PHIL’S ESKIMO MILITIA
Phil and Serge dropped very easily into the life of the mission, and
quickly became interested in its work. The missionary had always found
more or less trouble with the older Indian boys, who were almost ready
to take their place in the tribe as hunters, and so felt themselves
rather above going to school with the children. When Phil learned of
this difficulty he conceived a plan for overcoming it, which, with the
missionary’s consent, he at once proceeded to put into execution. It
was nothing more nor less than to form the unruly boys into a military
company. He had been an officer in his own school company at New
London, and even Serge had become fairly well drilled during the year
he had spent there.
Phil and Serge had already formed the acquaintance of an intelligent
young Indian named Chitsah, son of Kurilla, who had once been in the
employ of an American exploring party, from whom he had gained a fair
knowledge of English.
Through Chitsah, therefore, Phil issued an invitation to all the Indian
lads between the ages of twelve and eighteen to meet him and Serge
in the large school-room, which was cleared of its furniture for the
purpose, that very evening, as he wanted to teach them a new game.
About one dozen boys accepted this invitation, and a disreputable,
slouchy appearing lot they were, all clad in cast-off or well-worn
garments of civilization, and looking as though half ashamed of being
there. As Phil afterwards said, he expected each moment to see them
become panic-stricken and make a break for the door.
By the aid of Serge and Chitsah, who acted as interpreters, Phil
explained that the new game was called “soldiers.” He said that all who
wanted to join his company and come to that place three nights of the
week for drill might do so, provided each would first make for himself
a wooden gun like the one he had prepared that day, and which he now
showed them. After a while they would give an exhibition drill to which
all their friends should be invited, but in the meantime everything
that took place at their meetings was to be kept secret from outsiders.
Then the young drill-master put Serge through the manual of arms and a
few marching movements to illustrate his meaning.
The boys quickly comprehended the idea, and were charmed with it. Some
of them began instinctively to stand straight and throw back their
shoulders in imitation of Serge. When Phil ranged them in a line toeing
a chalk-mark drawn across the floor, and then, stepping back a few
paces, called out, “’Tention!” every one of them assumed an attitude
bearing some resemblance to that of a soldier, and stood motionless.
Then Phil pinned a band of scarlet cloth about the left sleeve of the
largest boy, who was known as Big Sidorka, and told him he might wear
it for one week, after which it would be given to whichever one of the
company the others should decide to be the best drilled.
The next evening twenty boys appeared, and every one brought with him a
wooden gun, all neatly and some beautifully made. At this meeting they
were given their permanent positions in the ranks, taught to count
“fours” at the word of command, to hold themselves erect, to “carry”
and to “shoulder” arms. They were also given to understand that the
company was now full, and, until after the exhibition drill, no more
members would be admitted. This at once gave membership a value that
made it seem very desirable.
On this occasion, after the drill was over, Serge produced a number
of illustrated books and papers containing pictures of soldiers, the
meaning of which he explained with such success as to fully arouse the
interest of his dusky audience. As a result of this experiment the
young Russo-American, who had worked so bravely for his own education,
found himself within a week teaching an enthusiastic reading-class, in
which every member of Phil’s military company was a willing scholar.
The missionary was jubilant over these successes, and declared that
with a dozen such helpers as Phil and Serge he could have every Indian
on the Yukon in school within one year.
In the meantime our lads were not neglectful of their own affairs.
With every able-bodied Indian procurable enlisted in the work, the
new building was completed by the end of the first week, and for some
days the _Chimo’s_ crew found ample occupation in furnishing and
storing it. Then, too, under instructions from Serge, Chitsah, or
Kurilla, Phil spent every spare moment of daylight in learning the art
of snow-shoeing, mastering the terrible Eskimo whip, and acquiring a
vocabulary of dog-language.
He got many a tumble on his snow-shoes, and took ludicrous “headers”
into many a deep drift, where he would flounder helplessly until
rescued by some of the delighted spectators of his mishaps. The long
whip, too, tried its best to strangle him by winding in snaky coils
about his neck, or to tangle itself in bewildering knots around his
legs. As for his vocabulary, it was enough to provoke laughter in the
most sedate of sledge dogs, and created uproarious mirth among the
human occupants of the Indian village. In spite of all difficulties,
Phil persevered with unabated energy, until gradually his feet and the
snow-shoes began to work together. He actually succeeded in cracking
the snake-like whip so that the sound could be heard, and Kurilla’s
fine team of bushy-tailed dogs began to prick up their sharp ears
understandingly when he addressed them. Many a spin did he have on the
river behind this lively team, with Kurilla running beside the sledge
and cracking his mighty whip until its reports rattled like a fire
of musketry. When at length Phil was allowed to run with the sledge
instead of occupying it as a passenger, and the entire control of the
team was intrusted to him, he felt prouder, as Jalap Coombs used to
say, than was becoming to a mere mortal man.
But his pride was quickly humbled, for ere they had gone a mile
the dogs discovered that they had no reason to fear his whip, and
that his unintelligible commands might be treated with contemptuous
indifference. Suddenly Musky, the leader, who had a grudge of long
standing against Amook, one of the big steer-dogs, turned like a flash
and darted furiously at his enemy. In an instant the whole team was
rolling in a confused mass of yelping, snarling, snapping, and biting
fur, with traces tangled in a thousand knots, sledge going to smash,
and pandemonium reigning generally.
Phil stood by in helpless consternation, and not until Kurilla, running
up in breathless haste, flung himself bodily into the mêlée, did he
have the faintest hope that any dog would emerge alive from that savage
conflict.
Another time, as he thought he was meeting with complete success in
driving this same team, and was thoroughly enjoying a ride in the
sledge, the dogs suddenly stopped short and refused to go on. They
sat on their haunches, with wagging tails, and looked up at Phil with
pleased expressions, as though rejoicing over the discovery that they
needn’t work unless they chose. And there they sat, in spite of all
their driver’s efforts to move them, until he was in despair, when with
equal suddenness they sprang up and dashed away home with the empty
sledge, leaving him to follow on foot as best he might.
His first real journey by dog-sledge was to the Eskimo village of
Makagamoot, fifteen miles down the river, and was taken in company with
the missionary, who was accustomed to visit this place once a month.
They went in two sledges, with Chitsah as runner, and Phil took with
him a small lot of goods. For these Gerald Hamer wished him to procure
several suits of fur clothing, in making which the Eskimos greatly
excel their Indian neighbors.
While the entire coast of Alaska north of the great peninsula is
inhabited by Eskimos, they never penetrate far into the interior, and
only for short distances along the principal rivers. Nor do the Indians
of the interior ever occupy the coast territory. Thus in the present
case Makagamoot was the last wholly Eskimo settlement, and Anvik the
first in which Indians predominated, on the Yukon.
Makagamoot was a much more thrifty village than its next neighbor,
though at first sight its eight or ten large houses looked only like so
many great inverted bowls or hillocks of snow. These winter residences
are in a great part below the surface of the ground, where they are
neatly lined with wood or whalebone, and are extremely comfortable
after their fashion. Thus only their snow-covered roofs appear above
the surface, and in the centre of each is a square smoke-hole, that
admits such daylight and outer air as find their way to the interior.
Access to these dwellings is gained by means of tunnel-like approaches,
through most of which a man must crawl on hands and knees.
Back of the dwellings rose twenty or thirty of what Phil had called
log dove-cots, about six feet square and high, mounted on ten-foot
posts. He now knew them to be provision caches or store-houses for
the smoked or dried fish and meat that furnished the entire winter’s
supply of food for the village. They are thus constructed to insure
their contents against the horde of wolfish-looking dogs that ever
gaze at them with hungry longings. For the same reason all sledges and
skin-covered boats must be stored on scaffolds erected for the purpose.
Phil and the missionary received an uproarious welcome, emphasized by a
great firing of guns, at this quaint Eskimo village, and were conducted
to the kashga, or principal building, which is at once town-hall,
hotel, bath-house, and general assembly-room for the settlement, as
well as the winter residence of all unmarried men.
So great was the heat in this place, so stifling its atmosphere, and so
horrible its odors, that poor Phil gasped for breath on entering it. In
vain did he attempt to partake of some of the delicacies pressed upon
their guests by the hospitable natives. Raw seal’s liver, strips of
reindeer fat, dried fish, salmon roe that had been kept for many weeks
in a hole in the ground, and caribou bones split so that the marrow
might be sucked from them, succeeded each other in rapid succession.
Phil was hungry, but not hungry enough for any of these.
Nor could he force himself to remain in that terrible atmosphere long
enough to witness the wedding of an Eskimo girl with a white man, a
Russian ex-employé of the old fur company, which was the first duty
the missionary was called upon to perform. The mortified lad was sorry
to thus disappoint his kind-hearted and well-meaning entertainers; but
there was no help for it. So with swimming head and uneasy stomach he
made a break for the place of exit.
[Illustration: INDIAN GIRLS, ALASKA]