Belkoffski! There was something in the name that attracted my attention
the first time I heard it; and my interest increased with each mile that
brought it nearer. It is situated on the green and sloping shores of
Pavloff Bay, which rise gradually to hills of considerable height.
Behind it smokes the active volcano, Mount Pavloff, with whose ashes the
hills are in places gray, and whose fires frequently light the night
with scarlet beauty.
The _Dora_ anchored more than a mile from shore, and when the boat was
lowered we joyfully made ready to descend. We were surprised that no one
would go ashore with us. Important duties claimed the attention of
officers and passengers; yet they seemed interested in our preparations.
"Won't you come ashore with us?" we asked.
"No, I thank you," they all replied, as one.
"Have you ever been ashore here?"
"Oh, yes, thank you."
"Isn't it interesting, then?"
"Oh, very interesting, indeed."
"There is something in their manner that I do not like," I whispered to
my companion. "What do you suppose is the matter with Belkoffski."
"Smallpox, perhaps," she whispered back.
"I don't care; I'm going."
"So am I."
"What kind of place is Belkoffski?" I asked one of the sailors who rowed
us ashore.
He grinned until it seemed that he would never again be able to get his
mouth shut.
"Jou vill see vot kind oof a blace it ees," he replied luminously.
"Is it not a nice place, then?"
"Jou vill see."
We did see.
The tide was so low and the shore so rocky that we could not get within
a hundred yards of any land. A sailor named "Nelse" volunteered to carry
us on his back; and as nothing better presented itself for our
consideration, we promptly and joyfully went pick-a-back.
This was my most painful experience in Alaska. My father used to make
stirrups of his hands; but as Nelse did not offer, diffidence kept me
from requesting this added gallantry of him. It was well that I went
first; for after viewing my friend's progress shoreward, had I not
already been upon the beach, I should never have landed at Belkoffski.
For many years Belkoffski was the centre of the sea-otter trade. This
small animal, which has the most valuable fur in the world, was found
only along the rock shores of the Aliaska Peninsula and the Aleutian
Islands. The Shumagins and Sannak islands were the richest grounds.
Sea-otter, furnishing the court fur of both Russia and China, were in
such demand that they have been almost entirely exterminated--as the
fur-bearing seal will soon be.
The fur of the sea-otter is extremely beautiful. It is thick and
velvety, its rich brown under-fur being remarkable. The general color is
a frosted, or silvery, purplish brown.
The sea-otter frequented the stormiest and most dangerous shores, where
they were found lying on the rocks, or sometimes floating, asleep, upon
fronds of an immense kelp which was called "sea-otter's cabbage." The
hunters would patiently lie in hiding for days, awaiting a favorable
opportunity to surround their game.
They were killed at first by ivory spears, which were deftly cast by
natives. In later years they were captured in nets, clubbed brutally, or
shot. They were excessively shy, and the difficulty and danger of
securing them increased as their slaughter became more pitiless. Only
natives were allowed to kill otter until 1878, when white men married to
native women were permitted by the Secretary of the Treasury to consider
themselves, and to be considered, natives, so far as hunting privileges
were concerned.
The rarest and most valuable of otter are the deep-sea otter, which
never go ashore, as do the "rock-hobbers," unless driven there by
unusual storms. "Silver-tips"--deep-sea otter having a silvery tinge on
the tips of the fur--bring the most fabulous prices.
The hunting of these scarce and precious animals calls for greater
bravery, hardship, perilous hazard, and actual suffering than does the
chase of any other fur-bearing animal. Pitiful, shameful, and loathsome
though the slaughter of seals be, it is not attended by the exposure and
the hourly peril which the otter hunter unflinchingly faces.
Sea-otter swim and sleep upon their backs, with their paws held over
their eyes, like sleepy puppies, their bodies barely visible and their
hind flippers sticking up out of the water.
The young are born sometimes at sea, but usually on kelp-beds; and the
mother swims, sleeps, and even suckles her young stretched at full
length in the water upon her back. She carries her offspring upon her
breast, held in her forearms, and has many humanly maternal ways with
it,--fondling it, tossing it into the air and catching it, and even
lulling it to sleep with a kind of purring lullaby.
Both the male and female are fond of their young, caring for it with
every appearance of tenderness. In making difficult landings, the male
"hauls out" first and catches the young, which the mother tosses to him.
Sometimes, when a baby is left alone for a few minutes, it is attacked
by some water enemy and killed or turned over, when it invariably
drowns. The mother, returning and finding it floating, dead, takes it in
her arms and makes every attempt possible to bring it to life. Failing,
she utters a wild cry of almost human grief and slides down into the
sea, leaving it.
The otter hunters used to go out to sea in their bidarkas, with bows,
arrows, and harpoons; several would go together, keeping two or three
hundred yards apart and proceeding noiselessly. When one discovered an
otter, he would hold his paddle straight up in the air, uttering a loud
shout. Then all would paddle cautiously about, keeping a close watch for
the otter, which cannot remain under water longer than fifteen or twenty
minutes. When it came up, the native nearest its breathing place yelled
and held up his paddle, startling it under the water again so suddenly
that it could not draw a fair breath. In this manner they forced the
poor thing to dive again and again, until it was exhausted and floated
helplessly upon the water, when it was easily killed. Frequently two or
three hours were required to tire an otter.
This picturesque method of hunting has given place to shooting and
clubbing the otter to death as he lies asleep on the rocks. As they come
ashore during the fiercest weather, the hunter must brave the most
violent storms and perilous surfs to reach the otter's retreat in his
frail, but beautiful, bidarka. With his gut kamelinka--thin and yellow
as the "gold-beater's leaf"--tied tightly around his face, wrists, and
the "man-hole" in which he sits or kneels, his bidarka may turn over and
over in the sea without drowning him or shipping a drop of water--on his
lucky days. But the unlucky day comes; an accident occurs; and a
dark-eyed woman watches and waits on the green slopes of Belkoffski for
the bidarka that does not come.
There were only women and children in the village of Belkoffski that
June day. The men--with the exception of two or three old ones, who are
always left, probably as male chaperons, at the village--were away,
hunting.
The beach was alive, and very noisy, with little brown lads, half-bare,
bright-eyed, and with faces that revealed much intelligence, kindness,
and humor.
They clung to us, begging for pennies, which, to our very real regret,
we had not thought to take with us. Candy did not go far, and dimes,
even if we had been provided with them, would have too rapidly run into
dollars.
Long-stemmed violets and dozens of other varieties of wild flowers
covered the slopes. One little creek flowed down to the sea between
banks that were of the solid blue of violets.
But the village itself! With one of the prettiest natural locations in
Alaska; with singing rills and flowery slopes and a volcano burning
splendidly behind it; with little clean-looking brown lads playing upon
its sands, a Greek-Russian church in its centre, and a resident priest
who ought to know that cleanliness is next to godliness--with all these
blessings, if blessings they all be, Belkoffski is surely the most
unclean place on this fair earth.
The filth, ignorance, and apparent degradation of these villagers were
revolting in the extreme. Nauseous odors assailed us. They came out of
the doors and windows; they swam out of barns and empty sheds; they
oozed up out of the earth; they seemed, even, to sink upon us out of
the blue sky. The sweetness and the freshness of green grass and blowing
flowers, of dews and mists, of mountain and sea scented winds, are not
sufficient to cleanse Belkoffski--the Caliban among towns.
An educated half-breed Aleutian woman, married to a white man,
accompanied us ashore. She was on her way to Unalaska, and had been
eager to land at Belkoffski, where she was born.
Her father had been a priest of the Greek-Russian church and her mother
a native woman. She had told us much of the kind-heartedness and
generosity of the villagers. Her heart was full of love and gratitude to
them for their tenderness to her when her father, of blessed memory, had
died.
"I have never had such friends since," she said. "They would do anything
on earth for those in trouble, and give their own daily food, if
necessary. I have never seen anything like it since. Education doesn't
put _that_ into our hearts. Such sympathy, such tenderness, such
understanding of grief and trouble!--and the kind of help that helps
most."
If this be the real nature of these people, only the right influence is
needed to lift them from their degradation. The larger children--the
brown-limbed, joyous children down on the beach--looked clean, probably
from spending much time in the healing sea.
The people of the islands do not travel much, and our fellow-voyager had
not been to Belkoffski since she was a little girl. For many years she
had been living among white people, with all the comforts and
cleanliness of a white woman. I watched her narrowly as we went from
house to house, looking for baskets.
We had told her we desired baskets, and she had offered to find some for
us. After we saw the houses and the women, we would have touched a
leper as readily as we would have touched one of the baskets that were
brought out for our inspection; but politeness kept us from admitting to
her our feeling.
As for her own courtesy and restraint, I have never seen them surpassed
by any one. Shock upon shock must have been hers as we passed through
that village of her childhood and affection. She went into those noisome
hovels without the faintest hesitation; she breathed their atmosphere
without complaint; she embraced the women without shrinking.
She knew perfectly why we did not buy the baskets; but she received our
excuses with every appearance of believing them to be sincere, and she
offered us others with utmost dignity and with the manner of serving us,
strangers, in a strange land.
If her delicacy was outraged by the scenes she witnessed, there was not
the faintest trace of it visible in her manner. She made no excuses for
the people, nor for their manner of living, nor for the village.
Belkoffski had been her childhood's home, her father's field; its people
had befriended her and had given her love and tenderness when she was in
need; therefore, both were sacred and beyond criticism.
When we returned to the ship, she could not have failed to hear the
jests and frank opinions of Belkoffski which were freely expressed among
the passengers; but her grave, dark face gave no sign that she
disapproved, or even that she heard.
A government cutter should be sent to Belkoffski with orders to clean it
up, and to burn such portions as are past cleansing. So far as the
Russian priest and the people in his charge are concerned, they would be
benefited by less religion and more cleanliness.
Dr. Hutton, an army surgeon stationed at Fort Seward on Lynn Canal, and
Judge Gunnison, of Juneau, have recently made an appeal to President
Roosevelt for relief for diseased and suffering Indians of Alaska.
Tuberculosis and trachoma prevail among the many tribes and are
increasing at an alarming rate, owing to the utter lack of sanitation in
the villages. Alaskans travelling in the territory are thrown in
constant contact with the Indians. They are encountered on steamers and
trains, in stores and hotels. Owing to the pure air and the general
healthfulness of the northern climate, Alaskans feel no real alarm over
the conditions prevailing as yet; but all feel that the time has arrived
when the Indians should be cared for.
Everything purchased of an Indian should be at once
fumigated--especially furs, blankets, baskets, and every article that
has been handled by him or housed in one of his vile shacks.
The United States Grand Jury recently recommended that medical men be
sent by the government to attend the disease-stricken creatures, and
that a system of inspection and education along sanitary lines--with
special stress laid upon domestic sanitation--should be established.
This system should be extended to the last island of the Aleutian Chain,
and in the interior down the Yukon to Nome. The fur trade and the
canneries depend largely upon the labor of Indians. The former industry
could scarcely be made successful without them. The Indians are rapidly
becoming a "vanishing race" in the North, as elsewhere. For the vices
that are to-day responsible for their unfortunate condition they are
indebted to the white men who have kept them supplied with cheap whiskey
ever since the advent of the first American traders who taught them,
soon after the purchase of Alaska by the United States, to make
"hootchenoo" of molasses, flour, dried apples, or rice, and hops. This
highly intoxicating and degrading liquor was known also as
molasses-rum. During the latter part of the seventies, six thousand five
hundred and twenty-four gallons of molasses were delivered at Sitka and
Wrangell.
The loss of their help, however, is not so serious--being merely a
commercial loss--as the danger to civilized people by coming in contact
with these dreaded diseases. An Indian in Alaska whose eyes are not
diseased is an exception, while the ravages of consumption are very
frequently visible to the most careless observer. Both diseases are
aggravated by such conditions as those existing at Belkoffski. A
physician should be stationed there for a few years at least, to teach
these poor, kind-hearted people what the Russian priest has not taught
them--the science of sanitation.
Bishop Rowe reports that if there were no missionaries to protect the
Eskimo and Indians from unscrupulous white whiskey-traders, they would
survive but a short time. When they can obtain cheap liquors they go on
prolonged and licentious debauches, and are unable to provide for their
actual physical needs for the long, hard winter. Their condition then
becomes pitiable, and many die of hunger and privation. Prosecutions are
made entirely by missionaries. One Episcopal missionary post is
conducted by two young women, one of whom was formerly a society woman
of Los Angeles. The post is more than a thousand miles from Fairbanks,
the nearest city, and one hundred and twenty-five miles from the nearest
white settler. It is owing to the reports and the prosecutions of
missionaries in all parts of Alaska that the outrages formerly practised
upon Eskimo women by licentious white traders are on the decrease.
Federal Commissioner of Education Brown advocates a compulsory school
law for Alaska. He favors instruction in modern methods of fishing and
of curing fish; in the care of all parts of walrus that are
merchantable; in the handling of wooden boats, the tanning and preparing
of skins, in coal mining and the elements of agriculture.
In 1907 fifty-two native schools were maintained in Alaska, with two
thousand five hundred children enrolled. Ten new school buildings have
recently been constructed.
The reindeer service has been one of Alaska's grave scandals, but it has
greatly improved during the past year.
The Eskimo, or Innuit, inhabit a broad belt of the coast line bordering
on Behring Sea and the Arctic Ocean, as well as along the coast "to
Westward" from Yakutat; also the lower part of the Yukon.
Lieutenant Emmons, who is one of the highest authorities on the natives
of Alaska and their customs, has frequently reported the deplorable
condition of the Eskimo, and the prevalence of tuberculosis and other
dread diseases among them.
In 1900 an epidemic of measles and _la grippe_ devastated the
Northwestern Coast. Out of a total population of three thousand natives
about the mouth of the Kuskokwim, fully half died, without medical
attendance or nursing, within a few months.
The hospitality and generous kindness of the Eskimo to those in need is
proverbial. Ever since their subjection by the early Russians--to whom,
also, they would doubtless have shown kindness had they not been afraid
of them--no shipwrecked mariner has sought their huts in vain. Often the
entire crew of an abandoned vessel has been succored, clothed, and kept
from starvation during a whole winter--the season when provisions are
scarce and the Eskimo themselves scarcely know how to find the means of
existence.
Along the islands, the rivers, and lakes, nature has provided them with
food and clothing, if they were but educated to make the most of these
blessings.
But the vast country bordering the coast between the Kuskokwim and the
Yukon, and extending inland a hundred and fifty miles, is low and
swampy. This is the dreariest portion of Alaska. Tundra, swamps, and
sluggish rivers abound. There is no game, and the natives live on fish
and seal. The winters are severe, the climate is cold and excessively
moist. Food has often failed, and the old or helpless are called upon to
go alone out upon the storm-swept tundra and yield their hard
lives--bitter and cheerless at the best--that the young and strong may
live. As late as 1901 Lieutenant Emmons reports that this system of
unselfish and heart-breaking suicide was practised; and it is probably
still in vogue in isolated places when occasion demands.
This district is so poor and unprofitable that the prospector and the
trader have so far passed it by; yet, by some means, the white man's
worst diseases have been carried in to them.
These people are in dire need of schools, hospitals, medical treatment,
and often simple food and clothing.
Farther north, on Seward Peninsula and along the lower Yukon, the
natives who have mingled with the miners and traders could easily be
taught to be not only self-supporting but of real value to the
communities in which they live. They are intelligent, docile, easily
directed, and eager to learn. Lieutenant Emmons found that everywhere
they asked for schools, that their children, to whom they are most
affectionately devoted, may learn to be "smart like the white man."
They are more humble, dependent, and trustful than the Indians, and
could easily be influenced. But people do not go to Alaska to educate
and care for diseased and loathsome natives, unless they are paid well
for the mission. So long as the natives obey the laws of the country, no
one has authority over them. No one is interested in them, or has the
time to spare in teaching them. The United States government should take
care of these people. It should take measures to protect them from the
death-dealing whiskey with which they are supplied; to provide them with
schools, hospitals, medical care; it should supply them with reindeer
and teach them to care for these animals.
Surely the government of the United States asks not to be informed more
than once by such authorities as Lieutenant Emmons, Bishop Rowe, Judge
Gunnison, Ex-Governor Brady, and Doctor Hutton that these most wretched
beings on the outskirts of the world are begging for education, and that
they are sorely in need of medical services.
The government schools in the territory of Alaska are supported by a
portion of the license moneys levied on the various industries of the
country. Alaska has an area of six hundred thousand square miles and an
estimated native and half-breed population of twenty-five thousand; and
for these people only fifty-two schools and as many poorly paid
teachers!
When I have criticised the Russian Church because it has not taught
these people cleanliness, I blush--remembering how my own government has
failed them in needs as vital. And when I reflect upon the outrages
perpetrated upon them by my own fellow-countrymen--who have deprived
them largely of their means of livelihood, robbed them, debauched them,
ravished their women, and lured away their young girls--when I reflect
upon these things, my face burns with shame that I should ever criticise
any other people or any other government than my own.
The recent rapid development of Alaska, and the appropriation of the
native food-supplies by miners, traders, canners, and settlers, present
a problem that must be solved at once. In regard to the Philippines, we
were like a child with a new toy; we could not play with them and
experiment with them enough; yet for forty years these dark, gentle,
uncomplaining people of our most northern and most splendid
possession--beautiful, glorious Alaska--have been patiently waiting for
all that we should long ago have given them: protection, interest, and
the education and training that would have converted them from diseased
and wretched beings into decent and useful people.
According to Lieutenant Emmons, the condition of the Copper River
Indians is exceptionally miserable; and of all the native people, either
coastal or of the interior, they are most needy and in want of immediate
assistance. Reduced in number to barely two hundred and fifty souls,
scattered in small communities along the river valleys amidst the
loftiest mountains of the continent and under the most rigid climatic
conditions, their natural living has been taken from them by the white
man, without the establishment of any labor market for their
self-support in return.
Prior to 1888 they lived in a very primitive state, and were, even then,
barely able to maintain themselves on the not over-abundant game life of
the valley, together with the salmon coming up the river for spawning
purposes. The mining excitement of that year brought several thousand
men into the Copper River Valley, on their way to the Yukon and the
Klondike.
They swept the country clean of game, burnt over vast districts, and
frequently destroyed what they could not use. About the same time the
salmon canneries in Prince William Sound, having exhausted the home
streams, extended their operations to the Copper River delta, decreasing
the Indians' salmon catch, which had always provided them with food for
the bitter winters.
[Illustration: Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau Courtesy of Webster &
Stevens, Seattle
"WOLF"]
These Indians are simple, kind-hearted, and have ever been friendly and
hospitable to the white man. They respect his cache, although their own
has not always been respected by him.
At Copper Centre, which is connected by military wagon road with the
coast at Valdez, flour sells for twenty-four dollars a hundredweight,
and all other provisions and clothing in proportion; so it may be
readily understood that the white people of the interior cannot afford
to divide their provisions with the starving Indians, else they would
soon be in the same condition themselves. Therefore, for these Indians,
too,--fortunately few in number,--the government must provide liberally
and at once.