PACIFICATION OF TIERRA FIRME.Three hundred and thirty-six years were occupied in the discovery of the western border of North America. From the time when, in 1501, the adventurous notary of Triana, Rodrigo de Bastidas, approached the Isthmus of Darien, in search of gold and pearls, till the year 1837, when Messrs Dease andSimpson, by order of the Hudson's Bay Company, completed the survey of the northern extremity, which bounds the Arctic Ocean, the intervening territory was discovered at intervals, and under widely different circumstances. During that time, under various immediate incentives, but with the broad principle of avarice underlying all, such parts of this territory as were conceived to be of sufficient value were seized, and the inhabitants made a prey to the rapacity of the invaders. Thus the purpose of the worthy notary Bastidas, the first Spaniard who visited the continent of North America, was pacific barter with the Indians; and his kind treatment was rewarded by a successful traffic. Next came Columbus, from the opposite direction, sailing southward along the coast of Honduras on his fourth voyage, in 1502. His was the nobler object of discovery. He was striving to get through or round thistierra firmewhich, standing between himself and his theory, persistently barred his progress westward. He had no time for barter, nor any inclination to plant settlements; he was looking for a strait or passage through or round these outer confines to the more opulent regions of India. But, unsuccessful in his laudable effort, he at length yielded to the clamorous cupidity of his crew. He permitted his brother, the Adelantado, to land and take possession of the country for the king of Spain, and, in the year following, to attempt a settlement at Veragua.FIRST INTERCOURSE WITH EUROPEANS.In 1506-8, Juan de Solis with Pinzon continued the search of Columbus, along the coast of Yucatan and Mexico, for a passage through to the southern ocean. The disastrous adventures of Alonzo de Ojeda, Diego de Nicuesa, and Juan de la Cosa, on the Isthmus of Darien, between the years 1507 and 1511, brought into more intimate contact the steel weapons of the chivalrous hidalgos with the naked bodies of the savages. Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, after a toilsome journey across the Isthmus in 1513, was rewarded by the first view of the Pacific Ocean, of which he took possession for the king of Spain on the twenty-fifth of September. The white sails of Córdova Grijalva, and Garay, descried by the natives of Yucatan and Mexico in 1517-19, were quickly followed by Cortés and his keen-scented band of adventurers, who, received by the unsuspecting natives as gods, would have been dismissed by them as fiends had not the invasion culminated in the conquest of Mexico. During the years 1522-24, Cortés made expeditions to Tehuantepec, Panuco, and Central America; Gil Gonzales and Cristobal de Olid invaded Nicaragua and Honduras. Nuño de Guzman in 1530, with a large force, took possession of the entire northern country from the city of Mexico to the northern boundary of Sinaloa; and Cabeza de Vaca crossed the continent from Texas to Sinaloa in the years 1528-36. Journeys to the north were made by Cortés, Ulloa, Coronado, Mendoza, and Cabrillo between the years 1536 and 1542. Hundreds of Roman Catholic missionaries, ready to lay down their lives in their earnest anxiety for the souls of the Indians, spread out into the wilderness in every direction. During the latter part of the sixteenth century had place,—the expedition of Francisco de Ibarra to Sinaloa in 1556, the campaign of Hernando de Bazan against the Indians of Sinaloa in 1570, the adventures of Oxenham in Darien in 1575, the voyage round the world of Sir Francis Drake, touching upon the NorthwestCoast in 1579; the expedition of Antonio de Espejo to New Mexico in 1583; Francisco de Gali's return from Macao to Mexico, by way of the Northwest Coast, in 1584; the voyage of Maldonado to the imaginary Straits of Anian in 1588; the expedition of Castaño de Sosa to New Mexico in 1590; the voyage of Juan de Fuca to the Straits of Anian in 1592; the wreck of the 'San Agustin' upon the Northwest Coast in 1595; the voyage of Sebastian Vizcaino towards California in 1596; the discoveries of Juan de Oñate in New Mexico in 1599, and many others. Intercourse with the natives was extended during the seventeenth century by the voyage of Sebastian Vizcaino from Mexico to California in 1602; by the expedition of Francisco de Ortega to Lower California in 1631; by the journey of Thomas Gage from Mexico to Guatemala in 1638; by the voyage round the world of William Dampier in 1679; by the reckless adventures of the Buccaneers from 1680 to 1690; by the expedition of Isidor de Otondo into Lower California in 1683; by the expedition of Father Kino to Sonora and Arizona in 1683; by the expeditions of Kino, Kappus, Mange, Bernal, Carrasco, Salvatierra, and others to Sonora and Arizona in 1694-9; and by the occupation of Lower California by the Jesuits, Salvatierra, Ugarte, Kino, and Piccolo, from 1697 to 1701. Voyages of circumnavigation were made by Dampier in 1703-4; by Rogers in 1708-11; by Shelvocke in 1719-22, and by Anson in 1740-4. Frondac made a voyage from China to California in 1709.The first voyage through Bering Strait is supposed to have been made by Semun Deschneff and his companions in the year 1648, and purports to have explored the Asiatic coast from the river Kolyma to the south of the river Anadir, thus proving the separation of the continents of Asia and America. In 1711, a Russian Cossack, named Popoff, was sent from the fort on the Anadir river to subdue the rebellious Tschuktschi of Tschuktschi Noss, a point of land on the Asiatic coast near to the American continent. He there received from the natives the first intelligence of the proximity of the continent of America and the character of the inhabitants; an account of which will be given in another place. In 1741, Vitus Bering and Alexei Tschirikoff sailed in company, from Petropaulovski, for the opposite coast of America. They parted company during a storm, the latter reaching the coast in latitude fifty-six, and the former landing at Cape St Elias in latitude sixty degrees north. The earliest information concerning the Aleutian Islanders was obtained by the Russians in the year 1745, when Michael Nevodtsikoff sailed from the Kamtchatka river in pursuit of furs. A Russian commercial company, called the Promyschleniki, was formed, and other hunting and trading voyages followed. Lasareff visited six islands of the Andreanovski group in 1761; and the year following was made the discovery of the Alaskan Peninsula, supposed to be an island until after the survey of the coast by Captain Cook. Drusinin made a hunting expedition to Unalaska and the Fox Islands in 1763; and, during the same year, Stephen Glottoff visited the island of Kadiak. Korovin, Solovieff, Synd, Otseredin, Krenitzen, and other Russian fur-hunters spent the years 1762-5 among the Aleutian Islands, capturing sea-otters, seals, and foxes, and exchanging, with the natives, beads and iron utensils, for furs.OCCUPATION OF CALIFORNIA.A grand missionary movement, growing out of the religious rivalries of the two great orders of the Catholic Church, led to the original occupation of Upper California by Spaniards. The work of Christianizing Lower California was inaugurated by the Jesuits, under Fathers Salvatierra and Kino, in 1697. When the Jesuits were expelled from Mexico in 1767, their missions were turned over to the Franciscans. This so roused the zeal of the Dominicans that they immediately appealed to Spain, and in 1769 obtained an edict, giving them a due share in the missions of Lower California. The Franciscans, thinking it better to carry their efforts into new fields than to contend for predominance at home, generously offered to cede the whole of Lower California to the Dominicans, and themselves retire to the wild and distant regions of Upper California. This being agreed upon, two expeditions were organized to proceed northward simultaneously, one by water and the other by land. In January, 1769, the ship 'San Carlos,' commanded by Vicente Vila, was dispatched for San Diego, followed by the 'San Antonio,' under Juan Perez, and the 'San José,' which was unfortunately lost. The land expedition was separated into two divisions; the first under Rivera y Moncada departed from Mexico in March, and arrived at San Diego in May; the second under Gaspar de Portolá and Father Junípero Serra reached San Diego in July, 1769. Portolá with his companions immediately set out by land for the Bay of Monterey; but, unwittingly passing it by, they continued northward until barred in their progress by the magnificent Bay of San Francisco. Unable to find the harbor of Monterey, they returned to San Diego in January, 1770. In April, Portolá made a second and more successful attempt, and arrived at Monterey in May. Meanwhile Perez and Junípero Serra accomplished the voyage by sea, sailing in the 'San Carlos.' In 1772, Pedro Fages and Juan Crespi proceeded from Monterey to explore the Bay of San Francisco. They were followed by Rivera y Moncada in 1774, and Palou and Ezeta in 1775; and in 1776, Moraga founded the Mission of Dolores. In 1775, Bodega y Quadra voyaged up the Californian coast to the fifty-eighth parallel. In 1776, Dominguez and Escalante made an expedition from Santa Fé to Monterey. Menonville journeyed to Oajaca in New Spain in 1777. In 1778, Captain Cook, in his third voyage round the world, touched along the Coast from Cape Flattery to Norton Sound; and in 1779, Bodega y Quadra, Maurelle, and Arteaga voyaged up the western coast to Mount St Elias. During the years 1785-8, voyages of circumnavigation were made by Dixon and Portlock, and by La Pérouse, all touching upon the Northwest Coast.French Canadian traders were the first to penetrate the northern interior west of Hudson Bay. Their most distant station was on the Saskatchewan River, two thousand miles from civilization, in the heart of an unknown wilderness inhabited by savage men and beasts. Thesecoureurs des boisor wood-rangers, as they were called, were admirably adapted, by their disposition and superior address, to conciliate the Indians and form settlements among them. Unrestrained, however, by control, they committed excesses which the French government could check only by prohibiting, under penalty of death, any but its authorized agents from trading within its territories.British merchants at New York soon entered into competition with the fur princes of Montreal. But, in 1670, a more formidable opposition arose in the organization of the Hudson's Bay Company, by Prince Rupert and other noblemen, under a charter of Charles II. which granted exclusive right to all the territory drained by rivers flowing into Hudson Bay. Notwithstanding constant feuds with the French merchants regarding territorial limits, the company prospered from the beginning, paying annual dividends of twenty-five and fifty per cent. after many times increasing the capital stock. In 1676, the Canadians formed theCompagnie du Nord, in order the more successfully to resist encroachment. Upon the loss of Canada by the French in 1762, hostilities thickened between the companies, and the traffic for a time fell off. In 1784, the famous Northwest Company was formed by Canadian merchants, and the management entrusted to the Frobisher brothers and Simon M'Tavish. The head-quarters of the company were at Montreal, but annual meetings were held, with lordly state, at Fort William, on the shore of Lake Superior. The company consisted of twenty-three partners, and employed over two thousand clerks and servants. It exercised an almost feudal sway over a wide savage domain, and maintained a formidable competition with the Hudson's Bay Company, with which they were for two years in actual war. In 1813, they purchased, from the partners of John Jacob Astor, the settlement of Astoria on the Columbia River. In 1821, they united with the Hudson's Bay Company; and the charter covering the entire region occupied by both was renewed by act of Parliament. In 1762, some merchants of New Orleans organized a company which was commissioned by D'Abadie, director-general of Louisiana, under the name of Pierre Ligueste Laclède, Antoine Maxan, and Company. Their first post occupied the spot upon which the city of St Louis is now situated; and, under the auspices of the brothers Chouteau, they penetrated northwestward beyond the Rocky Mountains. In 1808, the Missouri Fur Company was formed at St Louis, consisting of the Chouteaus and others; and an expedition under Major Henry was sent across the Rocky Mountains, which established the first post on the Columbia River. Between the years 1825 and 1830, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company of St Louis extended their operations over California and Oregon, but at a loss of the lives of nearly one half of their employés. John Jacob Astor embarked in the fur trade at New York in 1784, purchasing at that time in Montreal. In 1808, he obtained a charter for the American Fur Company, which was, in 1811, merged into the Southwest Company. In 1809, Mr Astor conceived the project of establishing a transcontinental line of posts. His purpose was to concentrate the fur trade of the United States, and establish uninterrupted communication between the Pacific and the Atlantic. He made proposals of association to the Northwest Company, which were not only rejected, but an attempt was made by that association to anticipate Mr Astor in his operations, by making a settlement at the mouth of the Columbia River. In 1810, the Pacific Fur Company was founded by Mr Astor, and an expedition dispatched overland by way of St Louis and the Missouri River. At the same time a vessel was sent round Cape Horn to the mouth of the Columbia; but, their adventure in that quarter provingunsuccessful, the company was dissolved, and the operations of Mr Astor were thereafter confined to the territory east of the Rocky Mountains.THE GREAT NORTHWEST.Samuel Hearne, an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, was the first European to reach the Arctic Ocean through the interior of the continent. He descended Coppermine River to its mouth in the year 1771. The Upper Misinipi River was first visited by Joseph Frobisher in 1775. Three years later, one Peter Pond penetrated to within thirty miles of Athabasca Lake, and established a trading post at that point. Four canoe-loads of merchandise were exchanged by him for more fine furs than his canoes could carry. Other adventurous traders soon followed; but not long afterwards the inevitable broils which always attended the early intercourse of Europeans and Indians, rose to such a height that, but for the appearance of that terrible scourge, the small-pox, the traders would have been extirpated. The ravages of this dire disease continued to depopulate the country until 1782, when traders again appeared among the Knisteneaux and Tinneh. The most northern division of the Northwest Company was at that time the Athabascan Lake region, where Alexander Mackenzie was the managing partner. His winter residence was at Fort Chipewyan, on Athabasca Lake. The Indians who traded at his establishment informed him of the existence of a large river flowing to the westward from Slave Lake. Thinking thereby to reach the Pacific Ocean, Mr Mackenzie, in the year 1789, set out upon an expedition to the west; and, descending the noble stream which bears his name, found himself, contrary to his expectations, upon the shores of the Arctic Sea. In 1793, he made a journey to the Pacific, ascending Peace River, and reaching the coast in latitude about fifty-two. The first expedition organized by the British government for the purpose of surveying the northern coast, was sent out under Lieutenants Franklin and Parry in 1819. During the year following, Franklin descended Coppermine River, and subsequently, in 1825, he made a journey down the Mackenzie. In 1808, D. W. Harmon, a partner in the Northwest Company, crossed the Rocky Mountains, at about the fifty-sixth parallel, to Fraser and Stuart Lakes. The accounts of the natives given by these travelers and their companions are essentially the same, and later voyagers have failed to throw much additional light upon the subject. John Meares, in 1788, visited the Straits of Fuca, Nootka Sound, and Cook Inlet; and, during the same year, two ships, sent out by Boston merchants, under Robert Gray and John Kendrick, entered Nootka Sound. Estevan Martinez and Gonzalo Haro, sent from Mexico to look after the interest of Spain in these regions, explored Prince William Sound, and visited Kadiak. During the same year, the Russians established a trading post at Copper River. In 1789, Joseph Billings visited the Aleutian Islands, and the Boston vessels explored the Eastern coast of Queen Charlotte Island. In 1790, Salvador Fidalgo was sent by the Mexican government to Nootka; and Monaldo explored the Straits of Juan de Fuca. In 1791, four ships belonging to Boston merchants, two Spanish ships, one French and several Russian vessels touched upon the Northwest Coast. The Spanish vessels were under the command of Alejandro Malespina; Etienne Marchand was the commander of the French ship. The 'Sutil y Mexicana' enteredNootka Sound in 1792; and during the same year, Vancouver commenced his explorations along the coast above Cape Flattery. In 1803-4, Baron Von Humboldt was making his searching investigations in Mexico; while the captive New Englander, Jewett, was dancing attendance to Maquina, king of the Nootkas. Lewis and Clark traversed the continent in 1805. In 1806, a Mr Fraser set out from Canada, and crossed the Rocky Mountains near the headwaters of the river which bears his name. He descended Fraser River to the lake which he also called after himself. There he built a fort and opened trade with the natives. Kotzebue visited the coast in 1816; and the Russian expedition under Kramchenko, Wasilieff, and Etolin, in 1822. Captain Morrel explored the Californian coast from San Diego to San Francisco in 1825; Captains Beechey and Lütke, the Northwest Coast in 1826; and Sir Edward Belcher in 1837. J. K. Townsend made an excursion west of the Rocky Mountains in 1834. In 1837, Dease and Simpson made an open boat voyage from the Mackenzie River, westward to Point Barrow, the farthest point made by Beechey from the opposite direction, thus reaching theUltima Thuleof northwestern discovery. Sir George Simpson crossed the continent in 1841, Fremont in 1843, and Paul Kane in 1845. Kushevaroff visited the coast in 1838, Laplace in 1839, Commodore Wilkes in 1841, and Captain Kellett in 1849. Following the discovery of gold, the country was deluged by adventurers. In 1853-4, commenced the series of explorations for a Pacific railway. The necessities of the natives were examined, and remnants of disappearing nations were collected upon reservations under government agents. The interior of Alaska was first penetrated by the employés of the Russian-American Fur Company. Malakoff ascended the Yukon in 1838; and, in 1842, Derabin established a fort upon that river. In 1849, W. H. Hooper made a boat expedition from Kotzebue Sound to the Mackenzie River; and, in 1866, William H. Dall and Frederick Whymper ascended the Yukon.I have here given a few only of the original sources whence my information is derived concerning the Indians. A multitude of minor voyages and travels have been performed during the past three and a half centuries, and accounts published by early residents among the natives, the bare enumeration of which I fear would prove wearisome to the reader. Enough, however, has been given to show the immediate causes which led to the discovery and occupation of the several parts of this western coast. The Spanish cavaliers craved from the Indians of the South their lands and their gold. The Spanish missionaries demanded from the Indians of Northern Mexico and California, faith. The French, English, Canadian, and American fur companies sought from the Indians of Oregon and New Caledonia, peltries. The Russians compelled the natives of the Aleutian Islands to hunt sea-animals. The filthy raw-flesh-eating Eskimos, having nothing wherewith to tempt the cupidity of the superior race, retain their primitive purity.CUPIDITY AND ZEAL.We observe then three original incentives urging on civilized white men to overspread the domain of the Indian. The first was that thirst for gold, which characterized the fiery hidalgos from Spain in their conquests,and to obtain which no cruelty was too severe nor any sacrifice of human life too great; as though of all the gifts vouchsafed to man, material or divine, one only was worth possessing. The second, following closely in the footsteps of the first, and oftentimes constituting a part of it, was religious enthusiasm; a zealous interest in the souls of the natives and the form in which they worshiped. The third, which occupied the attention of other and more northern Europeans, grew out of a covetous desire for the wild man's clothing; to secure to themselves the peltries of the great hyperborean regions of America. From the south of Europe the Spaniards landed in tropical North America, and exterminated the natives. From the north of Europe the French, English, and Russians crossed over to the northern part of America; and, with a kinder and more refined cruelty, no less effectually succeeded in sweeping them from the face of the earth by the introduction of the poisonous elements of a debased cultivation.Fortunately for the Indians of the north, it was contrary to the interests of white people to kill them in order to obtain the skins of their animals; for, with a few trinkets, they could procure what otherwise would require long and severe labor to obtain. The policy, therefore, of the great fur-trading companies has been to cherish the Indians as their best hunters, to live at peace with them, to heal their ancient feuds, and to withhold from them intoxicating liquors. The condition of their women, who were considered by the natives as little better than beasts, has been changed by their inter-social relations with the servants of the trading companies; and their more barbarous practices discontinued. It was the almost universal custom of the employés of the Hudson's Bay Company to unite to themselves native women; thus, by means of this relationship, the condition of the women has been raised, while the men manifest a kinder feeling towards the white race who thus in a measure become one with them.The efforts of early missionaries to this region were not crowned with that success which attended the Spaniards in their spiritual warfare upon the southern nations, from the fact that no attention was paid to the temporal necessities of the natives. It has long since been demonstrated impossible to reach the heart of a savage through abstract ideas of morality and elevation of character. A religion, in order to find favor in his eyes, must first meet some of his material requirements. If it is good, it will clothe him better and feed him better, for this to him is the chiefest good in life. Intermixtures of civilized with savage peoples are sure to result in the total disappearance of refinement on the one side, or in the extinction of the barbaric race on the other. The downward path is always the easiest. Of all the millions of native Americans who have perished under the withering influences of European civilization, there is not a single instance on record, of a tribe or nation having been reclaimed, ecclesiastically or otherwise, by artifice and argument. Individual savages have been educated with a fair degree of success. But, with a degree of certainty far greater, no sooner is the white man freed from the social restraint of civilized companionship, than he immediately tends towards barbarism; and not infrequently becomes so fascinated with his new life as to prefer it to any other. Social development is inherent:superinduced culture is a failure. Left alone, the nations of America might have unfolded into as bright a civilization as that of Europe. They were already well advanced, and still rapidly advancing towards it, when they were so mercilessly stricken down. But for a stranger to re-create the heart or head of a red man, it were easier to change the color of his skin.
PACIFICATION OF TIERRA FIRME.
Three hundred and thirty-six years were occupied in the discovery of the western border of North America. From the time when, in 1501, the adventurous notary of Triana, Rodrigo de Bastidas, approached the Isthmus of Darien, in search of gold and pearls, till the year 1837, when Messrs Dease andSimpson, by order of the Hudson's Bay Company, completed the survey of the northern extremity, which bounds the Arctic Ocean, the intervening territory was discovered at intervals, and under widely different circumstances. During that time, under various immediate incentives, but with the broad principle of avarice underlying all, such parts of this territory as were conceived to be of sufficient value were seized, and the inhabitants made a prey to the rapacity of the invaders. Thus the purpose of the worthy notary Bastidas, the first Spaniard who visited the continent of North America, was pacific barter with the Indians; and his kind treatment was rewarded by a successful traffic. Next came Columbus, from the opposite direction, sailing southward along the coast of Honduras on his fourth voyage, in 1502. His was the nobler object of discovery. He was striving to get through or round thistierra firmewhich, standing between himself and his theory, persistently barred his progress westward. He had no time for barter, nor any inclination to plant settlements; he was looking for a strait or passage through or round these outer confines to the more opulent regions of India. But, unsuccessful in his laudable effort, he at length yielded to the clamorous cupidity of his crew. He permitted his brother, the Adelantado, to land and take possession of the country for the king of Spain, and, in the year following, to attempt a settlement at Veragua.
FIRST INTERCOURSE WITH EUROPEANS.
In 1506-8, Juan de Solis with Pinzon continued the search of Columbus, along the coast of Yucatan and Mexico, for a passage through to the southern ocean. The disastrous adventures of Alonzo de Ojeda, Diego de Nicuesa, and Juan de la Cosa, on the Isthmus of Darien, between the years 1507 and 1511, brought into more intimate contact the steel weapons of the chivalrous hidalgos with the naked bodies of the savages. Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, after a toilsome journey across the Isthmus in 1513, was rewarded by the first view of the Pacific Ocean, of which he took possession for the king of Spain on the twenty-fifth of September. The white sails of Córdova Grijalva, and Garay, descried by the natives of Yucatan and Mexico in 1517-19, were quickly followed by Cortés and his keen-scented band of adventurers, who, received by the unsuspecting natives as gods, would have been dismissed by them as fiends had not the invasion culminated in the conquest of Mexico. During the years 1522-24, Cortés made expeditions to Tehuantepec, Panuco, and Central America; Gil Gonzales and Cristobal de Olid invaded Nicaragua and Honduras. Nuño de Guzman in 1530, with a large force, took possession of the entire northern country from the city of Mexico to the northern boundary of Sinaloa; and Cabeza de Vaca crossed the continent from Texas to Sinaloa in the years 1528-36. Journeys to the north were made by Cortés, Ulloa, Coronado, Mendoza, and Cabrillo between the years 1536 and 1542. Hundreds of Roman Catholic missionaries, ready to lay down their lives in their earnest anxiety for the souls of the Indians, spread out into the wilderness in every direction. During the latter part of the sixteenth century had place,—the expedition of Francisco de Ibarra to Sinaloa in 1556, the campaign of Hernando de Bazan against the Indians of Sinaloa in 1570, the adventures of Oxenham in Darien in 1575, the voyage round the world of Sir Francis Drake, touching upon the NorthwestCoast in 1579; the expedition of Antonio de Espejo to New Mexico in 1583; Francisco de Gali's return from Macao to Mexico, by way of the Northwest Coast, in 1584; the voyage of Maldonado to the imaginary Straits of Anian in 1588; the expedition of Castaño de Sosa to New Mexico in 1590; the voyage of Juan de Fuca to the Straits of Anian in 1592; the wreck of the 'San Agustin' upon the Northwest Coast in 1595; the voyage of Sebastian Vizcaino towards California in 1596; the discoveries of Juan de Oñate in New Mexico in 1599, and many others. Intercourse with the natives was extended during the seventeenth century by the voyage of Sebastian Vizcaino from Mexico to California in 1602; by the expedition of Francisco de Ortega to Lower California in 1631; by the journey of Thomas Gage from Mexico to Guatemala in 1638; by the voyage round the world of William Dampier in 1679; by the reckless adventures of the Buccaneers from 1680 to 1690; by the expedition of Isidor de Otondo into Lower California in 1683; by the expedition of Father Kino to Sonora and Arizona in 1683; by the expeditions of Kino, Kappus, Mange, Bernal, Carrasco, Salvatierra, and others to Sonora and Arizona in 1694-9; and by the occupation of Lower California by the Jesuits, Salvatierra, Ugarte, Kino, and Piccolo, from 1697 to 1701. Voyages of circumnavigation were made by Dampier in 1703-4; by Rogers in 1708-11; by Shelvocke in 1719-22, and by Anson in 1740-4. Frondac made a voyage from China to California in 1709.
The first voyage through Bering Strait is supposed to have been made by Semun Deschneff and his companions in the year 1648, and purports to have explored the Asiatic coast from the river Kolyma to the south of the river Anadir, thus proving the separation of the continents of Asia and America. In 1711, a Russian Cossack, named Popoff, was sent from the fort on the Anadir river to subdue the rebellious Tschuktschi of Tschuktschi Noss, a point of land on the Asiatic coast near to the American continent. He there received from the natives the first intelligence of the proximity of the continent of America and the character of the inhabitants; an account of which will be given in another place. In 1741, Vitus Bering and Alexei Tschirikoff sailed in company, from Petropaulovski, for the opposite coast of America. They parted company during a storm, the latter reaching the coast in latitude fifty-six, and the former landing at Cape St Elias in latitude sixty degrees north. The earliest information concerning the Aleutian Islanders was obtained by the Russians in the year 1745, when Michael Nevodtsikoff sailed from the Kamtchatka river in pursuit of furs. A Russian commercial company, called the Promyschleniki, was formed, and other hunting and trading voyages followed. Lasareff visited six islands of the Andreanovski group in 1761; and the year following was made the discovery of the Alaskan Peninsula, supposed to be an island until after the survey of the coast by Captain Cook. Drusinin made a hunting expedition to Unalaska and the Fox Islands in 1763; and, during the same year, Stephen Glottoff visited the island of Kadiak. Korovin, Solovieff, Synd, Otseredin, Krenitzen, and other Russian fur-hunters spent the years 1762-5 among the Aleutian Islands, capturing sea-otters, seals, and foxes, and exchanging, with the natives, beads and iron utensils, for furs.
OCCUPATION OF CALIFORNIA.
A grand missionary movement, growing out of the religious rivalries of the two great orders of the Catholic Church, led to the original occupation of Upper California by Spaniards. The work of Christianizing Lower California was inaugurated by the Jesuits, under Fathers Salvatierra and Kino, in 1697. When the Jesuits were expelled from Mexico in 1767, their missions were turned over to the Franciscans. This so roused the zeal of the Dominicans that they immediately appealed to Spain, and in 1769 obtained an edict, giving them a due share in the missions of Lower California. The Franciscans, thinking it better to carry their efforts into new fields than to contend for predominance at home, generously offered to cede the whole of Lower California to the Dominicans, and themselves retire to the wild and distant regions of Upper California. This being agreed upon, two expeditions were organized to proceed northward simultaneously, one by water and the other by land. In January, 1769, the ship 'San Carlos,' commanded by Vicente Vila, was dispatched for San Diego, followed by the 'San Antonio,' under Juan Perez, and the 'San José,' which was unfortunately lost. The land expedition was separated into two divisions; the first under Rivera y Moncada departed from Mexico in March, and arrived at San Diego in May; the second under Gaspar de Portolá and Father Junípero Serra reached San Diego in July, 1769. Portolá with his companions immediately set out by land for the Bay of Monterey; but, unwittingly passing it by, they continued northward until barred in their progress by the magnificent Bay of San Francisco. Unable to find the harbor of Monterey, they returned to San Diego in January, 1770. In April, Portolá made a second and more successful attempt, and arrived at Monterey in May. Meanwhile Perez and Junípero Serra accomplished the voyage by sea, sailing in the 'San Carlos.' In 1772, Pedro Fages and Juan Crespi proceeded from Monterey to explore the Bay of San Francisco. They were followed by Rivera y Moncada in 1774, and Palou and Ezeta in 1775; and in 1776, Moraga founded the Mission of Dolores. In 1775, Bodega y Quadra voyaged up the Californian coast to the fifty-eighth parallel. In 1776, Dominguez and Escalante made an expedition from Santa Fé to Monterey. Menonville journeyed to Oajaca in New Spain in 1777. In 1778, Captain Cook, in his third voyage round the world, touched along the Coast from Cape Flattery to Norton Sound; and in 1779, Bodega y Quadra, Maurelle, and Arteaga voyaged up the western coast to Mount St Elias. During the years 1785-8, voyages of circumnavigation were made by Dixon and Portlock, and by La Pérouse, all touching upon the Northwest Coast.
French Canadian traders were the first to penetrate the northern interior west of Hudson Bay. Their most distant station was on the Saskatchewan River, two thousand miles from civilization, in the heart of an unknown wilderness inhabited by savage men and beasts. Thesecoureurs des boisor wood-rangers, as they were called, were admirably adapted, by their disposition and superior address, to conciliate the Indians and form settlements among them. Unrestrained, however, by control, they committed excesses which the French government could check only by prohibiting, under penalty of death, any but its authorized agents from trading within its territories.British merchants at New York soon entered into competition with the fur princes of Montreal. But, in 1670, a more formidable opposition arose in the organization of the Hudson's Bay Company, by Prince Rupert and other noblemen, under a charter of Charles II. which granted exclusive right to all the territory drained by rivers flowing into Hudson Bay. Notwithstanding constant feuds with the French merchants regarding territorial limits, the company prospered from the beginning, paying annual dividends of twenty-five and fifty per cent. after many times increasing the capital stock. In 1676, the Canadians formed theCompagnie du Nord, in order the more successfully to resist encroachment. Upon the loss of Canada by the French in 1762, hostilities thickened between the companies, and the traffic for a time fell off. In 1784, the famous Northwest Company was formed by Canadian merchants, and the management entrusted to the Frobisher brothers and Simon M'Tavish. The head-quarters of the company were at Montreal, but annual meetings were held, with lordly state, at Fort William, on the shore of Lake Superior. The company consisted of twenty-three partners, and employed over two thousand clerks and servants. It exercised an almost feudal sway over a wide savage domain, and maintained a formidable competition with the Hudson's Bay Company, with which they were for two years in actual war. In 1813, they purchased, from the partners of John Jacob Astor, the settlement of Astoria on the Columbia River. In 1821, they united with the Hudson's Bay Company; and the charter covering the entire region occupied by both was renewed by act of Parliament. In 1762, some merchants of New Orleans organized a company which was commissioned by D'Abadie, director-general of Louisiana, under the name of Pierre Ligueste Laclède, Antoine Maxan, and Company. Their first post occupied the spot upon which the city of St Louis is now situated; and, under the auspices of the brothers Chouteau, they penetrated northwestward beyond the Rocky Mountains. In 1808, the Missouri Fur Company was formed at St Louis, consisting of the Chouteaus and others; and an expedition under Major Henry was sent across the Rocky Mountains, which established the first post on the Columbia River. Between the years 1825 and 1830, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company of St Louis extended their operations over California and Oregon, but at a loss of the lives of nearly one half of their employés. John Jacob Astor embarked in the fur trade at New York in 1784, purchasing at that time in Montreal. In 1808, he obtained a charter for the American Fur Company, which was, in 1811, merged into the Southwest Company. In 1809, Mr Astor conceived the project of establishing a transcontinental line of posts. His purpose was to concentrate the fur trade of the United States, and establish uninterrupted communication between the Pacific and the Atlantic. He made proposals of association to the Northwest Company, which were not only rejected, but an attempt was made by that association to anticipate Mr Astor in his operations, by making a settlement at the mouth of the Columbia River. In 1810, the Pacific Fur Company was founded by Mr Astor, and an expedition dispatched overland by way of St Louis and the Missouri River. At the same time a vessel was sent round Cape Horn to the mouth of the Columbia; but, their adventure in that quarter provingunsuccessful, the company was dissolved, and the operations of Mr Astor were thereafter confined to the territory east of the Rocky Mountains.
THE GREAT NORTHWEST.
Samuel Hearne, an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, was the first European to reach the Arctic Ocean through the interior of the continent. He descended Coppermine River to its mouth in the year 1771. The Upper Misinipi River was first visited by Joseph Frobisher in 1775. Three years later, one Peter Pond penetrated to within thirty miles of Athabasca Lake, and established a trading post at that point. Four canoe-loads of merchandise were exchanged by him for more fine furs than his canoes could carry. Other adventurous traders soon followed; but not long afterwards the inevitable broils which always attended the early intercourse of Europeans and Indians, rose to such a height that, but for the appearance of that terrible scourge, the small-pox, the traders would have been extirpated. The ravages of this dire disease continued to depopulate the country until 1782, when traders again appeared among the Knisteneaux and Tinneh. The most northern division of the Northwest Company was at that time the Athabascan Lake region, where Alexander Mackenzie was the managing partner. His winter residence was at Fort Chipewyan, on Athabasca Lake. The Indians who traded at his establishment informed him of the existence of a large river flowing to the westward from Slave Lake. Thinking thereby to reach the Pacific Ocean, Mr Mackenzie, in the year 1789, set out upon an expedition to the west; and, descending the noble stream which bears his name, found himself, contrary to his expectations, upon the shores of the Arctic Sea. In 1793, he made a journey to the Pacific, ascending Peace River, and reaching the coast in latitude about fifty-two. The first expedition organized by the British government for the purpose of surveying the northern coast, was sent out under Lieutenants Franklin and Parry in 1819. During the year following, Franklin descended Coppermine River, and subsequently, in 1825, he made a journey down the Mackenzie. In 1808, D. W. Harmon, a partner in the Northwest Company, crossed the Rocky Mountains, at about the fifty-sixth parallel, to Fraser and Stuart Lakes. The accounts of the natives given by these travelers and their companions are essentially the same, and later voyagers have failed to throw much additional light upon the subject. John Meares, in 1788, visited the Straits of Fuca, Nootka Sound, and Cook Inlet; and, during the same year, two ships, sent out by Boston merchants, under Robert Gray and John Kendrick, entered Nootka Sound. Estevan Martinez and Gonzalo Haro, sent from Mexico to look after the interest of Spain in these regions, explored Prince William Sound, and visited Kadiak. During the same year, the Russians established a trading post at Copper River. In 1789, Joseph Billings visited the Aleutian Islands, and the Boston vessels explored the Eastern coast of Queen Charlotte Island. In 1790, Salvador Fidalgo was sent by the Mexican government to Nootka; and Monaldo explored the Straits of Juan de Fuca. In 1791, four ships belonging to Boston merchants, two Spanish ships, one French and several Russian vessels touched upon the Northwest Coast. The Spanish vessels were under the command of Alejandro Malespina; Etienne Marchand was the commander of the French ship. The 'Sutil y Mexicana' enteredNootka Sound in 1792; and during the same year, Vancouver commenced his explorations along the coast above Cape Flattery. In 1803-4, Baron Von Humboldt was making his searching investigations in Mexico; while the captive New Englander, Jewett, was dancing attendance to Maquina, king of the Nootkas. Lewis and Clark traversed the continent in 1805. In 1806, a Mr Fraser set out from Canada, and crossed the Rocky Mountains near the headwaters of the river which bears his name. He descended Fraser River to the lake which he also called after himself. There he built a fort and opened trade with the natives. Kotzebue visited the coast in 1816; and the Russian expedition under Kramchenko, Wasilieff, and Etolin, in 1822. Captain Morrel explored the Californian coast from San Diego to San Francisco in 1825; Captains Beechey and Lütke, the Northwest Coast in 1826; and Sir Edward Belcher in 1837. J. K. Townsend made an excursion west of the Rocky Mountains in 1834. In 1837, Dease and Simpson made an open boat voyage from the Mackenzie River, westward to Point Barrow, the farthest point made by Beechey from the opposite direction, thus reaching theUltima Thuleof northwestern discovery. Sir George Simpson crossed the continent in 1841, Fremont in 1843, and Paul Kane in 1845. Kushevaroff visited the coast in 1838, Laplace in 1839, Commodore Wilkes in 1841, and Captain Kellett in 1849. Following the discovery of gold, the country was deluged by adventurers. In 1853-4, commenced the series of explorations for a Pacific railway. The necessities of the natives were examined, and remnants of disappearing nations were collected upon reservations under government agents. The interior of Alaska was first penetrated by the employés of the Russian-American Fur Company. Malakoff ascended the Yukon in 1838; and, in 1842, Derabin established a fort upon that river. In 1849, W. H. Hooper made a boat expedition from Kotzebue Sound to the Mackenzie River; and, in 1866, William H. Dall and Frederick Whymper ascended the Yukon.
I have here given a few only of the original sources whence my information is derived concerning the Indians. A multitude of minor voyages and travels have been performed during the past three and a half centuries, and accounts published by early residents among the natives, the bare enumeration of which I fear would prove wearisome to the reader. Enough, however, has been given to show the immediate causes which led to the discovery and occupation of the several parts of this western coast. The Spanish cavaliers craved from the Indians of the South their lands and their gold. The Spanish missionaries demanded from the Indians of Northern Mexico and California, faith. The French, English, Canadian, and American fur companies sought from the Indians of Oregon and New Caledonia, peltries. The Russians compelled the natives of the Aleutian Islands to hunt sea-animals. The filthy raw-flesh-eating Eskimos, having nothing wherewith to tempt the cupidity of the superior race, retain their primitive purity.
CUPIDITY AND ZEAL.
We observe then three original incentives urging on civilized white men to overspread the domain of the Indian. The first was that thirst for gold, which characterized the fiery hidalgos from Spain in their conquests,and to obtain which no cruelty was too severe nor any sacrifice of human life too great; as though of all the gifts vouchsafed to man, material or divine, one only was worth possessing. The second, following closely in the footsteps of the first, and oftentimes constituting a part of it, was religious enthusiasm; a zealous interest in the souls of the natives and the form in which they worshiped. The third, which occupied the attention of other and more northern Europeans, grew out of a covetous desire for the wild man's clothing; to secure to themselves the peltries of the great hyperborean regions of America. From the south of Europe the Spaniards landed in tropical North America, and exterminated the natives. From the north of Europe the French, English, and Russians crossed over to the northern part of America; and, with a kinder and more refined cruelty, no less effectually succeeded in sweeping them from the face of the earth by the introduction of the poisonous elements of a debased cultivation.
Fortunately for the Indians of the north, it was contrary to the interests of white people to kill them in order to obtain the skins of their animals; for, with a few trinkets, they could procure what otherwise would require long and severe labor to obtain. The policy, therefore, of the great fur-trading companies has been to cherish the Indians as their best hunters, to live at peace with them, to heal their ancient feuds, and to withhold from them intoxicating liquors. The condition of their women, who were considered by the natives as little better than beasts, has been changed by their inter-social relations with the servants of the trading companies; and their more barbarous practices discontinued. It was the almost universal custom of the employés of the Hudson's Bay Company to unite to themselves native women; thus, by means of this relationship, the condition of the women has been raised, while the men manifest a kinder feeling towards the white race who thus in a measure become one with them.
The efforts of early missionaries to this region were not crowned with that success which attended the Spaniards in their spiritual warfare upon the southern nations, from the fact that no attention was paid to the temporal necessities of the natives. It has long since been demonstrated impossible to reach the heart of a savage through abstract ideas of morality and elevation of character. A religion, in order to find favor in his eyes, must first meet some of his material requirements. If it is good, it will clothe him better and feed him better, for this to him is the chiefest good in life. Intermixtures of civilized with savage peoples are sure to result in the total disappearance of refinement on the one side, or in the extinction of the barbaric race on the other. The downward path is always the easiest. Of all the millions of native Americans who have perished under the withering influences of European civilization, there is not a single instance on record, of a tribe or nation having been reclaimed, ecclesiastically or otherwise, by artifice and argument. Individual savages have been educated with a fair degree of success. But, with a degree of certainty far greater, no sooner is the white man freed from the social restraint of civilized companionship, than he immediately tends towards barbarism; and not infrequently becomes so fascinated with his new life as to prefer it to any other. Social development is inherent:superinduced culture is a failure. Left alone, the nations of America might have unfolded into as bright a civilization as that of Europe. They were already well advanced, and still rapidly advancing towards it, when they were so mercilessly stricken down. But for a stranger to re-create the heart or head of a red man, it were easier to change the color of his skin.
Hyperborean GroupNative Races of the Pacific StatesHyperborean GroupView larger image
Native Races of the Pacific StatesHyperborean Group
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 seenby 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.
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 greaterdifference 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 orHyperboreangroup, to which this chapter is devoted, are five subdivisions, as follows: TheEskimos, commonly called Western Eskimos, who skirt the shores of the Arctic Ocean from Mackenzie River to Kotzebue Sound; theKoniagasor 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 KoniaganIslands to the mouth of the Atna or Copper River, extending back into the interior about one hundred and fifty miles; theAleuts, or people of the Aleutian Archipelago; theThlinkeets, who inhabit the coast and islands between the rivers Atna and Nass; and theTinneh, 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.
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,—primitiveman 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.
THE ESKIMOS.
The Eskimos, Esquimaux, or as they call themselves,Innuit, 'the people,' frominuk, 'man,'[2]occupy theArctic 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 southernAlaska 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]
ESKIMO LAND.
Eskimo-land is thinly peopled, and but little is known of tribal divisions. At the Coppermine River, the Eskimos are calledNaggeuktormutes, or deer-horns; at the eastern outlet of the Mackenzie, their tribal name isKittegarute; between the Mackenzie River and Barter Reef, they go by the name ofKangmali Innuit; at Point Barrow they call themselvesNuwungmutes; while on the Nunatok River, in the vicinity of Kotzebue Sound, they are known asNunatangmutes. 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 hundredmiles 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, nowin 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 thenoise 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.
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 pyramidalhead;[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 frequentlyleave 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.
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]
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 bootsof 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]
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 hisyourtor winterresidence 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 domesticpurposes 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 weatherhave 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]
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 sufficientlytranslucent, 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. Amongthem 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]
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. Multitudesof 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 manœuvrereindeer 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]
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, glowingin 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]
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 woodor 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 nativesoomiak, and by the Russiansbaidar. 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 nativeskyak, and by the Russiansbaidarka. 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. Aftertaking 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 ofwhale'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 strongerthan 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.
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 commercialintercourse 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.