en route from Northeast Point to St. Paul.] wayward and obstinate as they are, rather than to pack their heavy hides in and out of boats, making in this way each sea-lion carry its own skin and blubber down to the doors of their houses in the village. If the weather is normally wet and cold, this drive or caravan of sea-lions can be driven to its point of destina- tion in five or six days ; but should it be dry and warmer than usual, three weeks, and even longer, will elapse before the circuit is trav- ersed.
When the drive is started, the natives gather around the herd on all sides, save an opening which they leave pointing to that
T
1:11.04
SPRINGING THE ALARM
Natives surprising a Herd of Sea-lions at Tolstoi, St. George's Island. August 3. 1873
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THE ALASKAN SEA-LION.
direction they desire the animals to travel ; in this manner they escort and urge the "seevitchie " along to their final resting and slaughter near the village. The young lions and the females, being much lighter than old males, less laden with fat or blubber, take the lead, for they travel twice and thrice as easy and as fast as the latter ; these, by reason of their immense avoirdupois, are incapable of moving ahead more than a few rods at a time, then they are completely checked by sheer loss of breath, though the vanguard of the females allures them on ; but when an old sea-lion feels his wind coming short, he is sure to stop, sullenly and surlily turning upon the drivers, not to move again until his lungs are clear.
In this method and manner of direction the natives stretch a herd out in extended file, or as a caravan, over the line of march, and as the old bulls pause to savagely survey the field and catch their breath, showing their wicked teeth, the drivers have to exer- cise every art and all their ingenuity in arousing them to fresh efforts. This they do by clapping boards and bones together, firing fusees, and waving flags ; and of late, and best of all, the blue ging- ham umbrella repeatedly opened and closed in the face of an old bull has been a more effective starter than all the other known arti- fices or savage expedients of the natives. *
* The curious behavior of sea-lions in the Big Lake when they are en route and driven from Novastoshnah to the village deserves mention. After the drove gets over the sand dunes and beach between Webster's house and the extreme northeastern head of the lake, a halt is called and the drove " penned " on the bank there. Then, when the sea-lions are well rested, they are started up and pell mell into the water. Two natives in a bidarka keep them from turning out from shore into the broad bosom of Meesnlkmalec, while another bidarka paddles in their rear and follows their swift passage right down the eastern shore. In this method of procedure the drive carries itself nearly two miles by water in less than twenty minutes from the time the sea lions are first turned in at the north end to that moment when they are driven out at the southeastern elbow of the Big Pond. The shallowness of the water here accounts probably for the strange failure of these sea-lions to regain their liberty, and it so retards their swimming as to enable the bidarka, with two men, to keep abreast of their leaders easily, as they plunge ahead ; and, "as one goes, so all go sheep," it is not necessary to pay attention to those which straggle behind in the wake. They are stirred up by a second bidarka, and none make the least attempt to diverge from that track which the swifter mark out in advance. If they did, they could escape " scot-free " in any one of the twenty minutes of this aquatic passage.
By consulting the map of St. Paul it will be observed that in a direct line
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OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
The procession of sea-lions, managed in this strange manner day and night-for the natives never let up-is finally brought to rest within a stone's throw of the village, which has pleasurablentici- pated for days and for weeks its arrival, and rejoices in its appear- ance. The men get out their old rifles and large sea-lion lances, and sharpen their knives, while the women look well to their oil- pouches, and repair to the field of slaughter with meat-baskets on their heads.
No attempt is made, even by the boldest Aleut, to destroy an adult bull sea-lion by spearing the enraged, powerful beast, which, now familiar with man and conscious, as it were, of his puny strength, would seize the lance between its jaws and shake it from the hands of the stoutest one in a moment. Recourse is had to a rifle. The herd is started up those sloping flanks of the Black Bluff hillside ; the females speedily take the front, while the old males hang behind. Then the marksmen, walking up to within a few paces of each animal, deliberately draw gun-sight upon their heads and shoot them just between the eye and the ear. The old males thus destroyed, the cows and females are in turn surrounded by the natives, who, dropping their rifles, thrust big heavy iron lances into their trembling bodies at a point behind the fore flip-
between the village and Northeast Point there are quite a number of small lakes, including this large one of Meesulkmahnee. Into all of these ponds the sea-lion drove is successively driven. This interposition of fresh water at such frequent intervals serves to shorten the time of that journey fully ten days in warmish weather, and at least four or five under the best of climatic conditions.
This track between Webster's house and the village killing-grounds is strewn with the bones of Eumetopias. They will drop in their tracks now and then, even when carefully driven, from cerebral or spinal congestion princi- pally, and when they are hurried the mortality en route is very great. The natives when driving them keep them going day and night alike, but give them frequent resting-spells after every spurt ahead. The old bulls flounder along for a hundred yards or so, then sullenly halt to regain breath, five or ten minutes being allowed them; then they are stirred up again, and so on, hour after hour, until the tedious transit is completed.
The younger sea-lions and the cows which are in the drove carry them- selves easily far ahead of the bulls, and, being thus always in the van, serve unconsciously to stimulate and coax the heavy males to travel. Otherwise I do not believe that a band of old bulls exclusively could be driven down over this long road successfully.
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THE ALASKAN SEA-LION.
pers, touching the heart with a single lunge. It is an unparalleled spectacle, dreadfully cruel and bloody .*
This surrounding of the cows is, perhaps, the strangest proced- ure on the islands. To fully appreciate this subject the reader must first call to his mind's eye the fact that these female sea-lions, though small beside the males, are yet large animals ; seven and eight feet long and weighing each as much as any four or five average men. But, in spite of their strength and agility, fifteen or twenty Aleutes, with rough, iron-tipped lances in their hands, will surround a drove of fifty or one hundred and fifty of them by form- ing a noisy, gesticulating circle, gradually closing up, man to man, until the sea-lions are literally piled in a writhing, squirming, struggling inass, one above the other, three or four deep, heads, flippers, bellies, backs, all so woven and interwoven in this panic- stricken heap of terrified creatures that it defies adequate descrip- tion. The natives spear those cows on top, which, as they sink in
" When slowly sketching, by measurements, the outlines of a fine adult bull sea-lion which the ball from Booterin's rifle had just destroyed, an old " starooka " came up abruptly ; not seeming to see me. she deliberately threw down a large, greasy, skin meat-bag, and whipping ont a knife, went to work on my specimen. Curiosity prompted me to keep still, in spite of the first sensations of annoyance, so that I might watch her choice and use of the ani- mal's carcass. She first removed the skin, being actively aided in this opera- tion by an uncouth boy ; she then cut off the palins to both fore flippers; the boy at the same time pulled out its mustache-bristles ; she then cut out its gullet, from the glottis to its junction with the stomach, carefully divested it of all fleshy attachments and fat ; she then cut out the stomach itself, and turned it inside out, carelessly scraping its gastric walis free of copious biliary secretions, the inevitable bunch of ascaris ; she then told the boy to take hold of the duodenum end of the small intestine, and, as he walked away with it. she rapidly cleared it of its attachments, so that it was thus uncoiled to its full length of at least sixty feet ; then she severed it and then it was re-coiled by the "melchiska," and laid up with the other members just removed, ex- cept the skin, which she had nothing more to do with. She then cut out the liver and ate several large pieces of that workhouse of the blood before drop- ping it into her meat-pouch. She then raked up several handfuls of the " leaf-lard," or hard, white fat that is found in moderate quantity around the viscera of all these pinnipeds, which she also dumped into the flesh-bag ; she then drew her knife through the large heart, but did not touch it otherwise, looking at it intently, however, as it still quivered in unison with the warm flesh of the whole carcass. She and the boy then poked their fingers into the tumid lobes of the immense lungs, cutting out portions of them only, which
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OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
death, are mounted in turn by the live animals underneath ; these meet the deadly lance, in order, and so on until the whole herd is quiet and stilled in the fatal ebbing of their hearts' blood.
Although the sea-lion has little or no commercial value for us, yet to the service of the natives themselves, who live all along the Bering Sea coast of Alaska, Kamchatka, and the Kuriles, it is in- valuable ; they set great store by it. It supplies them with its hide, mustaches, flesh, fat, sinews, and intestines, which they make up in- to as many necessary garments, food-dishes, etc. They have abun- dant reason to treasure its skin highly, since it is the covering to their neat bidarkas and bidarrahs, the former being the small kayak of Bering Sea, while the latter is a boat of all work, exploration and transportation. These skins are unhaired by sweating in a pile, then they are deftly sewed and carefully stretched over a light keel and frame of wood, making a perfectly water-tight boat that will stand, uninjured, the softening influence of water for a day or two
were also put into the grimy ponch aforesaid ; then she secured the gall-blad- der and slipped it into a small yeast-powder tin, which was produced by the urchin ; then she finished her economical dissection by cutting the sinews out of its back in unbroken bulk from the cervical vertebra to the sacrum ; all these were stuffed into that skin bag, which she threw on her back and sup- ported it by a band over her head ; she then trudged back to the barrabkie from whence she sallied a short hour ago, like an old vulture to the slaughter. She made the following disposition of its contents: The palms were used to sole a pair of tarbosars, or native boots, of which the uppers and knee-tops were made of the gullets-one sea-lion gullet to each boot-top; the stomach was carefully blown up and left to dry on the barrabkie roof, eventually to be filled with oil rendered from sea-lion or fur-seal blubber. The small intestine was carefully injected with water and cleansed, then distended with air, and pegged out between two stakes, sixty feet apart, with little cross-slats here and there between to keep it clear of the ground. When it is thoroughly dry it is ripped up in a straight line with its length and pressed out into a broad band of parchment gut, which she cuts up and uses in making a water proof " kamlayka," sewing it with those sinews taken from the back. The liver. leaf lard, and lobes of the lungs were eaten without further cooking, and the little gall-bag was for some use in poulticing a scrofulous sore. The mustache- bristles were a venture of the boy, who gathers all that he can, then sends them to San Francisco, where they find a ready sale to the Chinese, who pay about one cent apiece for them. When the natives cut up a sea-lion carcass, or one of a fur-seal, on the killing-grounds for meat, they take only the hams and the loins. Later in the season they eat the entire carcass, which they hang up by its hind flippers on a " laabas " by their houses.
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THE ALASKAN SEA-LION.
at a time, if properly air-dried and oiled. After being used during the day these skin boats are always drawn out on the beach, turned bottom-side up and air-dried during the night-in this way made ready for employment again on the morrow.
A peculiar value is attached to the intestines of the sea-lion, which, after skinning, are distended with air and allowed to dry in that shape ; then they are cut into ribbons and sewed strongly together into that most characteristic rain-proof garment of the world, known as the "kamlayka," which, while being fully as water-repellant as india-rubber, has far greater strength, and is never affected by grease and oil. It is also transparent in its fit- ting over dark clothes. The sea-lions' throats are treated in a similar manner, and when cured, are made into boot tops, which
. off
The " Bidarrah."
[Characteristic Alaskan bout, made by fitting sea-lion skins orer a wooden frame and keel.]
are in turn soled by very tough skin that composes the palms of this animal's fore flippers.
The Aleutian name for this garment is unpronounceable in our language, and equally so in the more flexible Russian ; hence the Alaskan " kamlayka," derived from the Siberian "kamlaia." That is made of tanned reindeer skin, unhaired, and smoked by larch bark until it is colored a saffron yellow ; and is worn over a rein- deer-skin undershirt, which has the hair next to its owner's skin, and the obverse side stained red by a decoction of alder bark. The kamläia is closed behind and before, and a hood, fastened to the back of the neck, is drawn over the head, when leaving shelter ; so is the Aleutian kamlayka ; only the one of Kolyma is used to keep out piercing dry cold, while the garment of the Bering Sea is a per- fect water-tight affair.
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OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
Around the natives' houses, on St. Paul and St. George, con- stantly appear curious objects which, to an unaccustomed eye, re- semble overgrown gourds or enormous calabashes with attenuated necks ; examination proves them to be the dried, distended stom- ach-walls of a sea-lion, filled with its oil-which (unlike the offen- sive blubber of the fur-seal) boils out clear and inodorous from its fat. The flesh of an old sea-lion, while not very palatable, is taste- less and dry : but the meat of a yearling is very much like veal, and when properly cooked I think it is just as good ; but the superior- ity of sea-lion meat over that of the fur-seal is decidedly marked. It requires some skill in the cuisine ere sausage and steaks of the Callorhinus are accepted on the table ; while it does not, however, require much art, experience, or patience for good cooks to serve up the juicy ribs of a young sea-lion so that the most fastidious palate will not fail to relish it.
The carcass of a sea-lion, after it is stripped of its hide, and disembowelled, is hung up in cool weather by its hind flippers, over a rude wooden frame or "labaas," as the natives call such a struc- ture, where, together with many more bodies of fur-seals treated in the same manner, it serves from November until the following sea- son of May, as the meat-house for an Aleut on St. Paul and St. George. Exposed in this manner to open weather, the natives keep their seal-meat almost any length of time, in winter, for use ; and, like our old duck and bird-hunters, they say they prefer to have this flesh tainted rather than fresh, declaring that it is most ten- der and toothsome when decidedly "loud."
The tough, elastic mustache-bristles of a sea-lion are objects of great commercial activity by the Chinese, who prize them highly as pickers for their opium pipes, and several ceremonies peculiar to their joss-houses. Such lip-bristles of the fur-seal are usually too small and too elastic for this service. The natives, however, always carefully pluck them out of the Eumetopias, and get their full value in exchange.
The sea-lion also, as in the case of the fur-seal, is a fish-eater, pure and simple, though he, like the latter, occasionally varies his diet by consuming a limited amount of juicy sea-weed fronds, and tender marine crustaceans ; but he hunts no animal whatever for food, nor does he ever molest, up here, the sea-fowl that incessantly hover over his head, or sit in flocks without any fear on the surface of the waters around him. He, like Callorhinus, is, without ques-
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THE ALASKAN SEA-LION.
tion, a mighty fisherman, familiar with every submarine haunt of his piscatorial prey ; and, like his cousin, rejects the heads of all those fish which have hard horny mouths or are filled with teeth or bony plates.
Many authorities who are quoted in regard to the habits of hair-seals and southern sea-lions speak with much fine detail of hay- ing witnessed the capture of water-birds by Phocide and Otariide. To this point of inquiry on the Pribylov Islands I gave continued close attention ; because, off and around all of the rookeries, large flocks of auks, arries, gulls, shags, and chioochkies were swimming upon the water, and shifting thereupon incessantly, day and night, throughout the late spring, summer, and early fall. During the four seasons of my observation I never saw the slightest motion made by a fur-seal or sea-lion, a hair-seal or a walrus, toward inten- tionally disturbing a single bird, much less of capturing and eating it. Had these seals any appetite for sea-fowl, this craving could have been abundantly satisfied at the expense of absolutely no effort on their part. That none of these animals have any taste for water- birds I am thoroughly assured.
In concluding this recitation of that wonderful seal life be- longing to those islets of Pribylov, it is well to emphasize the fact that, with an exception of the Russian and American seal islands of Bering Sea, there are none elsewhere in the world of the slightest importance to-day ; the vast breeding-grounds of fur-seals border- ing on the Antarctic have been, by the united efforts of all nation- alities-misguided, short-sighted, and greedy of gain-entirely de- populated ; only a few thousand unhappy stragglers are now to be seen throughout all that southern area, where millions once were found, and a small rookery, protected and fostered by the govern- ment of a South American State, north and south of the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. When, therefore, we note the eagerness with which our civilization calls for seal-skin fur, the fact that in spite of fashion and its caprices this fur is and always will be an article of intrinsic value and in demand, the thought at once occurs that the Government is exceedingly fortunate in having this great am- phibious stock-yard, far up and away in the quiet seclusion of Ber- ing Sea, from which it shall draw an everlasting revenue, and on which its wise regulation and its firm hand can continue the seals forever.
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