USA > Alaska > Our northern domain: Alaska, picturesque, historic and commercial > Part 10
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There are twelve hotels, two daily papers, printed on cylinder presses, a weekly and a quarterly, two generously managed hospitals, and five churches, a large theater, clubs and other adjuncts to instruc- tion and amusement. The four-year course at the Fairbanks high school admits to Washington State University by certificate.
Within a few miles of Fairbanks more than thirty thousand acres of productive land have been preempted according to the United States homestead laws and the productiveness of the soil is amazing to all visitors. This is especially true of the region round the Hot Springs in the lower valley of the Tanana, where all sorts of delicious vegetables are raised and the hay crop is enormous. The town is governed by a council of seven members and a courtesy mayor. The finances are provided by various forms of taxation and assessment, and in 1906 the budget amounted to almost a hundred thousand dollars, which
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supports the fire department, the police, the streets and the hos- pitals.
During the last long reaches of the Yukon through low-lying plains the principal town to interest the traveller is Nulato, of tragic memory. It is about three hundred miles below Tanana. Here occurred bloody encounters with savage natives and more than once the fortification there was destroyed and all its garrison murdered.
Nulato is within the United States Reindeer Reserve and is one of the headquarters for the herd. These are the result of the application made by the Jesuit director of the Roman Catholic Mission, who, in 1899, wrote Dr. Sheldon Jackson, assuring him that there was plenty of deer moss within sixty miles of that place.
CHAPTER XIV.
REINDEER AND ESKIMOS.
T r HE story of the introduction of the reindeer into Alaska is most interesting. They have long been comparatively abundant on the other side of Bering Strait but had never been brought to Alaska, nor had any serious attempt ever been made to domesticate the caribou. On the Asian continent his value had long been recog- nized. Like the banyan tree of the Tropics this product of the North is useful in every part to the native. His flesh is nutritious and espe- cially rich in carbon. The milk is used for drinking and for cheese; the horns are utilized for making knife handles, or when scraped for form- ing ammonia ; the skins are invaluable for clothing and for boots; even the entrails are valuable. The animals feed on the moss of the tundra which has been repeatedly pointed out as sufficient to support ten mil- lions of them; they find it for themselves, scratching up the snow with their sharp hoofs. They require no grass, hay or grain. As car- riers across the snow they are far superior to the Eskimo or malamute dogs, and more reliable, a team often being able to make one hundred miles a day.
Dr. Sheldon Jackson, Commissioner of Education for Alaska, con- ceived the plan of importing a sufficient number of these reindeer from Siberia, together with a number of Laplanders, Finns and Norwegians who were acquainted with their habits and management, so as to train the native Eskimo in the use of the animals. It was felt by him that as the native population was becoming more and more desperate owing to diminution of their natural food supply something should be done to support the unfortunates. With great difficulty he prevailed upon
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Congress to appropriate a fund for this purpose. His plan was to introduce at each of the thirty-nine schools scattered through the frozen north, from the Yukon to the end of the Aleutian Islands, a nucleus of a herd which should be under the care of reliable natives selected by the teachers. He assured the Government that " reindeer entrusted to the ordinary individual savage would disappear within a twelve- month after they had been given to him." So he inaugurated the pol- icy of lending small herds to missionary societies, the Government reserving the right, after a term of not less than three years, to call upon the mission station for the same number of deer that composed the herd leased, being regarded as " in the nature of an outfit of indus- trial apparatus." Knowing the natural increase of the reindeer he predicted that a herd of five hundred ought to furnish an increase of two hundred each spring. In 1891 sixteen head of reindeer were intro- duced as an experiment; by natural increase and by the accretion of others imported from Siberia, in two years the number had risen to fourteen hundred and sixty-six. The next year one hundred and sixty- one were imported from Siberia, and in spite of some losses by the next year they had increased to more than two thousand. At the pres- ent time the herds are estimated to amount to more than ten times that number, some under Federal control, others loaned to missions for the purposes of industrial training, and still others kept at special stations for emergency purposes.
How useful they may be in such circumstances is well shown by a report made to the Government by the Honorable John G. Brady, the former missionary Governor of Alaska, in 1899. After showing how unjust many persons and even newspapers had been in reviling the chief promoter of the scheme, and calling it a fad, he goes on to say : " The purchase of several hundred of these animals in Norway and Lapland and their shipment across the Atlantic and the continent and by steamship again from Seattle to Haines Mission, and the dying of a large proportion of them at that point, and all the subsequent evils, had nothing to do with the problems of the introduction of domestic
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reindeer into western and northern Alaska for the use of the Eskimos. When editors and writers raise the cry of ' failure ' and ' fad ' they simply show that they are not acquainted with the facts, or, if they are, that they are prejudiced and are not willing to stick to the truth.
" At the very time the cry of starvation was raised in the newspapers concerning the miners on the Klondike, another cry went up that a large number of whalers at Point Barrow were caught in the ice and unless they got relief many would starve to death before spring. Ac- cordingly the revenue cutter Bear was outfitted and sent to give relief. She landed a party of three officers - Lieutenants Jarvis and Berthoff and Dr. Call. Under conditions that try men's souls, they made their way from the spot where they were landed at Cape Vancouver, a long distance south of the Yukon River, around the margin of the coast, till they came to the missionary reindeer station at Port Clarence. Here Mr. W. T. Lopp and the native Eskimo, Antisarlook, at the earnest entreaty of Lieutenant Jarvis, turned over their herds of reindeer to him, amounting in all to four hundred and thirty-seven animals, and the natives not only parted with their animals, but volunteered to go with Lieutenant Jarvis to drive them to Point Barrow.
" After several fearful weeks they reached that station and gave immediate relief to those hungry men and kept them alive until the icepack broke up. About a hundred of these animals had to be slaugh- tered. Surely there was no ' fad ' about reindeer at this point. The food they afforded kept two hundred souls alive. Who has ever seen a single notice of this event to the credit of the reindeer, the missionary or the native? Attention was called last year to the heroism of the above-mentioned officers. It will surely compare well with any act of bravery that has occurred within recent years, and we think that Congress should not allow another session to pass without giving them due recognition."
Congress ultimately granted Lieutenant Jarvis a medal for gallant conduct.
The imported Lapps and such natives as took hold of the industry
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have prospered to such an extent that some of them have accumulated herds of more than a hundred, and one woman, Mary An-dre-wuk, known as the Reindeer Queen, had in 1905 more than three hundred. The advantage to the natives in inspiring in them self-respect and a sense of independence justified the experiment even had it not proved successful in other respects. It is interesting to know that reindeer moss was recommended as a suitable food for human beings by an edict of Gustavus III of Sweden. The taste of it is slightly pungent or acrid, but rather agreeable. The reindeer require no attention: they find their own food, scraping it up from beneath the snow with their sharp hoofs. They do not thrive on grass, hay or grain, though in summer they like grass. An interesting book might be written on the experiences of those who drove bargains with the native tribes of Siberia for reindeer. They had pretty exciting times. Finally the Russian Government forbade their exportation but not before the in- dustry was well established.
Had it not been for the coast mountains the Yukon might have eu- tered Norton Sound after a straight course of less than a hundred miles from Nulato; instead it skirts these mountains, which are prob- ably packed with gold, and flows almost directly south, part of the way running parallel to the great Kuskokwim, and then turning north, de- bouches into Bering Sea by at least seven mouths. The delta is about a hundred miles wide and the immense quantity of river water pouring out into the sea makes it shallow and fresh for a long distance. The whole region where it ends its course is densely infested with the blood- thirstiest mosquitoes in the world. A sufferer from their torments writes thus feelingly : " Breeding here, as they do in the vast network of slough and swamp, they are able to rally round and to infest the wake and progress of the explorer beyond all adequate description, and language is unable to portray the misery and annoyance accom- panying their presence. It will naturally be asked how do the natives bear this? They too are annoyed and suffer, but it should be borne in mind that their bodies are anointed with rancid oil and certain am-
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moniacal vapors, peculiar to their garments from constant wear, have a repellent power which even the mosquitoes, blood-thirsty as they are, are hardly equal to meet. . ..
" The traveller who exposes his bare eyes or face here loses his nat- ural appearance; his eyelids swell up and close, and his face becomes one mass of lumps and fiery pimples. Mosquitoes torture the Indian dogs to death, especially if one of these animals, by mange or other- wise, loses an inconsiderable portion of its thick hairy covering, and even drive the bear and deer into the water."
This is the barren region of the Coast Eskimos, who, living apart from the whites, have been able to preserve better their integrity than those nearer the settlements.
The Eskimo or Innuit are among the most interesting people of Alaska, forming about sixty per cent. of the whole native population. According to the census of 1890 there were about fourteen thousand of them, mostly settled permanently along the coast of the Bering Sea, and very few, less than one-fifth, within the Arctic Circle. They are by nature " peaceful and docile, trustful and generous." General Greely believes that they are gradually disappearing before the ad- vance of the white men, whose treatment of them, as of all the native races, he calls " disgraceful to a nation claiming to be civilized, human- itarian or Christian." He says :
" In general, contact with the white man has steadily tended to degeneration among the four principal tribes of Alaska, though at times there have been spasmodic and usually fruitless efforts on the part of the United States to correct the most flagrant and degrading violations of personal rights and public decency. ... In a journey of over two thousand miles through Alaska, the writer discussed the situation with a dozen or more missionaries at nine separate stations and representing six religious bodies. Every one answered in the neg- ative when asked if the natives had improved in honesty, the men in industry, the women in chastity, and the youth in promise of higher morality.
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" In mining towns and camps the saloon and dance-house, which foster in men indulgence in liquor and offer to young girls the allure- ments of finery and a life of apparent ease, are factors potent in de- generation and so attractive in appearance that only few natives with- stand them. At remote points traders, fishermen and whalers have been only too often guilty of gross misconduct destructive of the moral char- acter and physical health of the unfortunate native."
General Greely thinks that the Eskimos have suffered more than any other Alaskan race by contact with the white man: "Vitally changed conditions of life have seriously affected the Eskimo, who find their means of subsistence largely destroyed, their habitat in- vaded, and new methods of life forced upon them. Decimated by epidemic diseases introduced by the whites, victims of unprincipled liquor dealers, often maltreated by vicious traders, and exploited by the unscrupulous, the steady degeneration of these hospitable, merry- hearted and simple-minded people is apparently a matter of time. The introduction of the reindeer, the efforts to teach industrial methods and the rendering of medical aid to the suffering, are the only redeem- ing and hopeful features of the Eskimo situation at present."
The origin of the Eskimo is a mooted question, the balance of opin- ion swaying to the conclusion that they did not come from Asia but spread from the East. Their characteristic canoe or kayak, called by the Russians bidarka, is precisely like that used by the Greenland Eskimo. Their skin parka, or outside garment, worn alike by men, women and children, is also characteristic of the whole race. The Alaskan Eskimo are divided into various tribes such as the Kopagmute, Nunatagmute, Mahlemute, Unaligmute, and others, all ending in mute and having similar manners and customs. They have no definitely recognized chief but in each settlement generally one man, a successful trader or fisherman, called the umalik or spokesman, holds some influ- ence among them, not comparable, however, to that of the shaman who takes a great part in their festivities and stimulates their super- stitions. They are skilful fishermen and hunters. Fish they catch
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with hooks and nets; they spear seal on the ice, their implements made of spruce or larch headed with stone or bone or walrus teeth. Parties of a hundred or more natives, all in their kayaks, have been seen silently and in perfect order going out to hunt the beluga or white whale. At a signal given by the leader, the kayaks paddle to seaward of the school and yelling and shrieking and splashing with paddles and spears, frighten the belugas ashore. In former days they would sometimes secure as many as a hundred in a single day. Wounded whales would be kept afloat by means of inflated bladders made of young sealskins.
A feast would follow the slaughter of the beluga, the natives liking the blubber and meat uncooked, or at least parboiled, with whale or seal oil as a sauce. The skins they tan with putrefied fish roe. In summer they do their cooking out of doors and live in log houses roofed with skins and open in front, without chimneys. Their winter houses are half underground huts, often constructed of whale ribs against which are piled logs of drift wood. Outside of this another wall is built, either of stones or logs, the intervals filled with earth or rubble; the whole structure is then covered with sods, leaving a small opening at the top which can be closed by a frame holding a thin, translucent seal skin. The entrance is a passage ten or twelve feet in length which must be " negotiated " on hands and knees. Inside the entrance visitor or fresh air is barred by a bear or reindeer skin curtain. In the centre is the fireplace, the smoke from which is supposed to find its way out of the roof aperture, but generally gets into the eyes of the inmates. The floor may be planked and the family sleep on a sort of divan, cov- ered with mats and skins, which is built along the sides. In case two families inhabit one house the sleeping-places are separated by mat- curtains or a conventional piece of wood, which serves the imagination as a barrier.
Each village has an assembly house called kashga which is often as much as sixty feet square and twenty or thirty feet high. A raised platform sometimes made in three tiers runs around the sides and the general fireplace is very large. Here are carried on the common labors
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of the natives, their councils, their feasts and festivals, and here sleep the adult unmarried males. Their hot baths also are performed in its superheated and fetid atmosphere.
They love to masquerade and their dances are often accomplished in masks. Sometimes the women appear in male garments, wearing mustaches with bead pendants instead of labrets in the under lip. Sometimes the men appear as women. Their only musical instrument is a bladder drum which is beaten with a thump and a pause, then two thumps and a pause, like a slow waltz. This is accompanied by weird singing. The dancing consists wholly of contortions without moving from the spot. This posturing, which displays suppleness, never de- picts anything indecent or immodest. The men wear on these occa- sions white reindeer skin and summer boots, the women their ordinary dress with the addition of bracelets and beads.
Lieutenant L. Zagoskin of the Russian Navy thus describes an enter- tainment given by the Eskimo women: -
" We entered the kashga by the common passage and found the guests already assembled but of the hostesses nothing was to be seen. On three sides of the apartment stone lamps were lighted, the fire- hole was covered with boards, one of them having a circular opening through which the hostesses were to make their appearance. Two other burning lamps were placed in front of the fire-hole. The guests who formed the chorus began to sing to the sound of the drum, two men keeping them in order by beating time with sticks adorned with wolfs' tails and gulls' wings. Thus a good half hour passed by. Of the song my interpreter told me that it consisted of pleasantry directed against the women; that it was evident they had nothing to give, as they had not shown themselves for so long a time. Another song praised the housewifely accomplishments of some woman whose ap- pearance was impatiently expected with a promised trencher of the mixed mess of reindeer fat and berries. No sooner was this song fin- ished than the woman appeared and was received with the greatest enthusiasm. The dish was set before the men, and the woman retreated
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amid vociferous compliments on her culinary skill. She was followed by another woman. The beating of drums increased in violence and the wording of the song was changed. Standing up in the centre of the circle the woman began to relate, in mimicry and gesture, how she obtained the fat, how she stored it in various receptacles, how she cleansed and melted it, and then placing a kantag on her head she invited the spectators with gestures to approach. The song went on, while eagerness to partake of the promised luxury lighted up the faces of the crowd. At last the wooden spoons were distributed, one to each man, and nothing was heard for some time but the guzzling of the luscious fluid. Another woman appeared, followed by still another, and luxuries of all kinds were produced in quick succession and as quickly despatched, while the singers pointedly alluded to the praise- worthy Russian custom of distributing tobacco. When the desired luxury had been produced a woman represented with great skill the various stages of stupefaction resulting from smoking and snuffing. All the women appeared in men's parkas."
The return entertainment presented by the men began with a cho- rus sung under the fire-hole. They informed the women that trap- ping, hunting and trade were bad and that they had nothing to do but sing and dance to please the women. Then an antiphonal chorus by the women replied that since they were so lazy that they could not get any food and cared for nothing but smoking and bathing, they had better go supperless to bed. Then the men replied that they would go and hunt for something. One of them appeared through the open- ing in the fire-hole. He was dressed in female apparel with bead pen- dants in his nose and with fringes of wolverine tails and beads and bracelets, and this one mimicked the actions of the women. Then throwing off his parka he gave a vivid representation of how seated in his swift kayak he pursued the maklak seal. A whole boiled seal was then served. Others in like manner represented a reindeer hunt, and all sorts of domestic exercises. Sometimes practical jokes are played and are always taken in good spirit and never resented.
UNLOADING FREIGHT AT NOME.
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The autumnal festival in honor of deceased kinsfolk is thus described by Mr. Ivan Petrof, who is an authority on Alaskan ethnology : -
" At sunset the men assemble in the kashga, and, after a hurried bath, ornament each other by tracing various figures with a mixture of oil and charcoal on the naked back. Two boys, who for this occa- sion are respectively named Raven and Hawk, are in attendance, mix- ing the paint, etc. Finally the faces also are thickly smeared, and then the females are summoned into the kashga. After a brief lapse of time a noise is heard, shrieks and yells, snorting and roaring, and the disguised men, emerging from the fire-hole, show their heads above the floor, blowing and puffing like seals. It is impossible to distinguish any human figure, as some are crawling with their feet foremost, others running on their hands and feet, while the head of another is seen protruding between the legs of a companion. They all cling together and move in concert, like one immense snake. A number of the men wear masks representing the heads of animals, and the unsightly beings advance upon the spectators, but chiefly endeavoring to frighten the women, who have no means of escaping molestation except by buying off the actors with presents. Knowing what was before them, they have brought the kantags or wooden bowls full of delicious morsels - beluga blubber, walrus meat, whale-oiled berries, and other dainties. When each of the maskers has eaten and filled a bowl or two to take home, they indulge in a pantomime and gesture play of a highly gro- tesque character. After completing the ceremony in the kashga the maskers frequently visit some of the dwellings and receive gifts in each, the whole performance ending with singing, dancing and feasting in the kashga."
At one of these annual memorial feasts witnessed by Zagoskin there were seventy persons present and the gifts that were to be distributed in memory of the seven who had died consisted of spears, arrows, vari- ous garments, seal skins, paddles, knives, hatchets, rings, mats and other articles. Shamans or tungaks acted as masters of the ceremony and furnished the special songs. Then came the dinner, which consisted
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of mountains of blubber, several boiled seals, and quantities of dried fish. There were as many as fifteen different dishes or courses.
Another quaint festivity is in honor of the spirits of the sea, which they call ingiak. This is performed with the bladders of all the crea- tures killed during the year. During the first days of December these bladders - of fish, rats, mice, squirrels, and seals, bear or deer - are inflated, painted gaudy colors and hung up in the kashga. The men likewise contribute curiously carved figures of birds and fishes, some- times with ingeniously contrived eyes, heads or wings. These figures are manipulated all day long and in the meantime are well cured in smoke, amid the chanting of melancholy songs. On the last day they are taken down, attached to painted sticks and carried down to the sea, where they are weighted with stones and set afloat. The people watch them and from their behavior the shamans are enabled to cal- culate the prosperity of the coming year.
The daily customs of the Alaska Eskimo are quaint and curious. The unmarried men sleep in the kashga, some on reindeer skins, others on bare planks, covering themselves with their parkas in lieu of paja- mas, with their trousers for pillows. About eight o'clock in the morn- ing the first person who happens to awake lights the oil lamp. By and by the women bring in the breakfast. After breakfast the men attend to their various duties - in looking after their traps or going with a dog-team for wood; the boys and girls set snares for small game. Early in the afternoon the men return from their work. Their wives help them get off their wet clothes, unharness the dogs and look after the fish or the seal that they have brought home. After dinner the bath is in order. A great fire is lighted inside the kashga, which is speedily heated to suffocation. The men remove their garments, lash themselves with alder branches and dance about, and when they are in a vigorous perspiration they lather themselves with what serves them for soap. This they wash off with fresh water and fling it into the four corners. Then they rush out into the snow or jump into a river if one be near and free from ice. Then the opening of the kashga
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