HYPERBOREANS.
GENERAL DIVISIONS--HYPERBOREAN NATIONS--ASPECTS OF
NATURE--VEGETATION--CLIMATE--ANIMALS--THE ESKIMOS--THEIR
COUNTRY--PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS--DRESS--DWELLINGS--
FOOD--WEAPONS--BOOTS--SLEDGES--SNOW-SHOES--GOVERNMENT--DOMESTIC
AFFAIRS--AMUSEMENTS--DISEASES--BURIAL--THE KONIAGAS, THEIR
PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION--THE ALEUTS--THE
THLINKEETS--THE TINNEH.
I shall attempt to describe the physical and mental characteristics of
the Native Races of the Pacific States under seven distinctive groups;
namely, I. Hyperboreans, being those nations whose territory lies north
of the fifty-fifth parallel; II. Columbians, who dwell between the
fifty-fifth and forty-second parallels, and whose lands to some extent
are drained by the Columbia River and its tributaries; III.
Californians, and the Inhabitants of the Great Basin; IV. New Mexicans,
including the nations of the Colorado River and northern Mexico; V. Wild
Tribes of Mexico; VI. Wild Tribes of Central America; VII. Civilized
Nations of Mexico and Central America. It is my purpose, without any
attempt at ethnological classification, or further comment concerning
races and stocks, plainly to portray such customs and characteristics as
were peculiar to each people at the time of its first intercourse with
European strangers; leaving scientists to make their own deductions, and
draw specific lines between linguistic and physiological families, as
they may deem proper. I shall endeavor to picture these nations in their
aboriginal condition, as seen by the first invaders, as described by
those who beheld them in their savage grandeur, and before they were
startled from their lair by the treacherous voice of civilized
friendship. Now they are gone,--those dusky denizens of a thousand
forests,--melted like hoar-frost before the rising sun of a superior
intelligence; and it is only from the earliest records, from the
narratives of eye witnesses, many of them rude unlettered men, trappers,
sailors, and soldiers, that we are able to know them as they were. Some
division of the work into parts, however arbitrary it may be, is
indispensable. In dealing with Mythology, and in tracing the tortuous
course of Language, boundaries will be dropped and beliefs and tongues
will be followed wherever they lead; but in describing Manners and
Customs, to avoid confusion, territorial divisions are necessary.
[Sidenote: GROUPINGS AND SUBDIVISIONS.]
In the groupings which I have adopted, one cluster of nations follows
another in geographical succession; the dividing line not being more
distinct, perhaps, than that which distinguishes some national
divisions, but sufficiently marked, in mental and physical
peculiarities, to entitle each group to a separate consideration.
The only distinction of race made by naturalists, upon the continents of
both North and South America, until a comparatively recent period, was
by segregating the first of the above named groups from all other people
of both continents, and calling one Mongolians and the other Americans.
A more intimate acquaintance with the nations of the North proves
conclusively that one of the boldest types of the American Indian
proper, the Tinneh, lies within the territory of this first group,
conterminous with the Mongolian Eskimos, and crowding them down to a
narrow line along the shore of the Arctic Sea. The nations of the second
group, although exhibiting multitudinous variations in minor traits, are
essentially one people. Between the California Diggers of the third
division and the New Mexican Towns-people of the fourth, there is more
diversity; and a still greater difference between the savage and
civilized nations of the Mexican table-land. Any classification or
division of the subject which could be made would be open to criticism.
I therefore adopt the most simple practical plan, one which will present
the subject most clearly to the general reader, and leave it in the best
shape for purposes of theorizing and generalization.
In the first or HYPERBOREAN group, to which this chapter is devoted, are
five subdivisions, as follows: The _Eskimos_, commonly called Western
Eskimos, who skirt the shores of the Arctic Ocean from Mackenzie River
to Kotzebue Sound; the _Koniagas_ or Southern Eskimos, who, commencing
at Kotzebue Sound, cross the Kaviak Peninsula, border on Bering Sea from
Norton Sound southward, and stretch over the Alaskan[1] Peninsula and
Koniagan Islands to the mouth of the Atna or Copper River, extending
back into the interior about one hundred and fifty miles; the _Aleuts_,
or people of the Aleutian Archipelago; the _Thlinkeets_, who inhabit the
coast and islands between the rivers Atna and Nass; and the _Tinneh_, or
Athabascas, occupying the territory between the above described
boundaries and Hudson Bay. Each of these families is divided into
nations or tribes, distinguished one from another by slight dialectic or
other differences, which tribal divisions will be given in treating of
the several nations respectively.
Let us first cast a glance over this broad domain, and mark those
aspects of nature which exercise so powerful an influence upon the
destinies of mankind. Midway between Mount St Elias and the Arctic
seaboard rise three mountain chains. One, the Rocky Mountain range,
crossing from the Yukon to the Mackenzie River, deflects southward, and
taking up its mighty line of march, throws a barrier between the east
and the west, which extends throughout the entire length of the
continent. Between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, interposes
another called in Oregon the Cascade Range, and in California the Sierra
Nevada; while from the same starting-point, the Alaskan range stretches
out to the southwest along the Alaskan Peninsula, and breaks into
fragments in the Aleutian Archipelago. Three noble streams, the
Mackenzie, the Yukon, and the Kuskoquim, float the boats of the inland
Hyperboreans and supply them with food; while from the heated waters of
Japan comes a current of the sea, bathing the icy coasts with genial
warmth, tempering the air, and imparting gladness to the oily watermen
of the coast, to the northernmost limit of their lands. The northern
border of this territory is treeless; the southern shore, absorbing more
warmth and moisture from the Japan current, is fringed with dense
forests; while the interior, interspersed with hills, and lakes, and
woods, and grassy plains, during the short summer is clothed in
luxuriant vegetation.
Notwithstanding the frowning aspect of nature, animal life in the Arctic
regions is most abundant. The ocean swarms with every species of fish
and sea-mammal; the land abounds in reindeer, moose, musk-oxen; in
black, grizzly, and Arctic bears; in wolves, foxes, beavers, mink,
ermine, martin, otters, raccoons, and water-fowl. Immense herds of
buffalo roam over the bleak grassy plains of the eastern Tinneh, but
seldom venture far to the west of the Rocky Mountains. Myriads of birds
migrate to and fro between their breeding-places in the interior of
Alaska, the open Arctic Sea, and the warmer latitudes of the south. From
the Gulf of Mexico, from the islands of the Pacific, from the lakes of
California, of Oregon, and of Washington they come, fluttering and
feasting, to rear their young during the sparkling Arctic summer-day.
[Sidenote: MAN AND NATURE.]
The whole occupation of man throughout this region, is a struggle for
life. So long as the organism is plentifully supplied with
heat-producing food, all is well. Once let the internal fire go down,
and all is ill. Unlike the inhabitants of equatorial latitudes, where,
Eden-like, the sheltering tree drops food, and the little nourishment
essential to life may be obtained by only stretching forth the hand and
plucking it, the Hyperborean man must maintain a constant warfare with
nature, or die. His daily food depends upon the success of his daily
battle with beasts, birds, and fishes, which dispute with him possession
of sea and land. Unfortunate in his search for game, or foiled in his
attempt at capture, he must fast. The associate of beasts, governed by
the same emergencies, preying upon animals as animals prey upon each
other, the victim supplying all the necessities of the victor, occupying
territory in common, both alike drawing supplies directly from the
storehouse of nature,--primitive man derives his very quality from the
brute with which he struggles. The idiosyncrasies of the animal fasten
upon him, and that upon which he feeds becomes a part of him.
Thus, in a nation of hunters inhabiting a rigorous climate, we may look
for wiry, keen-scented men, who in their war upon wild beasts put forth
strength and endurance in order to overtake and capture the strong;
cunning is opposed by superior cunning; a stealthy watchfulness governs
every movement, while the intelligence of the man contends with the
instincts of the brute. Fishermen, on the other hand, who obtain their
food with comparatively little effort, are more sluggish in their
natures and less noble in their development. In the icy regions of the
north, the animal creation supplies man with food, clothing, and
caloric; with all the requisites of an existence under circumstances
apparently the most adverse to comfort; and when he digs his dwelling
beneath the ground, or walls out the piercing winds with snow, his
ultimate is attained.
The chief differences in tribes occupying the interior and the
seaboard,--the elevated, treeless, grassy plains east of the Rocky
Mountains, and the humid islands and shores of the great
Northwest,--grow out of necessities arising from their methods of
procuring food. Even causes so slight as the sheltering bend of a
coast-line; the guarding of a shore by islands; the breaking of a
seaboard by inlets and covering of the strand with sea-weed and polyps,
requiring only the labor of gathering; or the presence of a bluff coast
or windy promontory, whose occupants are obliged to put forth more
vigorous action for sustenance--all govern man in his development. Turn
now to the most northern division of our most northern group.
[Sidenote: THE ESKIMOS.]
THE ESKIMOS, Esquimaux, or as they call themselves, _Innuit_, 'the
people,' from _inuk_, 'man,'[2] occupy the Arctic seaboard from eastern
Greenland along the entire continent of America, and across Bering[3]
Strait to the Asiatic shore. Formerly the inhabitants of our whole
Hyperborean sea-coast, from the Mackenzie River to Queen Charlotte
Island--the interior being entirely unknown--were denominated Eskimos,
and were of supposed Asiatic origin.[4] The tribes of southern Alaska
were then found to differ essentially from those of the northern coast.
Under the name Eskimos, therefore, I include only the Western Eskimos of
certain writers, whose southern boundary terminates at Kotzebue
Sound.[5]
[Sidenote: ESKIMO LAND.]
Eskimo-land is thinly peopled, and but little is known of tribal
divisions. At the Coppermine River, the Eskimos are called
_Naggeuktormutes_, or deer-horns; at the eastern outlet of the
Mackenzie, their tribal name is _Kittegarute_; between the Mackenzie
River and Barter Reef, they go by the name of _Kangmali Innuit_; at
Point Barrow they call themselves _Nuwungmutes_; while on the Nunatok
River, in the vicinity of Kotzebue Sound, they are known as
_Nunatangmutes_. Their villages, consisting of five or six families
each,[6] are scattered along the coast. A village site is usually
selected upon some good landing-place, where there is sufficient depth
of water to float a whale. Between tribes is left a spot of unoccupied
or neutral ground, upon which small parties meet during the summer for
purposes of trade.[7]
The Eskimos are essentially a peculiar people. Their character and their
condition, the one of necessity growing out of the other, are peculiar.
First, it is claimed for them that they are the anomalous race of
America--the only people of the new world clearly identical with any
race of the old. Then they are the most littoral people in the world.
The linear extent of their occupancy, all of it a narrow seaboard
averaging scarcely one hundred miles in width, is estimated at not less
than five thousand miles. Before them is a vast, unknown, icy ocean,
upon which they scarcely dare venture beyond sight of land; behind them,
hostile mountaineers ever ready to dispute encroachment. Their very
mother-earth, upon whose cold bosom they have been borne, age after age
through countless generations,[8] is almost impenetrable, thawless ice.
Their days and nights, and seasons and years, are not like those of
other men. Six months of day succeed six months of night. Three months
of sunless winter; three months of nightless summer; six months of
glimmering twilight.
About the middle of October[9] commences the long night of winter. The
earth and sea put on an icy covering; beasts and birds depart for
regions sheltered or more congenial; humanity huddles in subterraneous
dens; all nature sinks into repose. The little heat left by the
retreating sun soon radiates out into the deep blue realms of space; the
temperature sinks rapidly to forty or fifty degrees below freezing; the
air is hushed, the ocean calm, the sky cloudless. An awful, painful
stillness pervades the dreary solitude. Not a sound is heard; the
distant din of busy man, and the noiseless hum of the wilderness alike
are wanting. Whispers become audible at a considerable distance, and an
insupportable sense of loneliness oppresses the inexperienced
visitor.[10] Occasionally the aurora borealis flashes out in prismatic
coruscations, throwing a brilliant arch from east to west--now in
variegated oscillations, graduating through all the various tints of
blue, and green, and violet, and crimson; darting, flashing, or
streaming in yellow columns, upwards, downwards; now blazing steadily,
now in wavy undulations, sometimes up to the very zenith; momentarily
lighting up in majestic grandeur the cheerless frozen scenery, but only
to fall back with exhausted force, leaving a denser obscurity. Nature's
electric lantern, suspended for a time in the frosty vault of
heaven;--munificent nature's fire-works; with the polar owl, the polar
bear, and the polar man, spectators.
In January, the brilliancy of the stars is dimmed perceptibly at noon;
in February, a golden tint rests upon the horizon at the same hour; in
March, the incipient dawn broadens; in April, the dozing Eskimo rubs his
eyes and crawls forth; in May, the snow begins to melt, the impatient
grass and flowers arrive as it departs.[11] In June, the summer has
fairly come. Under the incessant rays of the never setting sun, the snow
speedily disappears, the ice breaks up, the glacial earth softens for a
depth of one, two, or three feet; circulation is restored to
vegetation,[12] which, during winter, had been stopped,--if we may
believe Sir John Richardson, even the largest trees freezing to the
heart. Sea, and plain, and rolling steppe lay aside their seamless
shroud of white, and a brilliant tint of emerald overspreads the
landscape.[13] All Nature, with one resounding cry, leaps up and claps
her hands for joy. Flocks of birds, lured from their winter homes, fill
the air with their melody; myriads of wild fowls send forth their shrill
cries; the moose and the reindeer flock down from the forests;[14] from
the resonant sea comes the noise of spouting whales and barking seals;
and this so lately dismal, cheerless region, blooms with an exhuberance
of life equaled only by the shortness of its duration. And in token of a
just appreciation of the Creator's goodness, this animated medley--man,
and beasts, and birds, and fishes--rises up, divides, falls to, and ends
in eating or in being eaten.
[Sidenote: PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.]
The physical characteristics of the Eskimos are: a fair complexion, the
skin, when free from dirt and paint, being almost white;[15] a medium
stature, well proportioned, thick-set, muscular, robust, active,[16]
with small and beautifully shaped hands and feet;[17] a pyramidal
head;[18] a broad egg-shaped face; high rounded cheek-bones; flat nose;
small oblique eyes; large mouth; teeth regular, but well worn;[19]
coarse black hair, closely cut upon the crown, leaving a monk-like ring
around the edge,[20] and a paucity of beard.[21] The men frequently
leave the hair in a natural state. The women of Icy Reef introduce false
hair among their own, wearing the whole in two immense bows at the back
of the head. At Point Barrow, they separate the hair into two parts or
braids, saturating it with train-oil, and binding it into stiff bunches
with strips of skin. Their lower extremities are short, so that in a
sitting posture they look taller than when standing.
[Sidenote: IMPROVEMENTS UPON NATURE.]
Were these people satisfied with what nature has done for them, they
would be passably good-looking. But with them as with all mankind, no
matter how high the degree of intelligence and refinement attained, art
must be applied to improve upon nature. The few finishing touches
neglected by the Creator, man is ever ready to supply.
Arrived at the age of puberty, the great work of improvement begins. Up
to this time the skin has been kept saturated in grease and filth, until
the natural color is lost, and until the complexion is brought down to
the Eskimo standard. Now pigments of various dye are applied, both
painted outwardly and pricked into the skin; holes are cut in the face,
and plugs or labrets inserted. These operations, however, attended with
no little solemnity, are supposed to possess some significance other
than that of mere ornament. Upon the occasion of piercing the lip, for
instance, a religious feast is given.
On the northern coast the women paint the eyebrows and tattoo the chin;
while the men only pierce the lower lip under one or both corners of the
mouth, and insert in each aperture a double-headed sleeve-button or
dumb-bell-shaped labret, of bone, ivory, shell, stone, glass, or wood.
The incision when first made is about the size of a quill, but as the
aspirant for improved beauty grows older, the size of the orifice is
enlarged until it reaches a width of half or three quarters of an
inch.[22] In tattooing, the color is applied by drawing a thread under
the skin, or pricking it in with a needle. Different tribes, and
different ranks of the same tribe, have each their peculiar form of
tattooing. The plebeian female of certain bands is permitted to adorn
her chin with but one vertical line in the centre, and one parallel to
it on either side, while the more fortunate noblesse mark two vertical
lines from each corner of the mouth.[23] A feminine cast of features, as
is common with other branches of the Mongolian race, prevails in both
sexes. Some travelers discover in the faces of the men a characteristic
expression of ferociousness, and in those of the women, an extraordinary
display of wantonness. A thick coating of filth and a strong odor of
train-oil are inseparable from an Eskimo, and the fashion of labrets
adds in no wise to his comeliness.[24]
[Sidenote: ESKIMO DRESS.]
For covering to the body, the Eskimos employ the skin of all the beasts
and birds that come within their reach. Skins are prepared in the
fur,[25] and cut and sewed with neatness and skill. Even the intestines
of seals and whales are used in the manufacture of water-proof
overdresses.[26] The costume for both sexes consists of long stockings
or drawers, over which are breeches extending from the shoulders to
below the knees; and a frock or jacket, somewhat shorter than the
breeches with sleeves and hood. This garment is made whole, there being
no openings except for the head and arms. The frock of the male is cut
at the bottom nearly square, while that of the female reaches a little
lower, and terminates before and behind in a point or scollop. The tail
of some animal graces the hinder part of the male frock; the woman's has
a large hood, in which she carries her infant. Otherwise both sexes
dress alike; and as, when stripped of their facial decorations, their
physiognomies are alike, they are not unfrequently mistaken one for the
other.[27] They have boots of walrus or seal skin, mittens or gloves of
deer-skin, and intestine water-proofs covering the entire body. Several
kinds of fur frequently enter into the composition of one garment. Thus
the body of the frock, generally of reindeer-skin, may be of bird, bear,
seal, mink, or squirrel skin; while the hood may be of fox-skin, the
lining of hare-skin, the fringe of wolverine-skin, and the gloves of
fawn-skin.[28] Two suits are worn during the coldest weather; the inner
one with the fur next the skin, the outer suit with the fur outward.[29]
Thus, with their stomachs well filled with fat, and their backs covered
with furs, they bid defiance to the severest Arctic winter.[30]
[Sidenote: DWELLINGS OF THE ESKIMOS.]
In architecture, the Eskimo is fully equal to the emergency; building,
upon a soil which yields him little or no material, three classes of
dwellings. Penetrating the frozen earth, or casting around him a frozen
wall, he compels the very elements from which he seeks protection to
protect him. For his _yourt_ or winter residence he digs a hole of the
required dimensions, to a depth of about six feet.[31] Within this
excavation he erects a frame, either of wood or whalebone, lashing his
timbers with thongs instead of nailing them. This frame is carried
upward to a distance of two or three feet above the ground,[32] when it
is covered by a dome-shaped roof of poles or whale-ribs turfed and
earthed over.[33] In the centre of the roof is left a hole for the
admission of light and the emission of smoke. In absence of fire, a
translucent covering of whale-intestine confines the warmth of
putrifying filth, and completes the Eskimo's sense of comfort. To gain
admittance to this snug retreat, without exposing the inmates to the
storms without, another and a smaller hole is dug to the same depth, a
short distance from the first. From one to the other, an underground
passage-way is then opened, through which entrance is made on hands and
knees. The occupants descend by means of a ladder, and over the entrance
a shed is erected, to protect it from the snow.[34] Within the entrance
is hung a deer-skin door, and anterooms are arranged in which to deposit
frozen outer garments before entering the heated room. Around the sides
of the dwelling, sleeping-places are marked out; for bedsteads, boards
are placed upon logs one or two feet in diameter, and covered with
willow branches and skins. A little heap of stones in the centre of the
room, under the smoke-hole, forms the fireplace. In the corners of the
room are stone lamps, which answer all domestic purposes in the absence
of fire-wood.[35] In the better class of buildings, the sides and floor
are boarded. Supplies are kept in a store house at a little distance
from the dwelling, perched upon four posts, away from the reach of the
dogs, and a frame is always erected on which to hang furs and fish.
Several years are sometimes occupied in building a hut.[36]
Mark how nature supplies this treeless coast with wood. The breaking-up
of winter in the mountains of Alaska is indeed a breaking-up. The
accumulated masses of ice and snow, when suddenly loosened by the
incessant rays of the never-setting sun, bear away all before them. Down
from the mountain-sides comes the avalanche, uprooting trees, swelling
rivers, hurrying with its burden to the sea. There, casting itself into
the warm ocean current, the ice soon disappears, and the driftwood which
accompanied it is carried northward and thrown back upon the beach by
the October winds. Thus huge forest-trees, taken up bodily, as it were,
in the middle of a continent, and carried by the currents to the
incredible distance, sometimes, of three thousand miles, are deposited
all along the Arctic seaboard, laid at the very door of these people, a
people whose store of this world's benefits is none of the most
abundant.[37] True, wood is not an absolute necessity with them, as many
of their houses in the coldest weather have no fire; only oil-lamps
being used for cooking and heating. Whale-ribs supply the place of trees
for house and boat timbers, and hides are commonly used for boards. Yet
a bountiful supply of wood during their long, cold, dark winter comes in
no wise amiss.[38] Their summer tents are made of seal or untanned deer
skins with the hair outward, conical or bell-shaped, and without a
smoke-hole as no fires are ever kindled within them. The wet or frozen
earth is covered with a few coarse skins for a floor.[39]
[Sidenote: SNOW HOUSES.]
But the most unique system of architecture in America is improvised by
the Eskimos during their seal-hunting expeditions upon the ice, when
they occupy a veritable crystal palace fit for an Arctic fairy. On the
frozen river or sea, a spot is chosen free from irregularities, and a
circle of ten or fifteen feet in diameter drawn on the snow. The snow
within the circle is then cut into slabs from three to four inches in
thickness, their length being the depth of the snow, and these slabs are
formed into a wall enclosing the circle and carried up in courses
similar to those of brick or stone, terminating in a dome-shaped roof. A
wedge-like slab keys the arch; and this principle in architecture may
have first been known to the Assyrians, Egyptians, Chinese or
Eskimos.[40] Loose snow is then thrown into the crevices, which quickly
congeals; an aperture is cut in the side for a door; and if the thin
wall is not sufficiently translucent, a piece of ice is fitted into the
side for a window. Seats, tables, couches, and even fireplaces are made
with frozen snow, and covered with reindeer or seal skin. Out-houses
connect with the main room, and frequently a number of dwellings are
built contiguously, with a passage from one to another. These houses are
comfortable and durable, resisting alike the wind and the thaw until
late in the season. Care must be taken that the walls are not so thick
as to make them too warm, and so cause a dripping from the interior. A
square block of snow serves as a stand for the stone lamp which is their
only fire.[41]
"The purity of the material," says Sir John Franklin, who saw them build
an edifice of this kind at Coppermine River, "of which the house was
framed, the elegance of its construction, and the translucency of its
walls, which transmitted a very pleasant light, gave it an appearance
far superior to a marble building, and one might survey it with feelings
somewhat akin to those produced by the contemplation of a Grecian
temple, reared by Phidias; both are triumphs of art, inimitable in their
kind."[42]
Eskimos, fortunately, have not a dainty palate. Everything which
sustains life is food for them. Their substantials comprise the flesh of
land and marine animals, fish and birds; venison, and whale and seal
blubber being chief. Choice dishes, tempting to the appetite, Arctic
epicurean dishes, Eskimo nectar and ambrosia, are daintily prepared,
hospitably placed before strangers, and eaten and drunk with avidity.
Among them are: a bowl of coagulated blood, mashed cranberries with
rancid train-oil, whortleberries and walrus-blubber, alternate streaks
of putrid black and white whale-fat; venison steeped in seal-oil, raw
deer's liver cut in small pieces and mixed with the warm half-digested
contents of the animal's stomach; bowls of live maggots, a draught of
warm blood from a newly killed animal.[43] Fish are sometimes eaten
alive. Meats are kept in seal-skin bags for over a year, decomposing
meanwhile, but never becoming too rancid for our Eskimos. Their winter
store of oil they secure in seal-skin bags, which are buried in the
frozen ground. Charlevoix remarks that they are the only race known who
prefer food raw. This, however, is not the case. They prefer their food
cooked, but do not object to it raw or rotten. They are no lovers of
salt.[44]
[Sidenote: MIGRATIONS FOR FOOD.]
In mid-winter, while the land is enveloped in darkness, the Eskimo dozes
torpidly in his den. Early in September the musk-oxen and reindeer
retreat southward, and the fish are confined beneath the frozen covering
of the rivers. It is during the short summer, when food is abundant,
that they who would not perish must lay up a supply for the winter. When
spring opens, and the rivers are cleared of ice, the natives follow the
fish, which at that time ascend the streams to spawn, and spear them at
the falls and rapids that impede their progress. Small wooden fish are
sometimes made and thrown into holes in the ice for a decoy; salmon are
taken in a whalebone seine. At this season also reindeer are captured on
their way to the coast, whither they resort in the spring to drop their
young. Multitudes of geese, ducks, and swans visit the ocean during the
same period to breed.[45]
August and September are the months for whales. When a whale is
discovered rolling on the water, a boat starts out, and from the
distance of a few feet a weapon is plunged into its blubbery carcass.
The harpoons are so constructed that when this blow is given, the shaft
becomes disengaged from the barbed ivory point. To this point a
seal-skin buoy or bladder is attached by means of a cord. The blows are
repeated; the buoys encumber the monster in diving or swimming, and the
ingenious Eskimo is soon able to tow the carcass to the shore. A
successful chase secures an abundance of food for the winter.[46] Seals
are caught during the winter, and considerable skill is required in
taking them. Being a warm-blooded respiratory animal, they are obliged to
have air, and in order to obtain it, while the surface of the water is
undergoing the freezing process, they keep open a breathing-hole by
constantly gnawing away the ice. They produce their young in March, and
soon afterward the natives abandon their villages and set out on the ice
in pursuit of them. Seals, like whales, are also killed with a harpoon
to which is attached a bladder. The seal, when struck, may draw the
float under water for a time, but is soon obliged to rise to the surface
from exhaustion and for air, when he is again attacked and soon obliged
to yield.
The Eskimos are no less ingenious in catching wild-fowl, which they
accomplish by means of a sling or net made of woven sinews, with ivory
balls attached. They also snare birds by means of whalebone nooses,
round which fine gravel is scattered as a bait. They manoeuvre
reindeer to near the edge of a cliff, and, driving them into the sea,
kill them from canoes. They also waylay them at the narrow passes, and
capture them in great numbers. They construct large reindeer pounds, and
set up two diverging rows of turf so as to represent men; the outer
extremities of the line being sometimes two miles apart, and narrowing
to a small enclosure. Into this trap the unsuspecting animals are
driven, when they are easily speared.[47]
[Sidenote: BEAR-HUNTING.]
To overcome the formidable polar bear the natives have two strategems.
One is by imitating the seal, upon which the bear principally feeds, and
thereby enticing it within gunshot. Another is by bending a piece of
stiff whalebone, encasing it in a ball of blubber, and freezing the
ball, which then holds firm the bent whalebone. Armed with these frozen
blubber balls, the natives approach their victim, and, with a discharge
of arrows, open the engagement. The bear, smarting with pain, turns upon
his tormentors, who, taking to their heels, drop now and then a blubber
ball. Bruin, as fond of food as of revenge, pauses for a moment, hastily
swallows one, then another, and another. Soon a strange sensation is
felt within. The thawing blubber, melted by the heat of the animal's
stomach, releases the pent-up whalebone, which, springing into place,
plays havoc with the intestines, and brings the bear to a painful and
ignominious end. To vegetables, the natives are rather indifferent;
berries, acid sorrel leaves, and certain roots, are used as a relish.
There is no native intoxicating liquor, but in eating they get
gluttonously stupid.
Notwithstanding his long, frigid, biting winter, the Eskimo never
suffers from the cold so long as he has an abundance of food. As we have
seen, a whale or a moose supplies him with food, shelter, and raiment.
With an internal fire, fed by his oily and animal food, glowing in his
stomach, his blood at fever heat, he burrows comfortably in ice and snow
and frozen ground, without necessity for wood or coal.[48] Nor are those
passions which are supposed to develop most fully under a milder
temperature, wanting in the half-frozen Hyperborean.[49] One of the
chief difficulties of the Eskimo during the winter is to obtain water,
and the women spend a large portion of their time in melting snow over
oil-lamps. In the Arctic regions, eating snow is attended with serious
consequences. Ice or snow, touched to the lips or tongue, blisters like
caustic. Fire is obtained by striking sparks from iron pyrites with
quartz. It is a singular fact that in the coldest climate inhabited by
man, fire is less used than anywhere else in the world, equatorial
regions perhaps excepted. Caloric for the body is supplied by food and
supplemented by furs. Snow houses, from their nature, prohibit the use
of fire; but cooking with the Eskimo is a luxury, not a necessity. He
well understands how to utilize every part of the animals so essential
to his existence. With their skins he clothes himself, makes houses,
boats, and oil-bags; their flesh and fat he eats. He even devours the
contents of the intestines, and with the skin makes water-proof
clothing. Knives, arrow-points, house, boat, and sledge frames,
fish-hooks, domestic utensils, ice-chisels, and in fact almost all their
implements, are made from the horns and bones of the deer, whale, and
seal. Bowstrings are made of the sinews of musk-oxen, and ropes of
seal-skin.[50] The Eskimo's arms are not very formidable. Backed by his
ingenuity, they nevertheless prove sufficient for practical purposes;
and while his neighbor possesses none better, all are on an equal
footing in war. Their most powerful as well as most artistic weapon is
the bow. It is made of beech or spruce, in three pieces curving in
opposite directions and ingeniously bound by twisted sinews, so as to
give the greatest possible strength. Richardson affirms that "in the
hands of a native hunter it will propel an arrow with sufficient force
to pierce the heart of a musk-ox, or break the leg of a reindeer."
Arrows, as well as spears, lances, and darts, are of white spruce, and
pointed with bone, ivory, flint, and slate.[51] East of the Mackenzie,
copper enters largely into the composition of Eskimo utensils.[52]
Before the introduction of iron by Europeans, stone hatchets were
common.[53]
[Sidenote: SLEDGES, SNOW-SHOES, AND BOATS.]
The Hyperboreans surpass all American nations in their facilities for
locomotion, both upon land and water. In their skin boats, the natives
of the Alaskan seaboard from Point Barrow to Mount St Elias, made long
voyages, crossing the strait and sea of Bering, and held commercial
intercourse with the people of Asia. Sixty miles is an ordinary day's
journey for sledges, while Indians on snow-shoes have been known to run
down and capture deer. Throughout this entire border, including the
Aleutian Islands, boats are made wholly of the skins of seals or
sea-lions, excepting the frame of wood or whale-ribs. In the interior,
as well as on the coast immediately below Mount St Elias, skin boats
disappear, and canoes or wooden boats are used.
Two kinds of skin boats are employed by the natives of the Alaskan
coast, a large and a small one. The former is called by the natives
_oomiak_, and by the Russians _baidar_. This is a large, flat-bottomed,
open boat; the skeleton of wood or whale-ribs, fastened with seal-skin
thongs or whale's sinews, and covered with oiled seal or sea-lion skins,
which are first sewed together and then stretched over the frame. The
baidar is usually about thirty feet in length, six feet in extreme
breadth, and three feet in depth. It is propelled by oars, and will
carry fifteen or twenty persons, but its capacity is greatly increased
by lashing inflated seal-skins to the outside. In storms at sea, two or
three baidars are sometimes tied together.[54] The small boat is called
by the natives _kyak_, and by the Russians _baidarka_. It is constructed
of the same material and in the same manner as the baidar, except that
it is entirely covered with skins, top as well as bottom, save one hole
left in the deck, which is filled by the navigator. After taking his
seat, and thereby filling this hole, the occupant puts on a water-proof
over-dress, the bottom of which is so secured round the rim of the hole
that not a drop of water can penetrate it. This dress is provided with
sleeves and a hood. It is securely fastened at the wrists and neck, and
when the hood is drawn over the head, the boatman may bid defiance to
the water. The baidarka is about sixteen feet in length, and two feet in
width at the middle, tapering to a point at either end.[55] It is light
and strong, and when skillfully handled is considered very safe. The
native of Norton Sound will twirl his kyak completely over, turn an
aquatic somersault, and by the aid of his double-bladed paddle come up
safely on the other side, without even losing his seat. So highly were
these boats esteemed by the Russians, that they were at once universally
adopted by them in navigating these waters. They were unable to invent
any improvement in either of them, although they made a baidarka with
two and three seats, which they employed in addition to the one-seated
kyak. The Kadiak baidarka is a little shorter and wider than the
Aleutian.[56]
Sleds, sledges, dogs, and Arctic land-boats play an important part in
Eskimo economy. The Eskimo sled is framed of spruce, birch, or
whalebone, strongly bound with thongs, and the runners shod with smooth
strips of whale's jaw-bone. This sled is heavy, and fit only for
traveling over ice or frozen snow. Indian sleds of the interior are
lighter, the runners being of thin flexible boards better adapted to the
inequalities of the ground. Sledges, such as are used by the voyagers of
Hudson Bay, are of totally different construction. Three boards, each
about one foot in width and twelve feet in length, thinned, and curved
into a semicircle at one end, are placed side by side and firmly lashed
together with thongs. A leathern bag or blanket of the full size of the
sled is provided, in which the load is placed and lashed down with
strings.[57] Sleds and sledges are drawn by dogs, and they will carry a
load of from a quarter to half a ton, or about one hundred pounds to
each dog. The dogs of Alaska are scarcely up to the average of Arctic
canine nobility.[58] They are of various colors, hairy, short-legged,
with large bushy tails curved over the back; they are wolfish,
suspicious, yet powerful, sagacious, and docile, patiently performing an
incredible amount of ill-requited labor. Dogs are harnessed to the
sledge, sometimes by separate thongs at unequal distances, sometimes in
pairs to a single line. They are guided by the voice accompanied by a
whip, and to the best trained and most sagacious is given the longest
tether, that he may act as leader. An eastern dog will carry on his back
a weight of thirty pounds. The dogs of the northern coast are larger and
stronger than those of the interior. Eskimo dogs are used in hunting
reindeer and musk-oxen, as well as in drawing sledges.[59] Those at Cape
Prince of Wales appear to be of the same species as those used upon the
Asiatic coast for drawing sledges.
Snow-shoes, or foot-sledges, are differently made according to the
locality. In traveling over soft snow they are indispensable. They
consist of an open light wooden frame, made of two smooth pieces of wood
each about two inches wide and an inch thick; the inner part sometimes
straight, and the outer curved out to about one foot in the widest part.
They are from two to six feet in length, some oval and turned up in
front, running to a point behind; others flat, and pointed at both ends,
the space within the frame being filled with a network of twisted
deer-sinews or fine seal-skin.[60] The Hudson Bay snow-shoe is only two
and a half feet in length. The Kutchin shoe is smaller than that of the
Eskimo.
[Sidenote: PROPERTY.]
The merchantable wealth of the Eskimos consists of peltries, such as
wolf, deer, badger, polar-bear, otter, hare, musk-rat, Arctic-fox, and
seal skins; red ochre, plumbago, and iron pyrites; oil, ivory,
whalebone; in short, all parts of all species of beasts, birds, and
fishes that they can secure and convert into an exchangeable shape.[61]
The articles they most covet are tobacco, iron, and beads. They are not
particularly given to strong drink. On the shore of Bering Strait the
natives have constant commercial intercourse with Asia. They cross
easily in their boats, carefully eluding the vigilance of the fur
company. They frequently meet at the Gwosdeff Islands, where the
Tschuktschi bring tobacco, iron, tame-reindeer skins, and walrus-ivory;
the Eskimos giving in exchange wolf and wolverine skins, wooden dishes,
seal-skins and other peltries. The Eskimos of the American coast carry
on quite an extensive trade with the Indians of the interior,[62]
exchanging with them Asiatic merchandise for peltries. They are sharp at
bargains, avaricious, totally devoid of conscience in their dealings;
will sell their property thrice if possible, and, if caught, laugh it
off as a joke. The rights of property are scrupulously respected among
themselves, but to steal from strangers, which they practice on every
occasion with considerable dexterity, is considered rather a mark of
merit than otherwise. A successful thief, when a stranger is the victim,
receives the applause of the entire tribe.[63] Captain Kotzebue thus
describes the manner of trading with the Russo-Indians of the south and
of Asia.
"The stranger first comes, and lays some goods on the shore and then
retires; the American then comes, looks at the things, puts as many
things near them as he thinks proper to give, and then also goes away.
Upon this the stranger approaches, and examines what is offered him; if
he is satisfied with it, he takes the skins and leaves the goods
instead; but if not, then he lets all the things lie, retires a second
time, and expects an addition from the buyer." If they cannot agree,
each retires with his goods.
[Sidenote: SOCIAL ECONOMY.]
Their government, if it can be called a government, is patriarchal. Now
and then some ancient or able man gains an ascendency in the tribe, and
overawes his fellows. Some tribes even acknowledge an hereditary chief,
but his authority is nominal. He can neither exact tribute, nor govern
the movements of the people. His power seems to be exercised only in
treating with other tribes. Slavery in any form is unknown among them.
Caste has been mentioned in connection with tattooing, but, as a rule,
social distinctions do not exist.[64]
[Sidenote: AMUSEMENTS.]
The home of the Eskimo is a model of filth and freeness. Coyness is not
one of their vices, nor is modesty ranked among their virtues. The
latitude of innocency marks all their social relations; they refrain
from doing in public nothing that they would do in private. Female
chastity is little regarded. The Kutchins, it is said, are jealous, but
treat their wives kindly; the New Caledonians are jealous, and treat
them cruelly; but the philosophic Eskimos are neither jealous nor
unkind. Indeed, so far are they from espionage or meanness in marital
affairs, that it is the duty of the hospitable host to place at the
disposal of his guest not only the house and its contents, but his wife
also.[65] The lot of the women is but little better than slavery. All
the work, except the nobler occupations of hunting, fishing, and
fighting, falls to them. The lesson of female inferiority is at an early
age instilled into the mind of youth. Nevertheless, the Eskimo mother is
remarkably affectionate, and fulfills her low destiny with patient
kindness. Polygamy is common; every man being entitled to as many wives
as he can get and maintain. On the other hand, if women are scarce, the
men as easily adapt themselves to circumstances, and two of them marry
one woman. Marriages are celebrated as follows: after gaining the
consent of the mother, the lover presents a suit of clothes to the lady,
who arrays herself therein and thenceforth is his wife.[66] Dancing,
accompanied by singing and violent gesticulation, is their chief
amusement. In all the nations of the north, every well-regulated village
aspiring to any degree of respectability has its public or town house,
which among the Eskimos is called the _Casine_ or _Kashim_. It consists
of one large subterranean room, better built than the common dwellings,
and occupying a central position, where the people congregate on
feast-days.[67] This house is also used as a public work-shop, where are
manufactured boats, sledges, and snow-shoes. A large portion of the
winter is devoted to dancing. Feasting and visiting commence in
November. On festive occasions, a dim light and a strong odor are thrown
over the scene by means of blubber-lamps. The dancers, who are usually
young men, strip themselves to the waist, or even appear _in puris
naturalibus_, and go through numberless burlesque imitations of birds
and beasts, their gestures being accompanied by tambourine and songs.
Sometimes they are fantastically arrayed in seal or deer skin
pantaloons, decked with dog or wolf tails behind, and wear feathers or a
colored handkerchief on the head. The ancients, seated upon benches
which encircle the room, smoke, and smile approbation. The women attend
with fish and berries in large wooden bowls; and, upon the opening of
the performance, they are at once relieved of their contributions by the
actors, who elevate the provisions successively to the four cardinal
points and once to the skies above, when all partake of the feast. Then
comes another dance. A monotonous refrain, accompanied by the beating of
an instrument made of seal-intestines stretched over a circular frame,
brings upon the ground one boy after another, until about twenty form a
circle. A series of pantomimes then commences, portraying love,
jealousy, hatred, and friendship. During intervals in the exercises,
presents are distributed to strangers. In their national dance, one girl
after another comes in turn to the centre, while the others join hands
and dance and sing, not unmusically, about her. The most extravagant
motions win the greatest applause.[68]
Among other customs of the Eskimo may be mentioned the following. Their
salutations are made by rubbing noses together. No matter how oily the
skin, nor how rank the odor, he who would avoid offense must submit his
nose to the nose of his Hyperborean brother,[69] and his face to the
caressing hand of his polar friend. To convey intimations of friendship
at a distance, they extend their arms, and rub and pat their breast.
Upon the approach of visitors they form a circle, and sit like Turks,
smoking their pipes. Men, women, and children are inordinately fond of
tobacco. They swallow the smoke and revel in a temporary elysium. They
are called brave, simple, kind, intelligent, happy, hospitable,
respectful to the aged. They are also called cruel, ungrateful,
treacherous, cunning, dolorously complaining, miserable.[70] They are
great mimics, and, in order to terrify strangers, they accustom
themselves to the most extraordinary contortions of features and body.
As a measure of intellectual capacity, it is claimed for them that they
divide time into days, lunar months, seasons, and years; that they
estimate accurately by the sun or stars the time of day or night; that
they can count several hundred and draw maps. They also make rude
drawings on bone, representing dances, deer-hunting, animals, and all
the various pursuits followed by them from the cradle to the grave.
But few diseases are common to them, and a deformed person is scarcely
ever seen. Cutaneous eruptions, resulting from their antipathy to water,
and ophthalmia, arising from the smoke of their closed huts and the
glare of sun-light upon snow and water, constitute their chief
disorders.[71] For protection to their eyes in hunting and fishing,
they make goggles by cutting a slit in a piece of soft wood, and
adjusting it to the face.
The Eskimos do not, as a rule, bury their dead; but double the body up,
and place it on the side in a plank box, which is elevated three or four
feet from the ground, and supported by four posts. The grave-box is
often covered with painted figures of birds, fishes, and animals.
Sometimes it is wrapped in skins, placed upon an elevated frame, and
covered with planks, or trunks of trees, so as to protect it from wild
beasts. Upon the frame or in the grave-box are deposited the arms,
clothing, and sometimes the domestic utensils of the deceased. Frequent
mention is made by travelers of burial places where the bodies lie
exposed, with their heads placed towards the north.[72]
[Sidenote: THE KONIAGAS.]
THE KONIAGAS derive their name from the inhabitants of the island of
Kadiak, who, when first discovered, called themselves _Kanagist_.[73]
They were confounded by early Russian writers with the Aleuts. English
ethnologists sometimes call them Southern Eskimos. From Kadiak they
extend along the coast in both directions; northward across the Alaskan
Peninsula to Kotzebue Sound, and eastward to Prince William Sound. The
Koniagan family is divided into nations as follows: the _Koniagas_
proper, who inhabit the Koniagan Archipelago; the _Chugatshes_,[74] who
occupy the islands and shores of Prince William Sound; the _Aglegmutes_,
of Bristol Bay; the _Keyataigmutes_, who live upon the river Nushagak
and the coast as far as Cape Newenham; the _Agulmutes_, dwelling upon
the coast between the Kuskoquim and Kishunak rivers; the
_Kuskoquigmutes_,[75] occupying the banks of the river Kuskoquim; the
_Magemutes_, in the neighborhood of Cape Romanzoff; the _Kwichpagmutes_,
_Kwichluagmutes_, and _Pashtoliks_, on the Kwichpak, Kwickluak, and
Pashtolik rivers; the _Chnagmutes_, near Pashtolik Bay; the
_Anlygmutes_, of Golovnin Bay, and the _Kaviaks_ and _Malemutes_, of
Norton Sound.[76] "All of these people," says Baron von Wrangell, "speak
one language and belong to one stock."
The most populous district is the Kuskoquim Valley.[77] The small
islands in the vicinity of Kadiak were once well peopled; but as the
Russians depopulated them, and hunters became scarce, the natives were
not allowed to scatter, but were forced to congregate in towns.[78]
Schelikoff, the first settler on Kadiak, reported, in that and
contiguous isles, thirty thousand natives. Thirty years later,
Saritsheff visited the island and found but three thousand. The
Chugatshes not long since lived upon the island of Kadiak, but, in
consequence of dissensions with their neighbors, they were obliged to
emigrate and take up their residence on the main land. They derived
their manners originally from the northern nations; but, after having
been driven from their ancient possessions, they made raids upon
southern nations, carried off their women, and, from the connections
thus formed, underwent a marked change. They now resemble the southern
rather than the northern tribes. The Kadiaks, Chugatshes, Kuskoquims,
and adjacent tribes, according to their own traditions, came from the
north, while the Unalaskas believe themselves to have originated in the
west. The Kaviaks intermingle to a considerable extent with the
Malemutes, and the two are often taken for one people; but their
dialects are quite distinct.
[Sidenote: LAND OF THE KONIAGAS.]
The country of the Koniagas is a rugged wilderness, into many parts of
which no white man has ever penetrated. Mountainous forests, glacial
cañons, down which flow innumerable torrents, hills interspersed with
lakes and marshy plains; ice-clad in winter, covered with luxuriant
vegetation in summer. Some sheltered inlets absorb an undue proportion
of oceanic warmth. Thus the name Aglegmutes signifies the inhabitants of
a warm climate.
Travelers report chiefs among the Koniagas seven feet in height, but in
general they are of medium stature.[79] Their complexion may be a shade
darker than that of the Eskimos of the northern coast, but it is still
very light.[80] The Chugatshes are remarkable for their large heads,
short necks, broad faces, and small eyes. Holmberg claims for the
Koniagas a peculiar formation of the skull; the back, as he says, being
not arched but flat. They pierce the septum of the nose and the under
lip, and in the apertures wear ornaments of various materials; the most
highly prized being of shell or of amber. It is said that at times amber
is thrown up in large quantities by the ocean, on the south side of
Kadiak, generally after a heavy earthquake, and that at such times it
forms an important article of commerce with the natives. The more the
female chin is riddled with holes, the greater the respectability. Two
ornaments are usually worn, but by very aristocratic ladies as many as
six.[81] Their favorite colors in face-painting are red and blue, though
black and leaden colors are common.[82] Young Kadiak wives secure the
affectionate admiration of their husbands by tattooing the breast and
adorning the face with black lines; while the Kuskoquim women sew into
their chin two parallel blue lines. The hair is worn long by men as well
as women. On state occasions, it is elaborately dressed; first saturated
in train-oil, then powdered with red clay or oxide of iron, and finished
off with a shower of white feathers. Both sexes wear beads wherever they
can find a place for them, round the neck, wrists, and ankles, besides
making a multitude of holes for them in the ears, nose, and chin. Into
these holes they will also insert buttons, nails, or any European
trinket which falls into their possession.[83]
[Sidenote: KADIAK AND KUSKOQUIM DRESS.]
The aboriginal dress of a wealthy Kadiak was a bird-skin parka, or
shirt, fringed at the top and bottom, with long wide sleeves out of
which the wearer slipped his arms in an emergency. This garment was
neatly sewed with bird-bone needles, and a hundred skins were sometimes
used in the making of a single parka. It was worn with the feathers
outside during the day, and inside during the night. Round the waist was
fastened an embroidered girdle, and over all, in wet weather, was worn
an intestine water-proof coat. The Kadiak breeches and stockings were of
otter or other skins, and the boots, when any were worn, were of
seal-neck leather, with whale-skin soles. The Russians in a measure
prohibited the use of furs among the natives, compelling them to
purchase woolen goods from the company, and deliver up all their
peltries. The parkas and stockings of the Kuskoquims are of
reindeer-skin, covered with embroidery, and trimmed with valuable furs.
They also make stockings of swamp grass, and cloaks of sturgeon-skin.
The Malemute and Kaviak dress is similar to that of the northern
Eskimo.[84]
The Chugatshes, men, women, and children, dress alike in a close fur
frock, or robe, reaching sometimes to the knees, but generally to the
ankles. Their feet and legs are commonly bare, notwithstanding the high
latitude in which they live; but they sometimes wear skin stockings and
mittens. They make a truncated conic hat of straw or wood, in whimsical
representation of the head of some fish or bird, and garnished with
colors.[85]
[Sidenote: DWELLINGS AND FOOD OF THE KONIAGAS.]
The Koniagas build two kinds of houses; one a large, winter village
residence, called by the Russians _barabara_, and the other a summer
hunting-hut, placed usually upon the banks of a stream whence they draw
food. Their winter houses are very large, accommodating three or four
families each. They are constructed by digging a square space of the
required area to a depth of two feet, placing a post, four feet high
above the surface of the ground, at every corner, and roofing the space
over to constitute a main hall, where eating is done, filth deposited,
and boats built. The sides are of planks, and the roof of boards, poles,
or whale-ribs, thickly covered with grass. In the roof is a smoke-hole,
and on the eastern side a door-hole about three feet square, through
which entrance is made on hands and knees, and which is protected by a
seal or other skin. Under the opening in the roof, a hole is dug for
fire; and round the sides of the room, tomb-like excavations are made,
or boards put up, for sleeping-places, where the occupant reposes on his
back with his knees drawn up to the chin. Adjoining rooms are sometimes
made, with low underground passages leading off from the main hall. The
walls are adorned with implements of the chase and bags of winter food;
the latter of which, being in every stage of decay, emits an odor most
offensive to unhabituated nostrils. The ground is carpeted with straw.
When the smoke-hole is covered by an intestine window, the dwellings of
the Koniagas are exceedingly warm, and neither fire nor clothing is
required.[86] The _kashim_, or public house of the Koniagas, is built
like their dwellings, and is capable of accommodating three or four
hundred people.[87] Huts are built by earthing over sticks placed in
roof-shape; also by erecting a frame of poles, and covering it with bark
or skins.
The Koniagas will eat any digestible substance in nature except pork;
from which fact Kingsborough might have proven incontestably a Jewish
origin. I should rather give them swinish affinities, and see in this
singularity a hesitancy to feed upon the only animal, except themselves,
which eats with equal avidity bear's excrements, carrion birds, maggoty
fish, and rotten sea-animals.[88] When a whale is taken, it is literally
stripped of everything to the bare bones, and these also are used for
building huts and boats.[89] These people can dispose of enormous
quantities of food; or, if necessary, they can go a long time without
eating.[90] Before the introduction of intoxicating drinks by white men,
they made a fermented liquor from the juice of raspberries and
blueberries. Tobacco is in general use, but chewing and snuffing are
more frequent than smoking. Salmon are very plentiful in the vicinity of
Kadiak, and form one of the chief articles of diet. During their
periodical ascension of the rivers, they are taken in great quantities
by means of a pole pointed with bone or iron. Salmon are also taken in
nets made of whale-sinews. Codfish are caught with a bone hook. Whales
approach the coast of Kadiak in June, when the inhabitants pursue them
in baidarkas. Their whale-lance is about six feet in length, and pointed
with a stone upon which is engraved the owner's mark. This point
separates from the handle and is left in the whale's flesh, so that when
the body is thrown dead upon the beach, the whaler proves his property
by his lance-point. Many superstitions are mentioned in connection with
the whale-fishery. When a whaler dies, the body is cut into small pieces
and distributed among his fellow-craftsmen, each of whom, after rubbing
the point of his lance upon it, dries and preserves his piece as a sort
of talisman. Or the body is placed in a distant cave, where, before
setting out upon a chase, the whalers all congregate, take it out, carry
it to a stream, immerse it and then drink of the water. During the
season, whalers bear a charmed existence. No one may eat out of the same
dish with them, nor even approach them. When the season is over, they
hide their weapons in the mountains.
In May, the Koniagas set out in two-oared baidarkas for distant
islands, in search of sea-otter. As success requires a smooth sea, they
can hunt them only during the months of May and June, taking them in the
manner following. Fifty or one hundred boats proceed slowly through the
water, so closely together that it is impossible for an otter to escape
between them. As soon as the animal is discovered, the signal is given,
the area within which he must necessarily rise to the surface for air,
is surrounded by a dozen boats, and when he appears upon the surface he
is filled with arrows. Seals are hunted with spears ten or twelve feet
in length, upon the end of which is fastened an inflated bladder, in
order to float the animal when dead.
[Sidenote: THE KUSKOKWIGMUTES AND MALEMUTES.]
The Kuskokwigmutes are less nomadic than their neighbors; being housed
in permanent settlements during the winter, although in summer they are
obliged to scatter in various directions in quest of food. Every morning
before break of day, during the hunting-season, a boy lights the
oil-lamps in all the huts of the village, when the women rise and
prepare the food. The men, excepting old men and boys, all sleep in the
kashim, whither they retire at sunset. In the morning they are aroused
by the appearance of the shamán, arrayed in his sacerdotal robes, and
beating his sacred drum. After morning worship, the women carry
breakfast to their husbands in the kashim. At day-break the men depart
for their hunting or fishing, and when they return, immediately repair
to the kashim, leaving the women to unload and take care of the products
of the day's work. During the hunting-season the men visit their wives
only during the night, returning to the kashim before daylight.
The Malemutes leave their villages upon the coast regularly in February,
and, with their families, resort to the mountains, where they follow the
deer until snow melts, and then return to catch water-fowl and herring,
and gather eggs upon the cliffs and promontories of the coast and
islands. In July is their salmon feast. The fawns of reindeer are caught
upon the hills by the women in August, either by chasing them down or
by snaring them. Deer are stalked, noosed in snares, or driven into
enclosures, where they are easily killed. At Kadiak, hunting begins in
February, and in April they visit the smaller islands for sea-otter,
seals, sea-lions, and eggs. Their whale and other fisheries commence in
June and continue till October, at which time they abandon work and give
themselves up to festivities. The seal is highly prized by them for its
skin, blubber, and oil. One method of catching seals illustrates their
ingenuity. Taking an air-tight seal-skin, they blow it up like a
bladder, fasten to it a long line, and, concealing themselves behind the
rocks, they throw their imitation seal among the live ones and draw it
slowly to the shore. The others follow, and are speared or killed with
bow and arrows. Blueberries and huckleberries are gathered in quantities
and dried for winter use; they are eaten mixed with seal-oil. The
Koniagas are also very fond of raw reindeer-fat. They hunt with guns,
and snare grouse, marten, and hares. A small white fish is taken in
great quantities from holes in the ice. They are so abundant and so
easily caught that the natives break off the barbs from their fish-hooks
in order to facilitate their operations.
The white polar bear does not wander south of the sixty-fifth parallel,
and is only found near Bering Strait. Some were found on St Matthew
Island, in Bering Sea, but were supposed to have been conveyed thither
upon floating ice. The natives approach the grizzly bear with great
caution. When a lair is discovered, the opening is measured, and a
timber barricade constructed, with an aperture through which the bear
may put his head. The Indians then quietly approach and secure their
timbers against the opening of the den with stones, and throw a
fire-brand into the den to arouse the animal, who thereupon puts his
head out through the hole and meets with a reception which brings him to
an untimely end.[91]
[Sidenote: WAR, IMPLEMENTS, AND GOVERNMENT.]
In former times, the Koniagas went to war behind a huge wooden shield a
foot thick and twelve feet in width. It was made of three thicknesses of
larch-wood, bound together with willows, and with it they covered thirty
or forty lancers.[92] They poisoned their arrow and lance points with a
preparation of aconite, by drying and pulverizing the root, mixing the
powder with water, and, when it fermented, applying it to their
weapons.[93] They made arrow-points of copper, obtaining a supply from
the Kenai of Copper River;[94] and the wood was as finely finished as if
turned in a lathe.
The boats of the Koniagas are similar to those of the north, except that
the bow and stem are not alike, the one turning up to a point and the
other cut off square.[95] Needles made of birds' bones, and thread from
whale-sinews, in the hands of a Kadiak woman, produced work, "many
specimens of which," says Lisiansky, "would do credit to our best
seamstresses."[96] They produced fire by revolving with a bow-string a
hard dry stick upon a soft dry board, one end of the stick being held in
a mouth-piece of bone or ivory. Their implements were few--a stone
adze, a shell or flint knife, a polishing stone, and a handled
tooth.[97] Yet they excel in carving, and in working walrus-teeth and
whalebone, the former being supplied them mostly by the Aglegmutes of the
Alaskan Peninsula. The tools used in these manufactures were of stone,
and the polishing tools of shell. Traces of the stone age are found in
lamps, hammers and cutting instruments, wedges and hatchets. Carving is
done by the men, while the women are no less skillful in sewing,
basket-making, crocheting, and knitting. The women tan, and make
clothing and boat-covers from skins and intestines.[98] The Agulmutes
are skilled in the carving of wood and ivory; the Kuskoquims excel in
wood and stone carving. They make in this manner domestic utensils and
vases, with grotesque representations of men, animals, and birds, in
relief.
Authority is exercised only by heads of households, but chiefs may, by
superior ability, acquire much influence.[99] Before they became broken
up and demoralized by contact with civilization, there was a marked
division of communities into castes; an hereditary nobility and
commonalty. In the former was embodied all authority; but the rule of
American chieftains is nowhere of a very arbitrary character. Slavery
existed to a limited extent, the thralls being mostly women and
children. Their male prisoners of war, they either killed immediately or
reserved to torture for the edification and improvement of their
children.[100] Upon the arrival of the Russians, the slaves then held
by the natives, thinking to better their condition, left their barbaric
masters and placed themselves under the protection of the new comers.
The Russians accepted the trust, and set them to work. The poor
creatures, unable to perform the imposed tasks, succumbed; and, as their
numbers were diminished by ill treatment, their places were supplied by
such of the inhabitants as had been guilty of some misdemeanor; and
singularly enough, misdemeanors happened to be about in proportion to
the demand for slaves.[101]
[Sidenote: MORALITY OF THE KONIAGAS.]
The domestic manners of the Koniagas are of the lowest order. In filth
they out-do, if possible, their neighbors of the north.[102] Thrown
together in little bands under one roof, they have no idea of morality,
and the marriage relation sits so loosely as hardly to excite jealousy
in its abuse. Female chastity is deemed a thing of value only as men
hold property in it. A young unmarried woman may live uncensured in the
freest intercourse with the men; though, as soon as she belongs to one
man, it is her duty to be true to him. Sodomy is common; the Kaviaks
practice polygamy and incest; the Kadiaks cohabit promiscuously,
brothers and sisters, parents and children.[103] The Malemutes are
content with one wife, but they have no marriage ceremony, and can put
her away at pleasure. They prize boy babies, but frequently kill the
girls, taking them out into the wilderness, stuffing grass into their
mouth and abandoning them; yet children are highly esteemed, and the
barren woman is a reproach among her people. Such persons even go so far
as to make a doll or image of the offspring which they so greatly
desire, and fondle it as if it were a real child.[104] Two husbands are
also allowed to one woman; one the chief or principal husband, and the
other a deputy, who acts as husband and master of the house during the
absence of the true lord; and who, upon the latter's return, not only
yields to him his place, but becomes in the meantime his servant.
But the most repugnant of all their practices is that of male
concubinage. A Kadiak mother will select her handsomest and most
promising boy, and dress and rear him as a girl, teaching him only
domestic duties, keeping him at woman's work, associating him only with
women and girls, in order to render his effeminacy complete. Arriving at
the age of ten or fifteen years, he is married to some wealthy man, who
regards such a companion as a great acquisition. These male wives are
called _achnutschik_ or _schopans_.[105]
[Sidenote: KONIAGAN SWEAT-HOUSES.]
A most cruel superstition is enforced upon maidens at the age of
puberty; the victim being confined for six months in a hut built for the
purpose, apart from the others, and so small that the poor inmate cannot
straighten her back while upon her knees. During the six months
following, she is allowed a room a little larger, but is still permitted
no intercourse with any one. Daughters of principal men obtain the right
of access to the kashim by undergoing a ceremonial yielding up of their
virginity to the shamán.[106] Marriage ceremonies are few, and marriage
engagements peculiar. The consent of the father of the intended bride
being obtained, the aspirant for nuptial honors brings wood and builds a
fire in the bath-room; after which, he and the father take a bath
together. The relatives meanwhile congregate, a feast is held, presents
are made, the bridegroom takes the name of the bride's father, the
couple are escorted to a heated vapor-bath and there left together.
Although extremely filthy in their persons and habits, all Indians
attach great importance to their sweat-baths. This peculiar institution
extends through most of the nations of our territory, from Alaska to
Mexico, with wonderful uniformity. Frequently one of the side
subterranean apartments which open off from the main hall, is devoted to
the purposes of a sweat-house. Into one of these caverns a Kadiak will
enter stripped. Steam is generated by throwing water upon heated stones.
After sweltering for a time in the confined and heated atmosphere, and
while yet in a profuse perspiration, the bather rushes out and plunges
into the nearest stream or into the sea, frequently having to break the
ice before being able to finish his bath. Sometimes all the occupants of
the house join in a bath. They then clear the floor of the main room
from obstructions, and build a hot fire under the smoke-hole. When the
fire is reduced to coals, a covering is placed over the smoke-hole, and
the bathers proceed to wash themselves in a certain liquid, which is
carefully saved for this and other cleansing purposes, and also for
tanning. The alkali of the fluid combines with the grease upon their
persons, and thus a lather is formed which removes dirt as effectually
as soap would. They then wash in water, wrap themselves in deer-skins,
and repose upon shelves until the lassitude occasioned by perspiration
passes away.
Festivals of various kinds are held; as, when one village is desirous of
extending hospitality to another village, or when an individual becomes
ambitious of popularity, a feast is given. A ceremonial banquet takes
place a year after the death of a relative; or an entertainment may be
announced as a reparation for an injury done to one's neighbor. At some
of these feasts only men dance, and at others the women join. Upon these
occasions, presents are exchanged, and the festivities sometimes
continue for several days. The men appear upon the scene nearly or quite
naked, with painted faces, and the hair fantastically decorated with
feathers, dancing to the music of the tambourine, sometimes accompanied
by sham fights and warlike songs. Their faces are marked or
fantastically painted, and they hold a knife or lance in one hand and a
rattle in the other. The women dance by simply hopping forward and
backward upon their toes.[107] A visitor, upon entering a dwelling, is
presented with a cup of cold water; afterward, fish or flesh is set
before him, and it is expected that he will leave nothing uneaten. The
more he eats, the greater the honor to the host; and, if it be
impossible to eat all that is given him, he must take away with him
whatever remains. After eating, he is conducted to a hot bath and
regaled with a drink of melted fat.
Sagoskin assisted at a ceremony which is celebrated annually about the
first of January at all the villages on the coast. It is called the
festival of the immersion of the bladders in the sea. More than a
hundred bladders, taken only from animals which have been killed with
arrows, and decorated with fantastic paintings, are hung upon a cord
stretched horizontally along the wall of the kashim. Four birds carved
from wood, a screech-owl with the head of a man, a sea-gull, and two
partridges, are so disposed that they can be moved by strings artfully
arranged; the owl flutters his wings and moves his head; the gull
strikes the boards with his beak as if he were catching fish, and the
partridges commence to peck each other. Lastly, a stake enveloped in
straw is placed in the centre of the fire-place. Men and women dance
before these effigies in honor of _Jug-jak_, the spirit of the sea.
Every time the dancing ceases, one of the assistants lights some straw,
burning it like incense before the birds and the bladders. The principal
ceremony of the feast consists, as its name indicates, in the immersion
of the bladders in the sea. It was impossible to discover the origin of
this custom; the only answer given to questions was, that their
ancestors had done so before them.
[Sidenote: SUPERSTITIONS OF THE KONIAGAS.]
The shamán, or medicine-man of the Koniagas, is the spiritual and
temporal doctor of the tribe; wizard, sorcerer, priest, or physician, as
necessity demands. In the execution of his offices, the shamán has
several assistants, male and female, sages and disciples; the first in
rank being called _kaseks_, whose duty it is to superintend festivals
and teach the children to dance. When a person falls sick, some evil
spirit is supposed to have taken possession of him, and it is the
business of the shamán to exorcise that spirit, to combat and drive it
out of the man. To this end, armed with a magic tambourine, he places
himself near the patient and mutters his incantations. A female
assistant accompanies him with groans and growls. Should this prove
ineffectual, the shamán approaches the bed and throws himself upon the
person of the sufferer; then, seizing the demon, he struggles with it,
overpowers and casts it out, while the assistants cry, "He is gone! he
is gone!" If the patient recovers, the physician is paid, otherwise he
receives nothing.[108] Colds, consumption, rheumatism, itch, boils,
ulcers, syphilis, are among their most common diseases. Blood-letting is
commonly resorted to as a curative, and except in extreme cases the
shamán is not called. The Koniagas bleed one another by piercing the arm
with a needle, and then cutting away the flesh above the needle with a
flint or copper instrument. Beaver's oil is said to relieve their
rheumatism.
"The Kadiak people," says Lisiansky, "seem more attached to their dead
than to their living." In token of their grief, surviving friends cut
the hair, blacken the face with soot, and the ancient custom was to
remain in mourning for a year. No work may be done for twenty days, but
after the fifth day the mourner may bathe. Immediately after death, the
body is arrayed in its best apparel, or wrapped with moss in seal or
sea-lion skins, and placed in the kashim, or left in the house in which
the person died, where it remains for a time in state. The body, with
the arms and implements of the deceased, is then buried. It was not
unfrequent in former times to sacrifice a slave upon such an occasion.
The grave is covered over with blocks of wood and large stones.[109] A
mother, upon the death of a child, retires for a time from the camp; a
husband or wife withdraws and joins another tribe.[110]
The character of the Koniagas may be drawn as peaceable, industrious,
serviceable to Europeans, adapted to labor and commerce rather than to
war and hunting. They are not more superstitious than civilized nations;
and their immorality, though to a stranger most rank, is not to them of
that socially criminal sort which loves darkness and brings down the
avenger. In their own eyes, their abhorrent practices are as sinless as
the ordinary, openly conducted avocations of any community are to the
members thereof.
[Sidenote: THE ALEUTS.]
THE ALEUTS are the inhabitants of the Aleutian Archipelago. The origin
of the word is unknown;[111] the original name being _Kagataya
Koung'ns_, or 'men of the east,' indicating an American origin.[112] The
nation consists of two tribes speaking different dialects; the
_Unalaskans_, occupying the south-western portion of the Alaskan
Peninsula, the Shumagin Islands, and the Fox Islands; and the _Atkhas_,
inhabiting the Andreanovski, Rat, and Near Islands. Migrations and
intermixtures with the Russians have, however, nearly obliterated
original distinctions.
The earliest information concerning the Aleutian Islanders was obtained
by Michael Nevodtsikoff, who sailed from Kamchatka in 1745. Other
Russian voyagers immediately followed, attracted thither in search of
sea-animal skins, which at that time were very plentiful.[113] Tribute
was levied upon the islanders by the Russians, and a system of cruelty
commenced which soon reduced the natives from ten thousand to but little
more than one thousand.
The Aleuts, to Langsdorff, "appear to be a sort of middle race between
the mongrel Tartars and the North Americans." John Ledyard, who visited
Unalaska with Captain Cook, saw "two different kinds of people; the one
we knew to be the aborigines of America, while we supposed the others to
have come from the opposite coasts of Asia."[114] Their features are
strongly marked, and those who saw them as they originally existed, were
impressed with the intelligent and benevolent expression of their
faces.[115] They have an abundance of lank hair, which they cut with
flints--the men from the crown, and the women in front.[116] Both sexes
undergo the usual face-painting and ornamentations. They extend their
nostrils by means of a bow-cylinder. The men wear a bone about the size
of a quill in the nose, and the women insert pieces of bone in the under
lip.[117] Their legs are bowed, from spending so much of their time in
boats; they frequently sitting in them fifteen or twenty hours at a
time. Their figure is awkward and uncouth, yet robust, active, capable
of carrying heavy burdens and undergoing great fatigue.[118]
[Sidenote: ALEUTIAN HAT AND HABITATION.]
The hat of the Aleut is the most peculiar part of his dress. It consists
of a helmet-shaped crown of wood or leather, with an exceedingly long
brim in front, so as to protect the eyes from the sun's reflection upon
the water and snow. Upon the apex is a small carving, down the back part
hang the beards of sea-lions, while carved strips of bone and paint
ornament the whole. This hat also serves as a shield against arrows. The
Fox Islanders have caps of bird-skin, on which are left the
bright-colored feathers, wings, and tail.[119] As a rule, the men adopt
bird-skin clothing, and the women furs, the latter highly ornamented
with beads and fringes.[120]
The habitations of the Fox Islanders are called _Ullaa_, and consist of
immense holes from one to three hundred feet in length, and from twenty
to thirty feet wide. They are covered with poles and earthed over,
leaving several openings at the top through which descent is made by
ladders. The interior is partitioned by stakes, and three hundred people
sometimes occupy one of these places in common. They have no fire-place,
since lamps hollowed from flat stones answer every purpose for cooking
and light.[121] A boat turned bottom upward is the summer house of the
Aleut.[122]
Raw seal and sea-otter, whale and sea-lion blubber, fish, roots, and
berries are staple articles of food among the Aleuts. To procure
vegetable food is too much trouble. A dead, half-putrefied whale washed
ashore is always the occasion of great rejoicing. From all parts the
people congregate upon the shore, lay in their winter supplies, and
stuff themselves until not a morsel remains. November is their best
hunting-season. Whale-fishing is confined to certain families, and the
spirit of the craft descends from father to son. Birds are caught in a
net attached to the end of a pole; sea-otter are shot with arrows;
spears, bone hooks, and nets are used in fishing.[123] After the advent
of the Russians, the natives were not allowed to kill fur-animals
without accounting to them therefor.[124]
Their weapons are darts with single and double barbs, which they throw
from boards; barbed, bone-pointed lances; spears, harpoons, and arrows,
with bone or stone points. At their side is carried a sharp stone knife
ten or twelve inches long, and for armor they wear a coat of plaited
rushes, which covers the whole body.[125] An Aleut bear-trap consists
of a board two feet square and two inches thick, planted with barbed
spikes, placed in bruin's path and covered with dust. The unsuspecting
victim steps firmly upon the smooth surface offered, when his foot sinks
into the dust. Maddened with pain, he puts forward another foot to
assist in pulling the first away, when that too is caught. Soon all four
of the feet are firmly spiked to the board; the beast rolls over on his
back, and his career is soon brought to an end.
[Sidenote: CUSTOMS OF THE ALEUTS.]
Notwithstanding their peaceful character, the occupants of the several
islands were almost constantly at war. Blood, the only atonement for
offense, must be washed out by blood, and the line of vengeance becomes
endless. At the time of discovery, the Unimak Islanders held the
supremacy.
The fabrications of the Aleuts comprise household utensils of stone,
bone, and wood; missiles of war and the chase; mats and baskets of grass
and the roots of trees, neat and strong; bird-beak rattles, tambourines
or drums, wooden hats and carved figures. From the wing-bone of the
sea-gull, the women make their needles; from sinews, they make thread
and cord.[126] To obtain glue for mending or manufacturing purposes,
they strike the nose until it bleeds.[127] To kindle a fire, they make
use of sulphur, in which their volcanic islands abound, and the process
is very curious. First they prepare some dry grass to catch the fire;
then they take two pieces of quartz, and, holding them over the grass,
rub them well with native sulphur. A few feathers are scattered over the
grass to catch the particles of sulphur, and, when all is ready, holding
the stones over the grass, they strike them together; a flash is
produced by the concussion, the sulphur ignites, and the straw blazes
up.[128]
The Aleuts have no marriage ceremony. Every man takes as many women to
wife as he can support, or rather as he can get to support him. Presents
are made to the relatives of the bride, and when she ceases to possess
attractions or value in the eyes of her proprietor, she is sent back to
her friends. Wives are exchanged by the men, and rich women are
permitted to indulge in two husbands. Male concubinage obtains
throughout the Aleutian Islands, but not to the same extent as among the
Koniagas.[129] Mothers plunge their crying babies under water in order
to quiet them. This remedy performed in winter amid broken ice, is very
effectual.[130]
Every island, and, in the larger islands, every village, has its
_toyon_, or chief, who decides differences, is exempt from work, is
allowed a servant to row his boat, but in other respects possesses no
power. The office is elective.[131]
The Aleuts are fond of dancing and given to hospitality. The stranger
guest, as he approaches the village, is met by dancing men and dancing
women, who conduct him to the house of the host, where food is given
him. After supper, the dancing, now performed by naked men, continues
until all are exhausted, when the hospitalities of the dwelling are
placed at the disposal of the guest, and all retire.[132] A religious
festival used to be held in December, at which all the women of the
village assembled by moonlight, and danced naked with masked faces, the
men being excluded under penalty of death. The men and women of a
village bathe together, in aboriginal innocency, unconscious of
impropriety. They are fond of pantomimic performances; of representing
in dances their myths and their legends; of acting out a chase, one
assuming the part of hunter, another of a bird or beast trying to escape
the snare, now succeeding, now failing--the piece ending in the
transformation of a captive bird into a lovely woman, who falls
exhausted into the arms of the hunter.
The dead are clothed and masked, and either placed in the cleft of a
rock, or swung in a boat or cradle from a pole in the open air. They
seem to guard the body as much as possible from contact with the
ground.[133]
[Sidenote: CHARACTER OF THE ALEUTS.]
In their nature and disposition, these islanders are sluggish but
strong. Their sluggishness gives to their character a gentleness and
obsequiousness often remarked by travelers; while their inherent
strength, when roused by brutal passions, drives them on to the greatest
enormities. They are capable of enduring great fatigue, and, when roused
to action by necessity, they will perform an incredible amount of work,
suffering the severest cold or heat or hunger with the most stoical
calmness. They are very quiet in their demeanor; sometimes sitting in
companies within their dens, or on their house-tops gazing at the sea
for hours, without speaking a word. It is said that formerly they were
much more gay and cheerful, but that an acquaintance with civilization
has been productive of the usual misfortune and misery.[134]
It does not appear that the Russians were behind the Spaniards in their
barbarous treatment of the natives.[135] Notwithstanding their interest
lay in preserving life, and holding the natives in a state of serfdom as
fishers and hunters, the poor people were soon swept away. Father
Innocentius Veniaminoff, a Russian missionary who labored among the
islanders long and faithfully, gives them the highest character for
probity and propriety. Among other things, he affirms that during a
residence of ten years in Unalaska, there did not occur a single fight
among the natives. Proselytes were made by the Russians with the same
facility as by the Spaniards. Tribute was levied by the Russians upon
all the islanders, but, for three years after their conversion,
neophytes were exempt; a cheap release from hateful servitude, thought
the poor Aleut; and a polity which brought into the folds of the church
pagan multitudes.
[Sidenote: THE THLINKEETS.]
THE THLINKEETS, as they call themselves, or _Kolosches_, as they are
designated by the Russians, inhabit the coast and islands from Mount St
Elias to the river Nass. The name Thlinkeet signifies 'man,' or 'human
being.' Kolosch,[136] or more properly _Kaluga_, is the Aleutian word
for 'dish,' and was given to this people by Aleutian seal-hunters whom
the Russians employed during their first occupation of the Island of the
Sitkas. Perceiving a resemblance in the shape of the Thlinkeet
lip-ornament, to the wooden vessels of their own country, they applied
to this nation the name Kaluga, whence the Kolosches of the Russians.
Holmberg carries their boundaries down to the Columbia River; and
Wrangell perceives a likeness, real or imaginary, to the Aztecs.[137]
Indeed the differences between the Thlinkeets and the inhabitants of New
Caledonia, Washington, and Oregon, are so slight that the whole might
without impropriety be called one people. The Thlinkeets have, however,
some peculiarities not found elsewhere; they are a nation distinct from
the Tinneh upon their eastern border, and I therefore treat of them
separately.
The three families of nations already considered, namely, the Eskimos,
the Koniagas, and the Aleuts, are all designated by most writers as
Eskimos. Some even include the Thlinkeets, notwithstanding their
physical and philological differences, which, as well as their
traditions, are as broadly marked as those of nations that these same
ethnologists separate into distinct families. Nomadic nations, occupying
lands by a precarious tenure, with ever-changing boundaries, engaged in
perpetual hostilities with conterminous tribes that frequently
annihilate or absorb an entire community, so graduate into one another
that the dividing line is often with difficulty determined. Thus the
Thlinkeets, now almost universally held to be North American Indians
proper, and distinct from the Eskimos, possess, perhaps, as many
affinities to their neighbors on the north, as to those upon the south
and east. The conclusion is obvious. The native races of America, by
their geographical position and the climatic influences which govern
them, are of necessity to a certain degree similar; while a separation
into isolated communities which are acted upon by local causes, results
in national or tribal distinctions. Thus the human race in America, like
the human race throughout the world, is uniform in its variety, and
varied in its unity.
The Thlinkeet family, commencing at the north, comprises the
_Ugalenzes_,[138] on the shore of the continent between Mount St Elias
and Copper River; the _Yakutats_, of Bering Bay; the _Chilkats_, at Lynn
Canal; the _Hoodnids_, at Cross Sound; the _Hoodsinoos_, of Chatham
Strait; and, following down the coast and islands, the _Takoos_, the
_Auks_, the _Kakas_, the _Sitkas_,[139] the _Stikines_,[140] and the
_Tungass_. The Sitkas on Baranoff Island[141] are the dominant tribe.
Descending from the north into more genial climes, the physical type
changes, and the form assumes more graceful proportions. With the
expansion of nature and a freer play of physical powers, the mind
expands, native character becomes intensified, instinct keener, savage
nature more savage, the nobler qualities become more noble; cruelty is
more cruel, torture is elevated into an art, stoicism is
cultivated,[142] human sacrifice and human slavery begin, and the
oppression and degradation of woman is systematized. "If an original
American race is accepted," says Holmberg, "the Thlinkeets must be
classed with them." They claim to have migrated from the interior of the
continent, opposite Queen Charlotte Island.
The Ugalenzes spend their winters at a small bay east from Kadiak, and
their summers near the mouth of Copper River, where they take fish in
great quantities. Their country also abounds in beaver. The Chilkats
make two annual trading excursions into the interior. The Tacully
tribes, the Sicannis and Nehannes, with whom the Chilkats exchange
European goods for furs, will allow no white man to ascend their
streams.
[Sidenote: THLINKEET PECULIARITIES.]
Naturally, the Thlinkeets are a fine race; the men better formed than
the boatmen of the north;[143] the women modest, fair, and
handsome;[144] but the latter have gone far out of their way to spoil
the handiwork of nature. Not content with daubing the head and body with
filthy coloring mixtures; with adorning the neck with copper-wire
collars, and the face with grotesque wooden masks; with scarring their
limbs and breast with keen-edged instruments; with piercing the nose and
ears, and filling the apertures with bones, shells, sticks, pieces of
copper, nails, or attaching to them heavy pendants, which drag down the
organs and pull the features out of place;[145] they appear to have
taxed their inventive powers to the utmost, and with a success
unsurpassed by any nation in the world, to produce a model of hideous
beauty.
[Sidenote: THLINKEET LIP-ORNAMENT.]
This success is achieved in their wooden lip-ornament, the crowning
glory of the Thlinkeet matron, described by a multitude of
eye-witnesses; and the ceremony of its introduction may be not
inappropriately termed, the baptism of the block. At the age of
puberty,--some say during infancy or childhood,--in the under lip of all
free-born female Thlinkeets,[146] a slit is made parallel with the
mouth, and about half an inch below it.[147] If the incision is made
during infancy, it is only a small hole, into which a needle of copper,
a bone, or a stick is inserted, the size being increased as the child
grows. If the baptism is deferred until the period when the maiden
merges into womanhood, the operation is necessarily upon a larger scale,
and consequently more painful.[148] When the incision is made, a copper
wire, or a piece of shell or wood, is introduced, which keeps the wound
open and the aperture extended; and by enlarging the object and keeping
up a continuous but painful strain, an artificial opening in the face is
made of the required dimensions. On attaining the age of maturity, this
wire or other incumbrance is removed and a block of wood inserted. This
block is oval or elliptical in shape, concaved or hollowed dish-like on
the sides, and grooved like the wheel of a pulley on the edge in order
to keep it in place.[149] The dimensions of the block are from two to
six inches in length, from one to four inches in width, and about half
an inch thick round the edge, and highly polished.[150] Old age has
little terror in the eyes of a Thlinkeet belle, for larger lip-blocks
are introduced as years advance, and each enlargement adds to the lady's
social status, if not to her facial charms. When the block is withdrawn,
the lip drops down upon the chin like a piece of leather, displaying the
teeth, and presenting altogether a ghastly spectacle.[151] This custom
is evidently associated in their minds with womanly modesty, for when La
Pérouse asked them to remove their block, some refused; those who
complied manifesting the same embarrassment shown by a European woman
who uncovers her bosom. The Yakutats alone of all the Thlinkeet nation
have never adopted this fashion.
[Sidenote: DRESS OF THE THLINKEETS.]
Their dress, which is made from wolf, deer, bear, or other skin, extends
from the shoulder to the knee, and consists of a mantle, or cape, with
sleeves, which reaches down to the waist, and to which the women attach
a skirt, or gown, and the men a belt and apron. A white blanket is made
from the wool of the wild sheep, embroidered with figures, and fringed
with furs, all of native work. This garment is most highly prized by the
men. They wear it thrown over the shoulder so as to cover the whole
body.
Vancouver thus describes the dress of a chief at Lynn Canal. His
"external robe was a very fine large garment, that reached from his
neck down to his heels, made of wool from the mountain sheep, neatly
variegated with several colors, and edged and otherwise decorated with
little tufts or frogs of woolen yarn, dyed of various colors. His
head-dress was made of wood, much resembling in its shape a crown,
adorned with bright copper and brass plates, from whence hung a number
of tails or streamers, composed of wool and fur, wrought together, dyed
of various colors, and each terminating in a whole ermine skin. The
whole exhibited a magnificent appearance, and indicated a taste for
dress and ornament that we had not supposed the natives of these regions
to possess."
The men make a wooden mask, which rests on a neckpiece, very ingeniously
carved, and painted in colors, so as to represent the head of some bird
or beast or mythological being. This was formerly worn in battle,
probably, as La Pérouse suggests, in order to strike terror into the
hearts of enemies, but is now used only on festive occasions.[152]
A small hat of roots and bark, woven in the shape of a truncated cone,
ornamented with painted figures and pictures of animals, is worn by both
sexes.[153] Ordinarily, however, the men wear nothing on the head; their
thick hair, greased and covered with ochre and birds' down, forming a
sufficient covering. The hat is designed especially for rainy weather,
as a protection to the elaborately dressed hair.[154] Besides their
every-day dress, they have a fantastic costume for tribal holidays.
For their winter habitations, a little back from the ocean, the
Thlinkeets build substantial houses of plank or logs, sometimes of
sufficient strength to serve as a fortress. They are six or eight feet
in height, the base in the form of a square or parallelogram, the roof
of poles placed at an angle of forty-five degrees and covered with bark.
The entrance is by a small side door. The fire, which is usually kept
burning night and day, occupies the centre of the room; over it is a
smoke-hole of unusual size, and round the sides of the room are
apartments or dens which are used as store-houses, sweat-houses, and
private family rooms. The main room is very public and very filthy.[155]
Summer huts are light portable buildings, thrown up during hunting
excursions in the interior, or on the sea-beach in the fishing-season. A
frame is made of stakes driven into the ground, supporting a roof, and
the whole covered with bark, or with green or dry branches, and skins or
bark over all. The door is closed by bark or a curtain of skins. Each
hut is the rendezvous for a small colony, frequently covering twenty or
thirty persons, all under the direction of one chief.[156]
[Sidenote: FOOD OF THE THLINKEETS.]
The food of the Thlinkeets is derived principally from the ocean, and
consists of fish, mussels, sea-weeds, and in fact whatever is left upon
the beach by the ebbing tide--which at Sitka rises and falls eighteen
feet twice a day--or can be caught by artificial means. Holmberg says
that all but the Yakutats hate whale as the Jews hate pork. Roots,
grasses, berries, and snails are among their summer luxuries. They chew
a certain plant as some chew tobacco, mixing with it lime to give it a
stronger effect,[157] and drink whale-oil as a European drinks beer.
Preferring their food cooked, they put it in a tight wicker basket,
pouring in water, and throwing in heated stones, until the food is
boiled.[158] For winter, they dry large quantities of herring, roes,
and the flesh of animals.
For catching fish, they stake the rivers, and also use a hook and line;
one fisherman casting from his canoe ten or fifteen lines, with bladders
for floats. For herring, they fasten to the end of a pole four or five
pointed bones, and with this instrument strike into a shoal, spearing a
fish on every point. They sometimes make the same instrument in the
shape of a rake, and transfix the fish with the teeth. The Sitkas catch
halibut with large, wooden, bone-pointed hooks.[159]
The arms of the Thlinkeets denote a more warlike people than any we have
hitherto encountered. Bows and arrows; hatchets of flint, and of a hard
green stone which cuts wood so smoothly that no marks of notches are
left; great lances, six or eight varas in length, if Bodega y Quadra may
be trusted, hardened in the fire or pointed with copper, or later with
iron; a large, broad, double-ended dagger, or knife,--are their
principal weapons. The knife is their chief implement and constant
companion. The handle is nearer one end than the other, so that it has a
long blade and a short blade, the latter being one quarter the length of
the former. The handle is covered with leather, and a strap fastens it
to the hand when fighting. Both blades have leathern sheaths, one of
which is suspended from the neck by a strap.[160]
[Sidenote: THE THLINKEETS IN WAR.]
They also encase almost the entire body in a wooden and leathern armor.
Their helmets have curiously carved vizors, with grotesque
representations of beings natural or supernatural, which, when
brilliantly or dismally painted, and presented with proper yells, and
brandishings of their ever-glittering knives, are supposed to strike
terror into the heart of their enemies. They make a breast-plate of
wood, and an arrow-proof coat of thin flexible strips, bound with
strings like a woman's stays.[161]
When a Thlinkeet arms for war, he paints his face and powders his hair a
brilliant red. He then ornaments his head with white eagle-feathers, a
token of stern, vindictive determination. During war they pitch their
camp in strong positions, and place the women on guard. Trial by combat
is frequently resorted to, not only to determine private disputes, but
to settle quarrels between petty tribes. In the latter case, each side
chooses a champion, the warriors place themselves in battle array, the
combatants armed with their favorite weapon, the dagger, and well
armored, step forth and engage in fight; while the people on either side
engage in song and dance during the combat. Wrangell and Laplace assert
that brave warriors killed in battle are devoured by the conquerors, in
the belief that the bravery of the victim thereby enters into the nature
of the partaker.[162]
Coming from the north, the Thlinkeets are the first people of the coast
who use wooden boats. They are made from a single trunk; the smaller
ones about fifteen feet long, to carry from ten to twelve persons; and
the larger ones, or war canoes, from fifty to seventy feet long; these
will carry forty or fifty persons. They have from two and a half to
three feet beam; are sharp fore and aft, and have the bow and stern
raised, the former rather more than the latter. Being very light and
well modeled, they can be handled with ease and celerity. Their paddles
are about four feet in length, with crutch-like handles and wide,
shovel-shaped blades. Boats as well as paddles are ornamented with
painted figures, and the family coat-of-arms. Bodega y Quadra, in
contradiction to all other authorities, describes these canoes as being
built in three parts; with one hollowed piece, which forms the bottom
and reaches well up the sides, and with two side planks. Having hollowed
the trunk of a tree to the required depth, the Thlinkeet builders fill
it with water, which they heat with hot stones to soften the wood, and
in this state bend it to the desired shape. When they land, they draw
their boats up on the beach, out of reach of the tide, and take great
care in preserving them.[163]
[Sidenote: INDUSTRIES OF THE THLINKEETS.]
The Thlinkeets manifest no less ingenuity in the manufacture of domestic
and other implements than in their arms. Rope they make from sea-weed,
water-tight baskets and mats from withes and grass; and pipes, bowls,
and figures from a dark clay. They excel in the working of stone and
copper, making necklaces, bracelets, and rings; they can also forge
iron. They spin thread, use the needle, and make blankets from the white
native wool. They exhibit considerable skill in carving and painting,
ornamenting the fronts of their houses with heraldic symbols, and
allegorical and historical figures; while in front of the principal
dwellings, and on their canoes, are carved parts representing the human
face, the heads of crows, eagles, sea-lions, and bears.[164] La Pérouse
asserts that, except in agriculture, which was not entirely unknown to
them, the Thlinkeets were farther advanced in industry than the South
Sea Islanders.
Trade is carried on between Europeans and the interior Indians, in which
no little skill is manifested. Every article which they purchase
undergoes the closest scrutiny, and every slight defect, which they are
sure to discover, sends down the price. In their commercial intercourse
they exhibit the utmost decorum, and conduct their negotiations with the
most becoming dignity. Nevertheless, for iron and beads they willingly
part with anything in their possession, even their children. In the
voyage of Bodega y Quadra, several young Thlinkeets thus became the
property of the Spaniards, as the author piously remarks, for purposes
of conversion. Sea-otter skins circulate in place of money.[165]