Still sailing Northward.—Multitudes of Water-Fowls.—Native Graveyards.—
Curious Totem-Poles.—Tribal and Family Emblems.—Division of the
Tribes.—Whence the Race came.—A Clew to their Origin.—The Northern
Eskimos.—A Remarkable Museum of Aleutian Antiquities.—Jade Mountain.—
The Art of Carving.—Long Days.—Aborigines of the Yukon Valley.—Their
Customs.
Still sailing northward, large numbers of ebon-hued cormorants are seen
feeding on the low, kelp-covered rocks, contrasting with the snowy
whiteness of the gulls. Big flocks of snipe, ducks, and other aquatic
birds line the water’s edge, or rise in clouds from some sheltered nook
to settle again in our wake. Higher up in air a huge bald-headed eagle
is in sight nearly all the while, as we sail along the winding
watercourse. The eagles of Alaska, unlike those of other sections of the
globe, are not a solitary bird, but congregate in considerable numbers,
and residents told us they had seen a score of them roasting together on
the branches of the same tree, but we must confess to never having seen
even two together. Elsewhere the eagle is certainly a bird whose
solitary habits are one of its marked characteristics. We observe here
and there near native villages, more square boxes and totem-poles
indicating the resting-places of the dead. Some tribes continue to burn
their dead, and these boxes contain only the ashes, but the missionaries
and the whites generally have so opposed the idea of cremation that many
of the natives have abandoned it. The burial above-ground in the square
boxes referred to is a peculiar idea. These coffins, if they may be so
called, are about three feet and a half long by two and a half wide, and
are often elaborately carved and painted with grotesque figures. The
corpse is disjointed and doubled up in order to get it into this
compass, though why this is done when a longer box would so much
simplify matters, no one seems to know. We were told that some of the
Alaskan tribes used to place their dead in trees, or on the top of four
raised poles, a similar practice to that which once prevailed among
certain tribes of our Western Indians, but the mode just described is
that which most generally prevails. There seems to be some difference of
opinion as regards the real significance of the totem-poles. They appear
to be designed in part to commemorate certain deeds in the lives of the
departed, near whose grave they are reared, as well as to indicate the
family arms of those for whom they are erected. Thus, on seeing one
special totem-post surmounted by a wolf carved in wood, beneath which a
useless gun was lashed, inquiry was made as to its significance,
whereupon we were told that the deceased by whose grave it stood had
been killed while hunting wolves in the forest. This was certainly a
very literal way of recording the fate of the hunter.
Some tribes adopt the crow, some the hawk, and some the bear or the
whale, as their distinctive tribal emblem. The poles are carved from
bottom to top, averaging thirty or forty feet in height,—though some are
nearly a hundred feet high,—and from three to four feet in diameter, the
height also signifying the importance of the individual, that is, his
social grade or standing in the tribe. Some of the carvings are
mythological, for these people have an oral mythology of the most
fabulous character, which has been handed down from father to son for
many centuries. The carvings on the coffin-boxes, though often
elaborate, to a white man’s eye are meaningless. As we have said, when a
chief dies, some valuable personal effects are always deposited with his
body in the coffin, and one would suppose that such objects were safe
from pilfering fingers of even strangers; yet these articles are
constantly offered for sale, and are eagerly purchased by curio-hunters
who come hither from various parts of this country.
The aborigines of Alaska are divided into various sub-tribes, such as
Hooniahs, Tongas, Auks, Kasa-ans, Haidas, Sitkas, Chinooks, Chilcats,
and so on.
Ivan Petroff, who was sent by the United States Government to Alaska in
1880, as special agent of the census, divides the native population of
the Territory as follows:—
FIRST.—The Innuit or Eskimo race, which predominates in numbers and
covers the littoral margin of all Alaska from the British boundary on
the Arctic to Norton Sound, the Lower Yukon, and Kuskoquin, Bristol Bay,
the Alaska Peninsula, Kodiak Island, mixing in, also, at Prince William
Sound.
SECOND.—The Indians proper spread over the vast interior in the north,
reaching down to the seaboard at Cook’s Inlet and the mouth of the
Copper River, and lining the coast from Mount St. Elias southward to the
boundary and peopling the Alexander Archipelago.
THIRD.—The Aleutian race, extending from the Shumagin Islands westward
to Attoo,—the Ultima Thule of this country,—whom Petroff terms the
Christian inhabitants. These last certainly conform most fully to all
the outward practices of civilization and universally recognize the
Greek Church.
Whence these people originally came is a question which is constantly
discussed, but which is still an unsolved problem. Some words in their
language seem to indicate a Japanese origin, and some seem clearly to be
derived from the Aztec tongue belonging to that peculiar people of the
south. Hon. James G. Swain of Port Townsend, who has given years of
study to the subject of ethnology as connected with the tribes of the
Northwest, states that he found among them a tradition of the Great
Spirit similar to that of the Aztecs, and that when he exhibited to
members of the Haida tribe sketches of Aztec carvings, they at once
recognized and understood them. Copper images and relics found in their
possession were identical with exhumed relics brought from Guatemala.
These are certainly very significant facts, if not convincing ones. The
Alaska natives have some Apache words in their language, which points to
a common origin with our North American Indian tribes, but these
suggestions are purely speculative. There are able students of ethnology
who insist upon the origin of these Alaskans being Asiatic for various
good and sufficient reasons, instancing not only their personal
appearance, but the similarity of their traditions and customs to those
of the people of Asia. To have come thence it is remembered that they
had only to cross a narrow piece of water forty miles wide. This passage
is frequently made in our times by open boats. At certain seasons of the
year, though in so northern a latitude, the strait is by no means rough.
Mr. Seward says: “I have mingled freely with the multifarious
population, the Tongas, the Stickeens, the Kakes, the Haidas, the
Sitkas, the Kontnoos, and the Chilcats. Climate and other circumstances
have indeed produced some differences of manners and customs between the
Aleuts, the Koloschians, and the interior continental tribes, but all of
them are manifestly of Mongol origin. Although they have preserved no
common traditions, all alike indulge in tastes, wear a physiognomy, and
are imbued with sentiments peculiarly noticed in China and Japan.”
The Eskimos proper differ but little from the southern and inland tribes
of Alaska generally; few of them are ever seen south of Norton Sound or
the mouths of the Yukon. Their home is in the Arctic portion of the
Territory, bordering the Frozen Ocean and Behring Strait. It is obvious
that climatic influences create among them different manners and
customs, causing also a slightly different physical formation, but
otherwise they seem to be of the same race as the people of the Alaska
Peninsula, the Aleutian Islands, or indeed of any of the several groups
and of the mainland lying to the south. That these Eskimos resemble
physically the Norwegian Lapps, to be met with at about the same
latitude in the eastern hemisphere, is very obvious to one who has
carefully observed both races in their homes. This similarity extends in
rather a remarkable degree also to their dress as well as domestic
habits.
In the region they occupy, near the source of the Kowak River, which
empties into Kotzebue Sound by several mouths after a course of two or
three hundred miles, is Jade Mountain, composed, as far as is known, of
a light green stone which gives it the name it bears. An exploring party
from the United States steamer Corwin brought away one or two hundred
pounds of the mineral in the summer of 1884. The hardness and tenacity
of these specimens are said to have been remarkable, as well as the
exquisite polish which they exhibited when treated by the lapidist. Jade
Mountain must be in latitude 68° north, between two and three hundred
miles south of the Yukon above the line of Behring Strait. Yet the
exploring party found the thermometer to register 90° Fah. in the shade,
while their greatest annoyance was caused by the mosquitoes. The Kowak
abounds in salmon, pike, and white-fish. “The ‘color’ of gold,” says the
printed report of the expedition, “was obtained almost everywhere.”
Nearly eighty species of birds were collected, though the party were
absent from the Corwin but about seven weeks. The white spruce was found
to be the largest and most abundant tree, and the inhabitants all
Eskimos.
The remarkable museum of ancient arms, dresses, wooden and skin armor,
and domestic utensils exhibited in New York city in 1868 by Mr. Edward
G. Fast, and which was collected by him while in the employment of our
government among the people of the Northwest, revealed some very
important facts as to their history. The collection proved clearly that
two or three hundred years ago these natives of Alaska enjoyed a much
higher degree of civilization than is exhibited by their descendants
to-day. That they have deteriorated in industry, steadiness, and ability
generally is obvious. The art of forging must have been known to them in
the earlier times, as shown in this collection of admirable weapons,
clearly of native manufacture and of most excellent finish. The art of
carving was possessed by them in far greater perfection than they
exhibit in our day, while the skillfully made dresses of tanned leather
worn by the ancient Aleuts nearly equal those in which the warriors were
clad who accompanied Cortez and Pizarro when they landed on this
continent. Mr. Fast was singularly fortunate in securing whole suits of
armor, masks, and war implements for his unique museum of Alaskan
antiquities. In association with Russians and Americans for a century,
more or less, these aborigines have readily adopted the vices of
civilization, so to speak, and have sacrificed most of their own better
qualities. Indolence generally has taken the place of the warlike habits
and steadiness of purpose which must have characterized them as a people
to a large degree before the whites came with firearms and fire-water.
How forcibly is the law of mutability impressed upon us! From a state of
comparative power and importance, this people has dwindled to a
condition simply foreshadowing oblivion.
Rev. W. W. Kirby, a missionary who reached the valley of the Yukon by
way of British Columbia, fully describes the Eskimos whom he mingled
with in the northwestern part of the Territory. He considers them to be
more intelligent than the average Alaska Indians, and far superior to
them in physical appearance, the women especially being much fairer and
more pleasing to look upon. They are more addicted to the use of tobacco
than are these southern tribes, often smoking to great excess, and in
the most peculiar manner, swallowing every swiff from their pipes, until
they become so poisoned as to fall senseless upon the ground, where they
remain in this condition for ten or fifteen minutes. They dress very
neatly with deerskins, wearing the hair on the outside. The men have
heavy beards, shave the crown of their heads, leaving the sides and back
growth to fall freely about the face and neck. Mr. Kirby is obliged to
censure the thievish propensities of this people, which was a source of
great trouble and considerable loss to him. Speaking of his high
northern latitude when among the Eskimos, he says: “As we advanced
farther northward, the sun did not leave us at all. Frequently did I see
him describe a complete circle in the heavens.”
As far south as Pyramid Harbor, latitude 59° 11′ north, the sun does not
set in midsummer until about two o’clock in the morning, rising again
four hours later. Even during these four sunless hours fine print can be
read on the ship’s deck without the aid of any other than the natural
light.
Mr. Kirby found the Indians of the Yukon valley to be rather a fierce
and turbulent people, more like our Western Indians than any other
tribes whom he met. Their country is in and about latitude 65° north,
and beginning at the Mackenzie River, in British Columbia, runs through
Alaska to Behring Strait. They were formerly very numerous, but have
frequently been at war with the Eskimos north of them, and have thus
been sadly reduced in numbers, though they are still a strong and
powerful people.
There is a singular system of social division recognized among them,
termed respectively Chit-sa, Nate-sa, and Tanges-at-sa, faintly
representing the idea of aristocracy, the middle class, and the poorer
order of our civilization. There is another peculiarity in this
connection, it being the rule for a man not to marry in his own, but to
take a wife from either of the other classes. Thus a Chit-sa gentleman
will marry a Tanges-at-sa peasant without hesitation; the offspring in
every case belonging to the class to which the mother is related. This
arrangement has had a most beneficial effect in allaying the deadly
feuds formerly so frequent among neighboring tribes, and which have been
the cause of so reducing their memorial strength by sanguinary
conflicts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------