LIFE AT YAKUTAT
_Thursday and Friday, August the 9th and 10th._—We wandered about the two
villages hunting curios, but without much result, though I got a rather
neat model of the skin bidarky. We got some excellent clams from the
Indians, and a good lot of strawberries which W. and I hulled. We tried
to arrange with Ned to take us up in his canoe to Disenchantment Bay, but
there was a ‘potlatch’ in prospect, and he declined to make any agreement.
_Saturday, the 11th._—Very fine and hot. Our Indians came over by order,
and Matthew and Mike were set to cut wood, while the others took the
boat to fetch water, an operation which involved some little time as the
nearest good water was about a mile away. Having nothing better to do,
H. undertook to make a pudding of corn-meal and raisins for supper. While
we were all sitting round watching, the fire, as was its wont, began
to collapse, and the kettle of water for the coffee took a header into
the ashes. ‘Thank goodness,’ said H., ‘it’s not the pudding.’ Even as
he spoke another log gave way and the pudding joined the coffee-water.
However it was soon re-made, but proved better cold than hot. Just after
supper great excitement was caused by an aged crone, who was leaning on
the palings, pointing out to sea and saying ‘schooner,’ but, on bringing
the telescope to bear, it proved to be only a big iceberg drifting down
from Disenchantment Bay.
In the evening Sub-chief George came round to pay us a visit, and _said_
that he and nine other Indians had once seen the back of Mount St. Elias,
when after goats, and that it was a gentle snow-slope. They landed at
Cape Yaktagi, which he described as being a better beach than Icy Bay.
There used once to be a village there, the westernmost point to which the
Tlinkits ever reached, but now only three tumble-down houses are left.
They went up the _right_ bank of the river Kokhtasch for a day, and
then for two days along moraine at the back of Mount Snowshoe and the
range north of it, which was green and nearly clear of snow on that side;
they then turned east for half a day over ice and saw the mountain as
described.
In the afternoon Murphy’s little eleven-ton schooner, the ‘Active,’ came
down from Disenchantment Bay, where he, Callsen, and Dalton had been
prospecting, and had found coal in a spot where it seemed so likely to
pay that some of them went back later from Sitka to winter there, so as
to begin working it directly spring began.
_Sunday, the 12th._—Very fine, with a light west wind. As we were short
of meat Lyons and I took the canoe along the shore towards Ankau Creek,
where we found several flocks of small plover, and I shot about thirty.
I had only No. 4 shot; with No. 8 or 10 the bag would probably have been
doubled. In the afternoon Murphy came over; W. wanted to go down with
him, but they were already very full. He managed it at last by exchanging
places with Finn, who was to stay and go down with us.
_Monday, the 13th._—The ‘Active’ sailed at six, and W. went over about
four o’clock. He must have left the shed door open, and some dogs have
made their entrance, for H.’s sealskin gloves were found outside, and my
model bidarky had vanished altogether; Ned subsequently discovered it
unhurt in the bushes outside. These Siwash dogs were a horrid nuisance,
and we several times rose in the night to pursue them, but without
result, as they always escaped by the holes in the palings before we
could stop them up. Once they got into the store-tent by digging under
the side, and went off with a bit of bacon and the only piece of cheese
in Yakutat.
_Tuesday, the 14th._—This afternoon the potlatch began in the second
house. These potlatches generally follow a funeral or some great
misfortune; thus an Indian at Dry Bay, who possessed three large trading
canoes, had one of them wrecked and some men drowned, on which he
promptly held a potlatch and gave away the other two canoes and all the
rest of his property, with the view of appeasing the anger of the Great
Spirit. A potlatch is sometimes, but very rarely, held for the purpose
of gaining influence in the tribe in order that the donor may some day
succeed to the position of chief. This one we attended was consequent on
the exhumation and reburial of the ashes of members of the two families.
Just before proceedings commenced Matthew summoned us, and ushered us in
in great pew-opener style. We were rather surprised at finding blankets
spread for us in the place of honour facing the door, as we had been
told they might perhaps object to our presence, so we were pleased and
said they really did know how to do things in Yakutat. About two hundred
spectators crowded in, and there was consequently a fairish ‘froust.’
A blanket was then held up over the small oval hole which served as a
doorway, and the play began. The ‘Ravens,’ seventeen men, four women,
and three boys, wondrously painted and arrayed, came and thundered on
the wall outside, after which the old doctor, who wore a curious wooden
mask representing a raven’s head, crept under the blanket, and singing
and yelling postured slowly down the three or four steps from the door,
followed gradually by the rest, howling at the top of their voices. When
they were all in they danced, but only for a short time. Some of the
head-dresses, made of ermine-skins and abelone shells, were very quaint.
They then retired, and, after a pause during which we all went out
for some fresh air, the ‘Eagles’ entered in the same way. This time
we saw the old chief and doctor both skip into the house at the first
warning with somewhat undignified haste, and when we followed, we found
them ensconced in the place of honour, and realised that we had been
intruders before, though they had been too polite to turn us out. We
huddled into a corner, and watched the performance, which was much the
same. Gums and Jimmy were in great form, skipping about as if they were
birds, and waving their arms wrapped in cloaks. Our George was also most
resplendent, having on his head De Groff’s big tin funnel decorated with
skins and red feathers. One blanket was then torn up and distributed,
and then came a long wait, so H., Finn, and Shorty went back with the
missionaries.
E., Lyons, and I stayed, but this time took up a position near the door
so as to occasionally get a little fresh air. The women, drawn up in two
rows on the dais on either side, swayed and bobbed, chanting at the pitch
of their lungs. They all wore the same dark-blue and scarlet cloak, and
had red feathers and worsted in their hair, making a decidedly striking
picture. Most of them wore sharks’-teeth earrings, to which they attach
an enormous importance, the lowest price we heard of being twelve dollars
for a pair. After this a lot of blankets and calico were cut up and given
away, and we left them hard at it about five o’clock. As the tide had
risen in the meantime, Lyons had to wade in a good way after the canoe,
which had been secured to the stump of a tree.
_Wednesday, the 15th._—After breakfast I went off with Finn and Lyons
in the canoe to Ankau Creek, but the tide was running out so strongly
that we did not attempt to go up it, but landed, and Lyons and I went up
along the shore, while Finn searched for strawberries, of which there
were still a few to be found. We followed up the creek for nearly a mile,
but, saw nothing in the way of game, and as the rocks were decidedly
unpleasant to our moccasined feet we returned to the canoe and crossed
to Yakutat, where most of the Indians were still in bed, having kept
up the potlatch till five in the morning, and distributed some three
thousand yards of calico, according to De Groff. We lunched there, and
sailed home about four o’clock. The chief’s garden was being stripped
of its produce, turnip, beet, and a few onions, with a view to the
approaching feast.
_Thursday, the 16th._—Grey and cloudy, with a south-east wind which
ought to bring the ‘Alpha’ now. De Groff came over to lunch and took a
photograph of us ‘in camp,’ and also of the Swedish Mission. The Indians
were potlatching again to-day; one woman gave away twenty-one blankets
and a lot of calico. Occasionally great swells, like the chief or the
doctor, got a whole blanket. These doctors or medicine-men used to have
tremendous power in the tribe, but this has much diminished before the
advance of civilisation. Their initiation into their full M.D. degree
used to consist in a prolonged solitary fast in the forests, till,
overtaken by a sort of frenzy, they rushed back to the village, where
such people as desired to show a fine religious fervour would offer
their arms for the doctor to take bites out of. Other Indians when dead
are cremated, but the doctors are buried in a little wooden hut in some
isolated spot, or on a point of rock overlooking the sea; and of late
years these huts have been ruthlessly ravaged for curios, since the
doctor’s charms and other implements are always buried with him; but if
the sacrilegious prowler was caught it would be very awkward for him in a
wild place like Yakutat. The common American term for these medicine-men
is _shaman_, apparently a corruption of the Russian _shawaan_, but the
Tlinkits themselves use the word _icht_. The doctor at Yakutat was
a filthy old scoundrel, with hair about six feet long; he had been
half-blind for years, having at one time headed an attack against a
French storekeeper (named, I believe, Belœil, but the men always spoke of
him as Bellew), who had checked the onslaught with a well-aimed dose of
sulphuric acid.
During the potlatch sundry relics of the deceased made their appearance,
and were wept over with much emotion, genuine tears being produced in
abundance. Some of the old men, who had nothing else, gave tobacco,
a small pinch being put in the fire each time for the spirits of the
departed.
_Friday, the 17th._—Dull and grey, and threatening rain. Yesterday and
to-day the flies were something fearful, and we had even to walk up and
down when feeding, while any liquid, such as soup or tea, was thick with
them. As the baking-powder was all but finished, Finn, who was supposed
to be rather good at the art, was deputed to make sour-dough bread, but
it was not much of a success, resembling plain heavy buns. The leaven was
presumably too new, for afterwards it worked admirably.
The Indians began their feast about four o’clock. Each man had his own
bowl, while by the fire were large dishes full of rice, berries cooked in
seal-oil, and what looked like some preparation of fish. After a brief
invocation a little of each was put in the fire, and then the bowls were
filled and they began. I was over on the island by myself, and H. came
across in the smallest canoe to fetch me. Half-way over we met E. in
another, who, unaware that his brother had started, was coming over with
the same intention, and, instead of being pleased at not having to go
any further, seemed to consider himself aggrieved. We often saw Siwash
dogs swimming across, the distance being quite a mile. In the morning we
purchased through Mike two salmon for ten cents, which sounds cheap, but
after all the money was wasted, as a few minutes later Billy and Matthew
turned up in a canoe with two dozen they had speared, so we took six of
the best.
_Saturday, the 18th._—Raining all day, with some very heavy showers, so
we stayed in the Mission most of the time. The house consisted of one
furnished room, which Hendrickson and Lydell inhabited, one unfurnished
one, which they politely put at our disposal, and another large one, at
that time unfloored, which was to be the school-room. We said we would
sleep in the house as the weather was so bad, but at supper-time it
cleared a bit, and H. elected to stay in the green tent. E. and I went in
and rolled up in our blankets on the floor, which was distinctly hard. In
the other room Hendrickson was reading to Lydell the story of Elisha and
the Shunammite woman, rendered apparently into easy English for children.
His accent was certainly most peculiar, and E., after listening a bit,
remarked, ‘A great many sibilants in that language, aren’t there?’ being
under the impression that Hendrickson was sticking to his native Swedish.
I roared so that I feared they would come and ask what was the matter,
but luckily they didn’t.
_Sunday, the 19th._—Rain nearly all night and most of the day. E. and I
got up about six o’clock, roused by the men coming back with clams, for
which the tide suited. Last evening my watch began to go in a feeble
manner and made three hours during the night. In the afternoon E. and I
played a curious form of cricket on the beach with a wooden net-float for
a ball, an axe-handle for a bat, and two ice-axes for wickets. Having
smashed two balls, we had to desist, though not before E. had defeated me
with great slaughter.
_Monday, the 20th._—Wind still south-east, but no ‘Alpha.’ We were
getting thoroughly sick of our enforced imprisonment in this place,
where there was literally nothing to do, the village being hopelessly
surrounded by bush, and so far from the mountains that no hunting or
exploring was possible, for fear the ‘Alpha’ should arrive while we were
away. Tremendous rain all the afternoon, which cleared as usual about six
o’clock. The wind, however, seemed rather more south-west.
_Tuesday, the 21st._—Lovely morning at last, but hardly any wind. My
watch still kept going, but only very slowly between the hours of seven
and eleven, something evidently clogging the works. Ned’s canoe, the one
we had at Icy Bay, was going back to Juneau next day, which offered a
means of escape, but he was taking a cargo of seal-oil! Shorty, however,
wanted to go, but we preferred to keep him. De Groff came to supper, and
we had some whist afterwards, keeping it up till the extraordinarily
late hour of half-past ten, when he took his departure by the light of a
lovely full moon.
_Wednesday, the 22nd._—Perfect weather again. Shorty had sold the rifle
he bought from W. to Sub-chief George, and Finn E.’s to Frank, a friend
of Ned’s. This breach of the law rather annoyed us, as we naturally
thought the men had purchased the rifles to keep, but we saw no good in
interfering, now that the deed was done. Our four Indians came over about
breakfast-time to take E. salmon-spearing, and reported that Ned had not
taken his departure last night, so I said I would go with him and take
Finn to look after me. H. then proposed that I should take our Indians,
who were eating their heads off to no purpose, and Shorty suggested that
we might buy a canoe and all go down together, so we went over to Yakutat
to make inquiries. De Groff admitted that all agreement with him was over
on the 20th, and seemed to have but little hope of the ‘Alpha’s’ turning
up now, but believed that the ‘Leo,’ or even the ‘Pinta,’ would come for
us. Canoes were to be bought for a hundred and twenty or a hundred and
fifty dollars, but H. was rather unwilling to go in one, so we came back
at two o’clock for E.’s opinion, but he had not returned.
We began boiling bacon, and started Finn on a big batch of bread. E. came
back at four with a fair lot of fish; unable to quite settle, though
against the canoe idea on the whole, he and H. went over to Yakutat
to decide and to fetch Shorty, while Finn and I went on cooking. They
returned at 7.30, having concluded not to go, and the Siwashes refused to
come in the canoe unless H. did, saying they had not made an agreement
with me but with him. As they were all accustomed to canoes, and Matthew
had done the trip twice before, I do not think they were afraid (except
perhaps of hard work), but merely that they found themselves in very
comfortable quarters at Yakutat, drawing full pay and doing very little
for it, and wished to prolong that happy state of things as long as
possible. Ned was willing to take any number of passengers to Juneau for
ten dollars each, but after much discussion it was at last settled that I
should take Lyons, Shorty, and Finn, and try to get Ned to go to Sitka;
so I went over about ten o’clock with the two former and routed out Ned,
who agreed to take us to Sitka for eighty dollars, half down. As most
of the people in the Chief’s house were asleep, we curled up _sub Jove
frigido_ on the stoop, and were soon asleep.