USA > Alaska > Our Arctic province, Alaska and the Seal islands > Part 7
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are fearless and brave, yet they know no open, fair fight-taught to get his living by stratagem when fishing or hunting, so the Kolosh advances in capturing his human enemies, just as all other Indians have done and do.
Each village has a well-recognized head man, or chief, who, though possessing much influence, still never has had, and does not now enjoy, that absolute rule which is attributed to such Indians. He is really a presiding elder over the several families in the hamlet, and, without their consent, his decisions are futile or carry no weight. He has no power to compel other members of the tribe to work, hunt, or fish for him, and if he builds a house, or a canoe, he has to hire them to labor by making the customary "potlatch," just as any other man of the tribe would do-only he must give a little more. The social rules which exist among these savages show many strange features, for though every rancherie has its freely- acknowledged chief, yet they are divided into as many or more families than there are houses, each one of which has its own regu- lations, and a subordinate authority of its own governing it, and it alone .*
The Sitkan Indians trouble themselves very little about the inte- rior country ; but the coast line, and especially the margins of rivers and streams, are duly divided up among the different fami- lies. These tracts are regarded as strictly private property, just as we would regard them if fenced in as farms and cattle ranches- and they are passed from one generation to the other in the line of savage inheritance ; they may be sold, or even rented by one family desiring to fish, to gather berries, to cut timber, or to hunt on the domain of another. So settled and so strict are these ideas of pro- prietary and vested rights in the soil, that, on some parts of the coast, corner-stones and stakes may be seen to-day set up there to define the limits of such properties between savages, by savages ;
* There are naturally in every clan certain individuals of hereditary Indian wealth and a long pedigree, who speak in better language, who have a fine physical presence, a more dignified bearing, and the self-possession and pride of incarnate egotism. From these men the chiefs are selected, and although the chieftainship is not necessarily hereditary, yet it is often retained in this manner for many generations in one family. The covers of this volume, however, cannot be expanded wide enough to permit the further discussion and enumeration of a thousand and one singular points in this connection which rise in the author's mind.
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and furthermore, woe to the disreputable trespassing Siwash who steps over these boundaries and appropriates anything of value, such, for instance, as a stranded whale, shark, seal, or otter-ber- ries, wreckage, or shell-fish.
The woods and the waters are teeming with animal life ; the lofty semi-naked peaks harbor mountain goats in large flocks ; the beau- tiful grouse of Sabine hides in the forest thickets ; the land otter and the mule-eared deer haunt the countless ravines, valleys, and rivulet bottoms ; salmon in fabulous numbers run up those streams, and big, brown and glossy black bears come down to fatten upon these spawning fish. But the Sitkan savage is indolent, and, though all this dietary abundance and variety is before him, he lives quite exclusively upon halibut and salmon, the former mostly fresh and the latter air-dried and smoked in the soot of his rancherie. Hali- but he finds all the year round ; salmon briefly run only at widely separated periods.
The halibut fishery is the one systematic regular occupation of the natives. These fish may be taken in all waters of the archipelago at almost any season, though on certain banks, well known to the Indians, they are more numerous at times. When the halibut are most active and abundant, the Koloshians take them in large quan- tities, fishing with a hook and line from their canoes, which are an- chored over the favored spots by stones attached to cedar-bark ropes or cables. They still employ their own primitive, clumsy-look- ing hook in decided preference to using our own make. When the canoe is loaded to the gunwale by an alert fisherman, these halibut are brought in to some convenient adjacent point on the shore, where they are handed over to the women, who are there to take care of them, usually living in a temporary rancherie. They squat around the pile, rapidly clean the fish, removing the larger bones, head, fins, and tail, and cut it into broad, thin flakes. These are then hung on the poles of a wooden frame trellis, where, without salt, and by the wind and sun alone, sometimes aided by a slow fire underneath the suspended fish-meat, the flakes are sufficiently cured and dried ; then they are packed away in those characteristic cedar boxes for future use.
A group of old and young squaws, half-nude, flecked with shining scales and splashed with blood, as they always are when at work upon a fine run of halibut or salmon-such a group is to be vividly remembered ever afterward, if you see it even but once. The lit-
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tle pappooses, entirely naked, with big heads and bellies, slender necks and legs, are running hither and thither in infantile glee and sport, always with a mouthful of raw ova or a handful of stewed fish from the kettle near by, while the babies, propped up in their stiff-backed lashings, croon and sleep away the time.
There are no rivers of any size flowing on the islands of the Sit- kan archipelago ; but there are rapid rivulets and broad brooks in great numbers. Many of these are large enough to be known as " salmon rivers." The first run of those attractive fish usually takes place up some of the longest island-streams and the mainland rivers about July 10th to 20th. A month later a larger species begins to arrive from the depths of the ocean outside, and this run sometimes lasts, in a desultory manner, until January. These salmon, when they first appear, are fat and in superb condition and color ; but as they leave the salt water and take up their persistent, tireless ascent of fresh-water channels they become hook-jawed, lean, and pale- fleshed. They ascend very small streams in especially great num- bers when these rivulets are swollen by the heavy rains of October, and, being easily caught and very large, they constitute the chief harvest of the Alaskan Indian-his meat and bread, in fact. They are either speared in the shallow estuaries or trapped in brush and split-stick weirs, which are planted in the streams. Everyone of the little salmon brooks has its owner in the Indian law. They are the private property of the several families or subdivisions of the clans. Those people always come out of their permanent village houses during the fishing period, and camp upon the banks of their respective water claims.
It is quite unnecessary to itemize all the species of food-fishies in the Alexander archipelago, for anything and everything that is at all abundant in the vicinity of an Indian rancherie is sure to be eaten ; trout, herring, flounders, rock-cod, and the rosy, glittering sebastines constitute minor details of the savage dietary. Codfish are taken in these waters, but not in great numbers, nor are they especially sought for. The spawn of the herring * is collected on spruce boughs, which the Indians carefully place at low-water on the spawning grounds ; then, when taken up, it is smoke-dried and stored away.
But the "loudest" feast of these savages consists of a box, just
* Clupea mirabilis.
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opened, of semi-rotten salmon-roe. Many of the Siwashes have a custom of collecting the ova, putting it into wooden boxes, and then burying it below high-water mark on the earthen flats above. When decomposition has taken place to a great extent, and the mass has a most penetrating and far-reaching "funk," then it is ready to be eaten and made merry over. The box is usually un- covered without removing it from its buried position ; the eager savages all squat around it, and eat the contents with every indica- tion on their hard faces of keen gastronomic delight-faugh !
The same ill-favored and heartily-hated " dog-fish "* of our Cape Cod fishermen is also very abundant in these far-away waters.
-
Indians Raking Oolochans and Herring .- Stickeen River.
Recently, the demand created for its oil by the tanneries of Oregon and California has made its capture by the Indians an important source of revenue to them ; the oil rendered from its liver is readily sold by them to the white traders, who also have established a fishery for the purpose on Prince of Wales Island. These traders also are making good use of herring-oil, which is to be secured here in unfailing, abundant supply, to any quantity required.
The most grateful condiment to the Sitkan palate is rancid fish- oil, or oolachan "butter"-a semi-solid grease, with a fetid smell and taste ; into this they always dip or rub their flakes of dried fish,
* Squalus acanthias.
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OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
their berries, in fact everything that they eat. A little wooden trencher or tub, grotesquely carved, always is to be seen (and smelled), placed alongside of the monotonous kettle of stewed fish, or pile of dried fish, which constitutes the regular spread for a full meal. And again, a very curious, soap-like use of this oil is made by the younger and more comely savages. An Indian never washes in water up in this wet and watery wilderness. I never have seen an attempt made to wash the face or hands with water, but they do rub oil vigor- ously over, and scrub it off bright and dry with a towel, or mop, of cedar-bark shreds or dry sedge-grass. The constant presence of this strong-flavored oil renders it a physical impossibility for a white man, not long-accustomed to its odor, to enter a rancherie and eat with the inmates, unless the pangs of starvation make him ravenous.
Whether from taste itself, or sheer indolence, the culinary art of these people is confined to the incessant simmering and boiling of everything which is not eaten raw, or ripe ; copper, sheet-iron, and brass kettles being now universally used, are the only decid- ed innovation made by contact with ourselves in their aboriginal cooking outfit, though the introduction of tin and cheap earthen- ware dishes is growing more general every day. Most of the In- dian household utensils are made of wood; they are fashioned in several forms or types, which appear to have been faithfully copied from early time. The berry and the food-trays are cut out of solid pieces of wood, the length being about one and one-third times as great as the width, while the depth is relatively small. In some of the large rancheries these trays, or troughs, are six to ten feet long ; the outer ends of those receptacles are generally carved richly in all sorts of fancy relief ; and, sometimes, the sides are grotesquely painted. A common form, and smaller in size, and a great favorite with the family, is boat-shaped, the hollow of the dish being oval ; the ends are provided with odd prow-shaped projections that serve as handles-one of these ends being usually carved into the head and fore-feet of some animal or bird, the other to represent its hind-feet and tail. These dishes are seldom more than eight or ten inches in length, and curve upward from the middle each way, like the "sheer," or the gunwale, of a clipper ship.
Water-dippers, pot-spoons and ladles are made from horns of the mountain sheep. They are steamed, bent, and pared down thin, carved and shaped so as to be exceedingly symmetrical, and well finished. The stew and berry-spoons in ordinary use are made
A STICKEEN SQUAW
Boiling Berries and Oil, Toasting Herrings, etc.
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ABORIGINAL LIFE OF THE SITKANS.
from the stiff, short black horns of the mountain goat, the handles often carved to represent a human form, animal, or bird. Knives of all sorts are now in use. Much ingenuity is often exhibited by the adaptation of old blades to new handles-in converting the large, flat blacksmithing files into keen weapons, and making fish- cleaning knives out of pieces of iron ; thin, square or oblong sheets of this metal are so fitted into oblong wooden handles as to re- semble the small hash-knives used in our kitchens.
But the Sitkan housekeeper glories in her boxes-great chests and little ones-in which she stores everything of value belonging to the family, except the dogs and the canoes. The big boxes, corded up with bark ropes, are her blanket and fur treasuries ; the smaller ones contain her oolachan " butter " and dried fish and meat. The larger chests are from two and a half to four feet square ; the lesser are between a foot to two feet. The sides of such a box are made of a single piece of thinly shaven cedar board, which by steaming is bent three times at a right angle, and pegged tightly and very neatly up to the fourth corner. The bottom is a separate solid plank, keyed in with little pegs very solidly, and water-tight ; the cover is cut out of a thick slab, and fits over and sets down heavily on the upper edge of the chest. Those boxes are all decorated in designs of the peculiar type so common among these savages, painted in black and white. The next desideratum of the squaw is . a full supply of cedar-bark mats, which she plaits from strips of this material, and which are always spread out on the ground or rude plank floor when the Indian prepares to roll up in his blanket for slumber. Such mats are the pride of all Thlinket squaws, and vary much in texture and in pattern.
But the daily routine of the dusky housekeeper is a very dif- ferent one indeed from that characteristic of woman's labor in car- ing for our homes. No sweeping or dusting in the Indian ranch- erie ; no bed-chambers to change the linen in and tidy up ; no kitchen or servants to look after ; nothing whatever of the kind. Yet the Indian matron is always busy. She has to hew the firewood and drag it in ; she has to carry water and attend to all of the rude cooking and filling of the trenchers ; she looks after the mats and the sewing of the children's fur and other garments-not much to be sure in the way of dressmaking-she has to make all of the tedi- ous berry-trips, picking and drying of the fruit, as well as attending to the preservation, in the same manner, of the fish and game which
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the man brings in. She has an infinite amount of drudgery to do in the line of gathering certain herbs, bark, and shell-fish. Many small roots indigenous to the country, containing more or less starch, are eagerly sought after, dried, and stored away by the women. The inner sap-layer of the spruce and also that of the hemlock-the cambium layer-is collected by cutting the trees down and then barking the trunks for that object. It is shaved off in ribbons and eaten in great quantities, both fresh and dried, and is considered very wholesome. It is sweet, mucilaginous, but dis- tinctly resinous in flavor. The rank-growing seeds, shoots, and leaf-stalks of the Epilobium heracleum, and many others, are plucked and carried by the squaws in huge bundles to the family fire, and there eaten by all hands, the stalks being dipped, mouth- ful after mouthful, in oil.
She has, however, no washing whatever of clothes to do for any- body, except what little she may see fit to do for herself; she never treats the dishes even to that ordeal. With all this, however, it seems rather strange that the clothes of the Indians, consisting of dresses, shirts and blankets for the men ; and for women, petticoats, chemises, dresses (sometimes), and blankets also-that these articles usually appear neat and tolerably clean-the children excepted, as they are always dirty beyond all adequate description. Every indi- vidual attends to his or her own washing-if the husband wants a clean shirt, he washes it himself.
Before the introduction of the potato through early white fur- traders, the only plant cultivated by the Alaskan savages was a po- tent weed which they grew as a substitute for tobacco-the impor- tation of the latter, however, has taken its place entirely to-day, be- cause the Virginian weed is far more pleasant. But the old stone mortars and pestles that are still to be found knocking around the most venerable town-sites, bear evidence to the industry of making native tobacco here ages ago. This plant was prepared for use by drying over a fire on a little frame stretcher, then bruised to a powder in the stone mortars, then moistened and pressed into cakes. It was not smoked in a pipe, but, mixed with a little clam- shell lime (burnt for the purpose), it was chewed or held in the cheek, just as the Peruvian Indians use coca .* Everybody knows
* This accounts for the puzzling appearance of ancient stone mortars and pestles in Alaska, throughout the Sitkan region. Ethnologists have endeav-
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ABORIGINAL LIFE OF THE SITKANS.
how fond Indians are of tobacco-there is no exception to the rule in Alaska, and no excuse for attempting to recite in these pages the well-worn story anew.
No domesticated animals, except dogs, are to be found with the Alaskan Indians-no cats or fowls. The original breed of curs has been very much disguised by imported strains ; the present natives are gray and black, shaggy, wolfish beasts, about the size of a large spitz dog. These cowardly, treacherous animals alone make a white man's stay in an Indian village a burden to his existence.
The work bestowed by several of the Sitkan clans upon their so- called potato gardens is hardly to be designated as the " cultiva- tion " of that tuber. It forms to-day, this vegetable does, a very important part of the food-supply, and where a white man takes hold of such a garden the result, in a small way, is very satisfac- tory ; but the Siwash finds that the greater part of the low, flat, richi soil in this country is so thickly wooded that the task of clear- ing the ground is altogether too much for him to even consider, much less undertake. But when he can find a place where an old settlement once existed, though long abandoned-there the sites of decayed rancheries are sure to be of rich, warm soil-such are the spots which the Siwash calls his garden, and where his potatoes are rudely planted, little or no attention being paid to the hoeing and drilling which we deem essential, therefore the variety in use has been run down so that the size and yield is very small, and the quality watery and poor.
While we observe the very general possession of firearms in every rancherie, and we hardly ever see a canoe-load of savages unless the barrels of several muskets or rifles project over the gunwale, yet these Sitkan Indians are not great hunters ; but the potent fact that there is no place in all this region where foot travel is practicable into the interior, or even along the coast margin it- self, affords an excellent reason ; they do, however, kill a very con- siderable number of black bears every year, at two special seasons therein, i.e., when these brutes are found prowling upon the sea- beach. But they never follow bruin into the mountainous re- cesses, where he invariably retreats.
ored to reason that certain extinct tribes must have cultivated grain up here of some kind and used it as food. I am indebted to the venerable Dr. W. F. Tolmie for this fact, he showing me the mortars and giving the reason of their use in December, 1866, at Victoria, B. C.
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In the early spring, during that brief period when the weeds and grasses first grow green along the outskirts of the timber in warm sheltered nooks down by the tide-level, black bears come below from the cold, gloomy canons above and feed upon the sprouting skunk-cabbage * and other succulent shoots, browsing here and rooting up there, these tender growths, just as hogs do in our orchards and clover-fields. Again, late in autumn, when the salmon rush up into the estuaries and through the shallows by countless myriads, bruin is once more tempted down to the sea- beaches, and again gets into trouble. In the same manner the Indians secure the beautiful little mule-deer,t which also loves tender vegetation, and in this love falls an easy prey to the silent approach of a canoe with its skulking crew. Geese and ducks, dur- ing winter months, spend much time on the quiet fiords in large flocks, and constitute the chief gunning of the Siwashes, who shoot them from their canoes with the same old flint-lock trade-muskets first used by the whites a hundred years ago. The Indian admires this pattern still above all other patterns-despises the percussion- cap, which in this damp region often fails him, and the trader, knowing this weakness of the savage, always has a stock of these flint-lock muskets, newly made, on hand. A supply is steadily furnished by the Hudson's Bay Company at Victoria.
But the one thing of joy, of delight, and of infinite use to the native of the Sitkan archipelago is his canoe. Life, indeed, would be a sad problem for him were it not for this adjunct of his own creation. Upon its construction he lavishes the best of his thought, the height of his manual skill, and his infinite patience. The re- sult of this attention is to fashion from a single cedar log a little vessel which challenges our admiration invariably, for its fine out- line and its seaworthiness and strength.
All the canoes of this region have a common model, and are simi- lar in type, though they differ much in details of shape and size. They are all made from the indigenous pine # and giant cedar, § the wood of which is light, durable, and worked very readily ; but it is apt to split parallel to its grain. This constitutes the only solici-
* Lysichiton sp.
+ Cerrus columbianus-a well-grown specimen weighs about one hundred and fifty pounds. Great numbers are taken in the Tahkoo region, though it is found everywhere.
# Abies sitkensis.
§ Thuja gigantea.
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tude of the Indian's mind. He keeps the canoe covered with mats and brush whenever it is hauled out, even for a few days, to avoid this danger, for whenever a canoe is heavily laden, and working, as it will do, in a rough channel, it is in constant danger of splitting at the cleavage lines of its grain, and thus jeopardizing its living as well as dead freight.
With an exception of the bow and stern-pieces, each eanoe, no matter how large or how small, is made in the same manner and from a single log, which is roughed out in the forest, then towed around to the permanent village, where it is hauled up in front of the architect's house. Here he works upon it during winter months, usually in odd hours, employing nothing but his little adze-like hat- ehet and fire to assist in giving it shape and fine lines. The requi- site expansion amidships, to afford that beam required, is effected by steaming with water and hot stones and the insertion of several thwart stieks. Canoes are smoothed outside and painted black, with a red or white streak under the gunwale in most cases ; inside they bear the regular fine tooth-marks of the excavating adze, and are smeared with red-ochre. The paddles are usually made of yel- low cypress, and a great variety of small wooden baling dippers are also provided, one or two for each canoe, because the water often slops over the gunwales in bad weather. The canoe itself is never suffered to leak. The average size is one of fifteen to twenty feet in length, which will carry from eight to ten savages, with baggage. One having a length of from thirty to thirty-five feet carries as many men. The smaller canoes of from twelve to thirteen feet are usually used by one or two savages in their quick, irregular trips to and from the village, and are easily launched and hauled out by one man.
It is very doubtful, indeed, whether the Sitkan ever took or takes any real enjoyment in hunting or fishing. If he does, it is never exhibited on his countenance or evidenced by his language. It is, in fact, the serious business of his life, and the steady routine of its prosecution has robbed him of every enjoyable sporting sensa- tion which we love to experience when after fish or game. Per- haps, however, he may recall the thrill of that feeling which he felt when, as a boy, he was first taken out in his father's canoe to the halibut banks, and there permitted to bait a huge wooden hook and haul away upon the taut kelp-line when the "kambala " had swallowed it; but the necessity of going out to this shoal in all
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sorts of disagreeable weather every summer and winter of his sub- sequent existence, at very frequent intervals, soon destroyed pleas- urable emotions. Therefore, he fashions his acute-angled wooden hooks, his iron-tipped fish and seal spears, and polishes up his mus- ket with none of those enjoyable anticipations which possess the soul of a white sportsman.
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