"The stranger first comes, and lays some goods on the shore and then retires; the American then comes, looks at the things, puts as many things near them as he thinks proper to give, and then also goes away. Upon this the stranger approaches, and examines what is offered him; if he is satisfied with it, he takes the skins and leaves the goods instead; but if not, then he lets all the things lie, retires a second time, and expectsan addition from the buyer." If they cannot agree, each retires with his goods.
SOCIAL ECONOMY.
Their government, if it can be called a government, is patriarchal. Now and then some ancient or able man gains an ascendency in the tribe, and overawes his fellows. Some tribes even acknowledge an hereditary chief, but his authority is nominal. He can neither exact tribute, nor govern the movements of the people. His power seems to be exercised only in treating with other tribes. Slavery in any form is unknown among them. Caste has been mentioned in connection with tattooing, but, as a rule, social distinctions do not exist.[64]
AMUSEMENTS.
The home of the Eskimo is a model of filth and freeness. Coyness is not one of their vices, nor is modesty ranked among their virtues. The latitude of innocency marks all their social relations; they refrain from doing in public nothing that they would do in private. Female chastity is little regarded. The Kutchins, it is said, are jealous, but treat their wives kindly; the New Caledonians are jealous, and treat them cruelly; but the philosophic Eskimos are neither jealous nor unkind. Indeed, so far are they from espionage or meanness in marital affairs, that it is the duty of the hospitable host to place at the disposal of his guest not only the house and its contents, but his wife also.[65]The lot of thewomen is but little better than slavery. All the work, except the nobler occupations of hunting, fishing, and fighting, falls to them. The lesson of female inferiority is at an early age instilled into the mind of youth. Nevertheless, the Eskimo mother is remarkably affectionate, and fulfills her low destiny with patient kindness. Polygamy is common; every man being entitled to as many wives as he can get and maintain. On the other hand, if women are scarce, the men as easily adapt themselves to circumstances, and two of them marry one woman. Marriages are celebrated as follows: after gaining the consent of the mother, the lover presents a suit of clothes to the lady, who arrays herself therein and thenceforth is his wife.[66]Dancing, accompanied by singing and violent gesticulation, is their chief amusement. In all the nations of the north, every well-regulated village aspiring to any degree of respectability has its public or town house, which among the Eskimos is called theCasineorKashim. It consists of one large subterranean room, better built than the common dwellings, and occupying a central position, where the people congregate on feast-days.[67]This house is also used as a public work-shop, where are manufactured boats, sledges, and snow-shoes. A large portion of the winter is devoted to dancing. Feasting and visiting commence in November. On festive occasions, a dim light and a strong odor are thrown over the sceneby means of blubber-lamps. The dancers, who are usually young men, strip themselves to the waist, or even appearin puris naturalibus, and go through numberless burlesque imitations of birds and beasts, their gestures being accompanied by tambourine and songs. Sometimes they are fantastically arrayed in seal or deer skin pantaloons, decked with dog or wolf tails behind, and wear feathers or a colored handkerchief on the head. The ancients, seated upon benches which encircle the room, smoke, and smile approbation. The women attend with fish and berries in large wooden bowls; and, upon the opening of the performance, they are at once relieved of their contributions by the actors, who elevate the provisions successively to the four cardinal points and once to the skies above, when all partake of the feast. Then comes another dance. A monotonous refrain, accompanied by the beating of an instrument made of seal-intestines stretched over a circular frame, brings upon the ground one boy after another, until about twenty form a circle. A series of pantomimes then commences, portraying love, jealousy, hatred, and friendship. During intervals in the exercises, presents are distributed to strangers. In their national dance, one girl after another comes in turn to the centre, while the others join hands and dance and sing, not unmusically, about her. The most extravagant motions win the greatest applause.[68]
Among other customs of the Eskimo may be mentioned the following. Their salutations are made by rubbing noses together. No matter how oily the skin, nor how rank the odor, he who would avoid offensemust submit his nose to the nose of his Hyperborean brother,[69]and his face to the caressing hand of his polar friend. To convey intimations of friendship at a distance, they extend their arms, and rub and pat their breast. Upon the approach of visitors they form a circle, and sit like Turks, smoking their pipes. Men, women, and children are inordinately fond of tobacco. They swallow the smoke and revel in a temporary elysium. They are called brave, simple, kind, intelligent, happy, hospitable, respectful to the aged. They are also called cruel, ungrateful, treacherous, cunning, dolorously complaining, miserable.[70]They are great mimics, and, in order to terrify strangers, they accustom themselves to the most extraordinary contortions of features and body. As a measure of intellectual capacity, it is claimed for them that they divide time into days, lunar months, seasons, and years; that they estimate accurately by the sun or stars the time of day or night; that they can count several hundred and draw maps. They also make rude drawings on bone, representing dances, deer-hunting, animals, and all the various pursuits followed by them from the cradle to the grave.
But few diseases are common to them, and a deformed person is scarcely ever seen. Cutaneous eruptions, resulting from their antipathy to water, and ophthalmia, arising from the smoke of their closed huts and the glare of sun-light upon snow and water, constitute their chief disorders.[71]For protection to their eyes in hunting andfishing, they make goggles by cutting a slit in a piece of soft wood, and adjusting it to the face.
The Eskimos do not, as a rule, bury their dead; but double the body up, and place it on the side in a plank box, which is elevated three or four feet from the ground, and supported by four posts. The grave-box is often covered with painted figures of birds, fishes, and animals. Sometimes it is wrapped in skins, placed upon an elevated frame, and covered with planks, or trunks of trees, so as to protect it from wild beasts. Upon the frame or in the grave-box are deposited the arms, clothing, and sometimes the domestic utensils of the deceased. Frequent mention is made by travelers of burial places where the bodies lie exposed, with their heads placed towards the north.[72]
THE KONIAGAS.
The Koniagasderive their name from the inhabitants of the island of Kadiak, who, when first discovered, called themselvesKanagist.[73]They were confoundedby early Russian writers with the Aleuts. English ethnologists sometimes call them Southern Eskimos. From Kadiak they extend along the coast in both directions; northward across the Alaskan Peninsula to Kotzebue Sound, and eastward to Prince William Sound. The Koniagan family is divided into nations as follows: theKoniagasproper, who inhabit the Koniagan Archipelago; theChugatshes,[74]who occupy the islands and shores of Prince William Sound; theAglegmutes, of Bristol Bay; theKeyataigmutes, who live upon the river Nushagak and the coast as far as Cape Newenham; theAgulmutes, dwelling upon the coast between the Kuskoquim and Kishunak rivers; theKuskoquigmutes,[75]occupying the banks of the river Kuskoquim; theMagemutes, in the neighborhood of Cape Romanzoff; theKwichpagmutes,Kwichluagmutes, andPashtoliks, on the Kwichpak, Kwickluak, and Pashtolik rivers; theChnagmutes, near Pashtolik Bay; theAnlygmutes, of Golovnin Bay, and theKaviaksandMalemutes, of Norton Sound.[76]"All of these people," says Baron von Wrangell, "speak one language and belong to one stock."
The most populous district is the Kuskoquim Valley.[77]The small islands in the vicinity of Kadiak were once well peopled; but as the Russians depopulated them, and hunters became scarce, the natives were not allowed to scatter, but were forced to congregate in towns.[78]Schelikoff, the first settler on Kadiak, reported, in that and contiguous isles, thirty thousand natives. Thirty years later, Saritsheff visited the island and found but threethousand. The Chugatshes not long since lived upon the island of Kadiak, but, in consequence of dissensions with their neighbors, they were obliged to emigrate and take up their residence on the main land. They derived their manners originally from the northern nations; but, after having been driven from their ancient possessions, they made raids upon southern nations, carried off their women, and, from the connections thus formed, underwent a marked change. They now resemble the southern rather than the northern tribes. The Kadiaks, Chugatshes, Kuskoquims, and adjacent tribes, according to their own traditions, came from the north, while the Unalaskas believe themselves to have originated in the west. The Kaviaks intermingle to a considerable extent with the Malemutes, and the two are often taken for one people; but their dialects are quite distinct.
LAND OF THE KONIAGAS.
The country of the Koniagas is a rugged wilderness, into many parts of which no white man has ever penetrated. Mountainous forests, glacial cañons, down which flow innumerable torrents, hills interspersed with lakes and marshy plains; ice-clad in winter, covered with luxuriant vegetation in summer. Some sheltered inlets absorb an undue proportion of oceanic warmth. Thus the name Aglegmutes signifies the inhabitants of a warm climate.
Travelers report chiefs among the Koniagas seven feet in height, but in general they are of medium stature.[79]Their complexion may be a shade darkerthan that of the Eskimos of the northern coast, but it is still very light.[80]The Chugatshes are remarkable for their large heads, short necks, broad faces, and small eyes. Holmberg claims for the Koniagas a peculiar formation of the skull; the back, as he says, being not arched but flat. They pierce the septum of the nose and the under lip, and in the apertures wear ornaments of various materials; the most highly prized being of shell or of amber. It is said that at times amber is thrown up in large quantities by the ocean, on the south side of Kadiak, generally after a heavy earthquake, and that at such times it forms an important article of commerce with the natives. The more the female chin is riddled with holes, the greater the respectability. Two ornaments are usually worn, but by very aristocratic ladies as many as six.[81]Their favorite colors in face-painting are red and blue, though black and leaden colors are common.[82]Young Kadiak wives secure the affectionate admiration of their husbands by tattooing the breast and adorning the face with black lines; while the Kuskoquim women sew into their chin two parallel blue lines. The hair is worn long by men as well as women. On state occasions, it is elaborately dressed; first saturated in train-oil, then powdered with red clay or oxide of iron, and finished off with a shower of white feathers. Both sexes wear beads wherever they can find a place for them, round the neck, wrists, and ankles,besides making a multitude of holes for them in the ears, nose, and chin. Into these holes they will also insert buttons, nails, or any European trinket which falls into their possession.[83]
KADIAK AND KUSKOQUIM DRESS.
The aboriginal dress of a wealthy Kadiak was a bird-skin parka, or shirt, fringed at the top and bottom, with long wide sleeves out of which the wearer slipped his arms in an emergency. This garment was neatly sewed with bird-bone needles, and a hundred skins were sometimes used in the making of a single parka. It was worn with the feathers outside during the day, and inside during the night. Round the waist was fastened an embroidered girdle, and over all, in wet weather, was worn an intestine water-proof coat. The Kadiak breeches and stockings were of otter or other skins, and the boots, when any were worn, were of seal-neck leather, with whale-skin soles. The Russians in a measure prohibited the use of furs among the natives, compelling them to purchase woolen goods from the company, and deliver up all their peltries. The parkas and stockings of the Kuskoquims are of reindeer-skin, covered with embroidery, and trimmed with valuable furs. They also make stockings of swamp grass, and cloaks of sturgeon-skin. The Malemute and Kaviak dress is similar to that of the northern Eskimo.[84]
The Chugatshes, men, women, and children, dress alike in a close fur frock, or robe, reaching sometimes to the knees, but generally to the ankles. Their feet and legs are commonly bare, notwithstanding the high latitude in which they live; but they sometimes wear skin stockings and mittens. They make a truncated conic hat of straw or wood, in whimsical representation of the head of some fish or bird, and garnished with colors.[85]
DWELLINGS AND FOOD OF THE KONIAGAS.
The Koniagas build two kinds of houses; one a large, winter village residence, called by the Russiansbarabara, and the other a summer hunting-hut, placed usually upon the banks of a stream whence they draw food. Their winter houses are very large, accommodating three or four families each. They are constructed by digging a square space of the required area to a depth of two feet, placing a post, four feet high above the surface of the ground, at every corner, and roofing the space over to constitute a main hall, where eating is done, filth deposited, and boats built. The sides are of planks, and the roof of boards, poles, or whale-ribs, thickly covered with grass. In the roof is a smoke-hole, and on the eastern side a door-hole about three feet square, through which entrance is made on hands and knees, and which is protected by a seal or other skin. Under the opening in the roof, a hole is dug for fire; and round the sides of the room, tomb-like excavations are made, or boards put up, for sleeping-places, where the occupant reposes on his back with his knees drawn up to the chin. Adjoiningrooms are sometimes made, with low underground passages leading off from the main hall. The walls are adorned with implements of the chase and bags of winter food; the latter of which, being in every stage of decay, emits an odor most offensive to unhabituated nostrils. The ground is carpeted with straw. When the smoke-hole is covered by an intestine window, the dwellings of the Koniagas are exceedingly warm, and neither fire nor clothing is required.[86]Thekashim, or public house of the Koniagas, is built like their dwellings, and is capable of accommodating three or four hundred people.[87]Huts are built by earthing over sticks placed in roof-shape; also by erecting a frame of poles, and covering it with bark or skins.
The Koniagas will eat any digestible substance in nature except pork; from which fact Kingsborough might have proven incontestably a Jewish origin. I should rather give them swinish affinities, and see in this singularity a hesitancy to feed upon the only animal, except themselves, which eats with equal avidity bear's excrements, carrion birds, maggoty fish, and rotten sea-animals.[88]When a whale is taken, it is literally stripped of everything to the bare bones, and these also are used for building huts and boats.[89]These people can disposeof enormous quantities of food; or, if necessary, they can go a long time without eating.[90]Before the introduction of intoxicating drinks by white men, they made a fermented liquor from the juice of raspberries and blueberries. Tobacco is in general use, but chewing and snuffing are more frequent than smoking. Salmon are very plentiful in the vicinity of Kadiak, and form one of the chief articles of diet. During their periodical ascension of the rivers, they are taken in great quantities by means of a pole pointed with bone or iron. Salmon are also taken in nets made of whale-sinews. Codfish are caught with a bone hook. Whales approach the coast of Kadiak in June, when the inhabitants pursue them in baidarkas. Their whale-lance is about six feet in length, and pointed with a stone upon which is engraved the owner's mark. This point separates from the handle and is left in the whale's flesh, so that when the body is thrown dead upon the beach, the whaler proves his property by his lance-point. Many superstitions are mentioned in connection with the whale-fishery. When a whaler dies, the body is cut into small pieces and distributed among his fellow-craftsmen, each of whom, after rubbing the point of his lance upon it, dries and preserves his piece as a sort of talisman. Or the body is placed in a distant cave, where, before setting out upon a chase, the whalers all congregate, take it out, carry it to a stream, immerse it and then drink of the water. During the season, whalers bear a charmed existence. No one may eat out of the same dish with them, nor even approach them. When the season is over, they hide their weapons in the mountains.
In May, the Koniagas set out in two-oared baidarkasfor distant islands, in search of sea-otter. As success requires a smooth sea, they can hunt them only during the months of May and June, taking them in the manner following. Fifty or one hundred boats proceed slowly through the water, so closely together that it is impossible for an otter to escape between them. As soon as the animal is discovered, the signal is given, the area within which he must necessarily rise to the surface for air, is surrounded by a dozen boats, and when he appears upon the surface he is filled with arrows. Seals are hunted with spears ten or twelve feet in length, upon the end of which is fastened an inflated bladder, in order to float the animal when dead.
THE KUSKOKWIGMUTES AND MALEMUTES.
The Kuskokwigmutes are less nomadic than their neighbors; being housed in permanent settlements during the winter, although in summer they are obliged to scatter in various directions in quest of food. Every morning before break of day, during the hunting-season, a boy lights the oil-lamps in all the huts of the village, when the women rise and prepare the food. The men, excepting old men and boys, all sleep in the kashim, whither they retire at sunset. In the morning they are aroused by the appearance of the shamán, arrayed in his sacerdotal robes, and beating his sacred drum. After morning worship, the women carry breakfast to their husbands in the kashim. At day-break the men depart for their hunting or fishing, and when they return, immediately repair to the kashim, leaving the women to unload and take care of the products of the day's work. During the hunting-season the men visit their wives only during the night, returning to the kashim before daylight.
The Malemutes leave their villages upon the coast regularly in February, and, with their families, resort to the mountains, where they follow the deer until snow melts, and then return to catch water-fowl and herring, and gather eggs upon the cliffs and promontories of the coast and islands. In July is their salmon feast. The fawns of reindeer are caught upon the hills by thewomen in August, either by chasing them down or by snaring them. Deer are stalked, noosed in snares, or driven into enclosures, where they are easily killed. At Kadiak, hunting begins in February, and in April they visit the smaller islands for sea-otter, seals, sea-lions, and eggs. Their whale and other fisheries commence in June and continue till October, at which time they abandon work and give themselves up to festivities. The seal is highly prized by them for its skin, blubber, and oil. One method of catching seals illustrates their ingenuity. Taking an air-tight seal-skin, they blow it up like a bladder, fasten to it a long line, and, concealing themselves behind the rocks, they throw their imitation seal among the live ones and draw it slowly to the shore. The others follow, and are speared or killed with bow and arrows. Blueberries and huckleberries are gathered in quantities and dried for winter use; they are eaten mixed with seal-oil. The Koniagas are also very fond of raw reindeer-fat. They hunt with guns, and snare grouse, marten, and hares. A small white fish is taken in great quantities from holes in the ice. They are so abundant and so easily caught that the natives break off the barbs from their fish-hooks in order to facilitate their operations.
The white polar bear does not wander south of the sixty-fifth parallel, and is only found near Bering Strait. Some were found on St Matthew Island, in Bering Sea, but were supposed to have been conveyed thither upon floating ice. The natives approach the grizzly bear with great caution. When a lair is discovered, the opening is measured, and a timber barricade constructed, with an aperture through which the bear may put his head. The Indians then quietly approach and secure their timbers against the opening of the den with stones, and throw a fire-brand into the den to arouse the animal, who thereupon puts his head out through the hole and meets with a reception which brings him to an untimely end.[91]
WAR, IMPLEMENTS, AND GOVERNMENT.
In former times, the Koniagas went to war behind a huge wooden shield a foot thick and twelve feet in width. It was made of three thicknesses of larch-wood, bound together with willows, and with it they covered thirty or forty lancers.[92]They poisoned their arrow and lance points with a preparation of aconite, by drying and pulverizing the root, mixing the powder with water, and, when it fermented, applying it to their weapons.[93]They made arrow-points of copper, obtaining a supply from the Kenai of Copper River;[94]and the wood was as finely finished as if turned in a lathe.
The boats of the Koniagas are similar to those of the north, except that the bow and stem are not alike, the one turning up to a point and the other cut off square.[95]Needles made of birds' bones, and thread from whale-sinews, in the hands of a Kadiak woman, produced work, "many specimens of which," says Lisiansky, "would do credit to our best seamstresses."[96]They produced fire by revolving with a bow-string a hard dry stick upon a soft dry board, one end of the stick being held in a mouth-piece of bone or ivory. Their implementswere few—a stone adze, a shell or flint knife, a polishing stone, and a handled tooth.[97]Yet they excel in carving, and in working walrus-teeth and whalebone, the former being supplied them mostly by the Aglegmutes of the Alaskan Peninsula. The tools used in these manufactures were of stone, and the polishing tools of shell. Traces of the stone age are found in lamps, hammers and cutting instruments, wedges and hatchets. Carving is done by the men, while the women are no less skillful in sewing, basket-making, crocheting, and knitting. The women tan, and make clothing and boat-covers from skins and intestines.[98]The Agulmutes are skilled in the carving of wood and ivory; the Kuskoquims excel in wood and stone carving. They make in this manner domestic utensils and vases, with grotesque representations of men, animals, and birds, in relief.
Authority is exercised only by heads of households, but chiefs may, by superior ability, acquire much influence.[99]Before they became broken up and demoralized by contact with civilization, there was a marked division of communities into castes; an hereditary nobility and commonalty. In the former was embodied all authority; but the rule of American chieftains is nowhere of a very arbitrary character. Slavery existed to a limited extent, the thralls being mostly women and children. Their male prisoners of war, they either killed immediately or reserved to torture for the edification and improvement of their children.[100]Upon the arrival ofthe Russians, the slaves then held by the natives, thinking to better their condition, left their barbaric masters and placed themselves under the protection of the new comers. The Russians accepted the trust, and set them to work. The poor creatures, unable to perform the imposed tasks, succumbed; and, as their numbers were diminished by ill treatment, their places were supplied by such of the inhabitants as had been guilty of some misdemeanor; and singularly enough, misdemeanors happened to be about in proportion to the demand for slaves.[101]
MORALITY OF THE KONIAGAS.
The domestic manners of the Koniagas are of the lowest order. In filth they out-do, if possible, their neighbors of the north.[102]Thrown together in little bands under one roof, they have no idea of morality, and the marriage relation sits so loosely as hardly to excite jealousy in its abuse. Female chastity is deemed a thing of value only as men hold property in it. A young unmarried woman may live uncensured in the freest intercourse with the men; though, as soon as she belongs to one man, it is her duty to be true to him. Sodomy is common; the Kaviaks practice polygamy and incest; the Kadiaks cohabit promiscuously, brothers and sisters, parents and children.[103]The Malemutes are content with one wife, but they have no marriage ceremony, and can put her away at pleasure. They prize boy babies, but frequently kill the girls, taking them out into the wilderness, stuffing grass into their mouth and abandoning them; yet children are highly esteemed, and the barren woman is a reproach among her people. Such persons even go so far as to make a doll or image of the offspring which theyso greatly desire, and fondle it as if it were a real child.[104]Two husbands are also allowed to one woman; one the chief or principal husband, and the other a deputy, who acts as husband and master of the house during the absence of the true lord; and who, upon the latter's return, not only yields to him his place, but becomes in the meantime his servant.
But the most repugnant of all their practices is that of male concubinage. A Kadiak mother will select her handsomest and most promising boy, and dress and rear him as a girl, teaching him only domestic duties, keeping him at woman's work, associating him only with women and girls, in order to render his effeminacy complete. Arriving at the age of ten or fifteen years, he is married to some wealthy man, who regards such a companion as a great acquisition. These male wives are calledachnutschikorschopans.[105]
KONIAGAN SWEAT-HOUSES.
A most cruel superstition is enforced upon maidens at the age of puberty; the victim being confined for six months in a hut built for the purpose, apart from the others, and so small that the poor inmate cannot straighten her back while upon her knees. During the six months following, she is allowed a room a little larger, but is still permitted no intercourse with any one. Daughters of principal men obtain the right of access to the kashim by undergoing a ceremonial yielding up oftheir virginity to the shamán.[106]Marriage ceremonies are few, and marriage engagements peculiar. The consent of the father of the intended bride being obtained, the aspirant for nuptial honors brings wood and builds a fire in the bath-room; after which, he and the father take a bath together. The relatives meanwhile congregate, a feast is held, presents are made, the bridegroom takes the name of the bride's father, the couple are escorted to a heated vapor-bath and there left together. Although extremely filthy in their persons and habits, all Indians attach great importance to their sweat-baths. This peculiar institution extends through most of the nations of our territory, from Alaska to Mexico, with wonderful uniformity. Frequently one of the side subterranean apartments which open off from the main hall, is devoted to the purposes of a sweat-house. Into one of these caverns a Kadiak will enter stripped. Steam is generated by throwing water upon heated stones. After sweltering for a time in the confined and heated atmosphere, and while yet in a profuse perspiration, the bather rushes out and plunges into the nearest stream or into the sea, frequently having to break the ice before being able to finish his bath. Sometimes all the occupants of the house join in a bath. They then clear the floor of the main room from obstructions, and build a hot fire under the smoke-hole. When the fire is reduced to coals, a covering is placed over the smoke-hole, and the bathers proceed to wash themselves in a certain liquid, which is carefully saved for this and other cleansing purposes, and also for tanning. The alkali of the fluid combines with the grease upon their persons, and thus a lather is formed which removes dirt as effectually as soap would. They then wash in water, wrap themselves in deer-skins, and repose upon shelves until the lassitude occasioned by perspiration passes away.
Festivals of various kinds are held; as, when one village is desirous of extending hospitality to another village, or when an individual becomes ambitious of popularity, a feast is given. A ceremonial banquet takes place a year after the death of a relative; or an entertainment may be announced as a reparation for an injury done to one's neighbor. At some of these feasts only men dance, and at others the women join. Upon these occasions, presents are exchanged, and the festivities sometimes continue for several days. The men appear upon the scene nearly or quite naked, with painted faces, and the hair fantastically decorated with feathers, dancing to the music of the tambourine, sometimes accompanied by sham fights and warlike songs. Their faces are marked or fantastically painted, and they hold a knife or lance in one hand and a rattle in the other. The women dance by simply hopping forward and backward upon their toes.[107]A visitor, upon entering a dwelling, is presented with a cup of cold water; afterward, fish or flesh is set before him, and it is expected that he will leave nothing uneaten. The more he eats, the greater the honor to the host; and, if it be impossible to eat all that is given him, he must take away with him whatever remains. After eating, he is conducted to a hot bath and regaled with a drink of melted fat.
Sagoskin assisted at a ceremony which is celebrated annually about the first of January at all the villages on the coast. It is called the festival of the immersion of the bladders in the sea. More than a hundred bladders, taken only from animals which have been killed with arrows, and decorated with fantastic paintings, are hung upon a cord stretched horizontally along the wall of the kashim. Four birds carved from wood, a screech-owlwith the head of a man, a sea-gull, and two partridges, are so disposed that they can be moved by strings artfully arranged; the owl flutters his wings and moves his head; the gull strikes the boards with his beak as if he were catching fish, and the partridges commence to peck each other. Lastly, a stake enveloped in straw is placed in the centre of the fire-place. Men and women dance before these effigies in honor ofJug-jak, the spirit of the sea. Every time the dancing ceases, one of the assistants lights some straw, burning it like incense before the birds and the bladders. The principal ceremony of the feast consists, as its name indicates, in the immersion of the bladders in the sea. It was impossible to discover the origin of this custom; the only answer given to questions was, that their ancestors had done so before them.
SUPERSTITIONS OF THE KONIAGAS.
The shamán, or medicine-man of the Koniagas, is the spiritual and temporal doctor of the tribe; wizard, sorcerer, priest, or physician, as necessity demands. In the execution of his offices, the shamán has several assistants, male and female, sages and disciples; the first in rank being calledkaseks, whose duty it is to superintend festivals and teach the children to dance. When a person falls sick, some evil spirit is supposed to have taken possession of him, and it is the business of the shamán to exorcise that spirit, to combat and drive it out of the man. To this end, armed with a magic tambourine, he places himself near the patient and mutters his incantations. A female assistant accompanies him with groans and growls. Should this prove ineffectual, the shamán approaches the bed and throws himself upon the person of the sufferer; then, seizing the demon, he struggles with it, overpowers and casts it out, while the assistants cry, "He is gone! he is gone!" If the patient recovers, the physician is paid, otherwise he receives nothing.[108]Colds, consumption, rheumatism, itch, boils, ulcers, syphilis, are among their most common diseases. Blood-letting is commonly resorted to as a curative, and except in extreme cases the shamán is not called. The Koniagas bleed one another by piercing the arm with a needle, and then cutting away the flesh above the needle with a flint or copper instrument. Beaver's oil is said to relieve their rheumatism.
"The Kadiak people," says Lisiansky, "seem more attached to their dead than to their living." In token of their grief, surviving friends cut the hair, blacken the face with soot, and the ancient custom was to remain in mourning for a year. No work may be done for twenty days, but after the fifth day the mourner may bathe. Immediately after death, the body is arrayed in its best apparel, or wrapped with moss in seal or sea-lion skins, and placed in the kashim, or left in the house in which the person died, where it remains for a time in state. The body, with the arms and implements of the deceased, is then buried. It was not unfrequent in former times to sacrifice a slave upon such an occasion. The grave is covered over with blocks of wood and large stones.[109]A mother, upon the death of a child, retires for a time from the camp; a husband or wife withdraws and joins another tribe.[110]
The character of the Koniagas may be drawn as peaceable, industrious, serviceable to Europeans, adapted to labor and commerce rather than to war and hunting. They are not more superstitious than civilized nations; and their immorality, though to a stranger most rank, is not to them of that socially criminal sort which loves darkness and brings down the avenger. In their own eyes, their abhorrent practices are as sinless as the ordinary,openly conducted avocations of any community are to the members thereof.
THE ALEUTS.
The Aleutsare the inhabitants of the Aleutian Archipelago. The origin of the word is unknown;[111]the original name beingKagataya Koung'ns, or 'men of the east,' indicating an American origin.[112]The nation consists of two tribes speaking different dialects; theUnalaskans, occupying the south-western portion of the Alaskan Peninsula, the Shumagin Islands, and the Fox Islands; and theAtkhas, inhabiting the Andreanovski, Rat, and Near Islands. Migrations and intermixtures with the Russians have, however, nearly obliterated original distinctions.
The earliest information concerning the Aleutian Islanders was obtained by Michael Nevodtsikoff, who sailed from Kamchatka in 1745. Other Russian voyagers immediately followed, attracted thither in search of sea-animal skins, which at that time were very plentiful.[113]Tribute was levied upon the islanders by the Russians, and a system of cruelty commenced which soon reduced the natives from ten thousand to but little more than one thousand.
The Aleuts, to Langsdorff, "appear to be a sort of middle race between the mongrel Tartars and the NorthAmericans." John Ledyard, who visited Unalaska with Captain Cook, saw "two different kinds of people; the one we knew to be the aborigines of America, while we supposed the others to have come from the opposite coasts of Asia."[114]Their features are strongly marked, and those who saw them as they originally existed, were impressed with the intelligent and benevolent expression of their faces.[115]They have an abundance of lank hair, which they cut with flints—the men from the crown, and the women in front.[116]Both sexes undergo the usual face-painting and ornamentations. They extend their nostrils by means of a bow-cylinder. The men wear a bone about the size of a quill in the nose, and the women insert pieces of bone in the under lip.[117]Their legs are bowed, from spending so much of their time in boats; they frequently sitting in them fifteen or twenty hours at a time. Their figure is awkward and uncouth, yet robust, active, capable of carrying heavy burdens and undergoing great fatigue.[118]
ALEUTIAN HAT AND HABITATION.
The hat of the Aleut is the most peculiar part of his dress. It consists of a helmet-shaped crown of wood or leather, with an exceedingly long brim in front, so asto protect the eyes from the sun's reflection upon the water and snow. Upon the apex is a small carving, down the back part hang the beards of sea-lions, while carved strips of bone and paint ornament the whole. This hat also serves as a shield against arrows. The Fox Islanders have caps of bird-skin, on which are left the bright-colored feathers, wings, and tail.[119]As a rule, the men adopt bird-skin clothing, and the women furs, the latter highly ornamented with beads and fringes.[120]
The habitations of the Fox Islanders are calledUllaa, and consist of immense holes from one to three hundred feet in length, and from twenty to thirty feet wide. They are covered with poles and earthed over, leaving several openings at the top through which descent is made by ladders. The interior is partitioned by stakes, and three hundred people sometimes occupy one of these places in common. They have no fire-place, since lamps hollowed from flat stones answer every purpose for cooking and light.[121]A boat turned bottom upward is the summer house of the Aleut.[122]
Raw seal and sea-otter, whale and sea-lion blubber, fish, roots, and berries are staple articles of food among the Aleuts. To procure vegetable food is too much trouble. A dead, half-putrefied whale washed ashore is always the occasion of great rejoicing. From all parts the people congregate upon the shore, lay in their winter supplies, and stuff themselves until not a morsel remains. November is their best hunting-season. Whale-fishing is confined to certain families, and the spirit of the craft descends from father to son. Birds are caught in a net attached to the end of a pole; sea-otter are shot with arrows; spears, bone hooks, and nets are used in fishing.[123]After the advent of the Russians, the natives were not allowed to kill fur-animals without accounting to them therefor.[124]
Their weapons are darts with single and double barbs, which they throw from boards; barbed, bone-pointed lances; spears, harpoons, and arrows, with bone or stone points. At their side is carried a sharp stone knife ten or twelve inches long, and for armor they wear a coat of plaited rushes, which covers the whole body.[125]AnAleut bear-trap consists of a board two feet square and two inches thick, planted with barbed spikes, placed in bruin's path and covered with dust. The unsuspecting victim steps firmly upon the smooth surface offered, when his foot sinks into the dust. Maddened with pain, he puts forward another foot to assist in pulling the first away, when that too is caught. Soon all four of the feet are firmly spiked to the board; the beast rolls over on his back, and his career is soon brought to an end.
CUSTOMS OF THE ALEUTS.
Notwithstanding their peaceful character, the occupants of the several islands were almost constantly at war. Blood, the only atonement for offense, must be washed out by blood, and the line of vengeance becomes endless. At the time of discovery, the Unimak Islanders held the supremacy.
The fabrications of the Aleuts comprise household utensils of stone, bone, and wood; missiles of war and the chase; mats and baskets of grass and the roots of trees, neat and strong; bird-beak rattles, tambourines or drums, wooden hats and carved figures. From the wing-bone of the sea-gull, the women make their needles; from sinews, they make thread and cord.[126]To obtain glue for mending or manufacturing purposes, they strike the nose until it bleeds.[127]To kindle a fire, they make use of sulphur, in which their volcanic islands abound, and the process is very curious. First they prepare some dry grass to catch the fire; then they take two pieces of quartz, and, holding them over the grass, rub them well with native sulphur. A few feathers are scattered over the grass to catch the particles of sulphur, and, when all is ready, holding the stones over the grass,they strike them together; a flash is produced by the concussion, the sulphur ignites, and the straw blazes up.[128]
The Aleuts have no marriage ceremony. Every man takes as many women to wife as he can support, or rather as he can get to support him. Presents are made to the relatives of the bride, and when she ceases to possess attractions or value in the eyes of her proprietor, she is sent back to her friends. Wives are exchanged by the men, and rich women are permitted to indulge in two husbands. Male concubinage obtains throughout the Aleutian Islands, but not to the same extent as among the Koniagas.[129]Mothers plunge their crying babies under water in order to quiet them. This remedy performed in winter amid broken ice, is very effectual.[130]
Every island, and, in the larger islands, every village, has itstoyon, or chief, who decides differences, is exempt from work, is allowed a servant to row his boat, but in other respects possesses no power. The office is elective.[131]
The Aleuts are fond of dancing and given to hospitality. The stranger guest, as he approaches the village, is met by dancing men and dancing women, who conduct him to the house of the host, where food is given him. After supper, the dancing, now performed by naked men, continues until all are exhausted, when the hospitalities ofthe dwelling are placed at the disposal of the guest, and all retire.[132]A religious festival used to be held in December, at which all the women of the village assembled by moonlight, and danced naked with masked faces, the men being excluded under penalty of death. The men and women of a village bathe together, in aboriginal innocency, unconscious of impropriety. They are fond of pantomimic performances; of representing in dances their myths and their legends; of acting out a chase, one assuming the part of hunter, another of a bird or beast trying to escape the snare, now succeeding, now failing—the piece ending in the transformation of a captive bird into a lovely woman, who falls exhausted into the arms of the hunter.
The dead are clothed and masked, and either placed in the cleft of a rock, or swung in a boat or cradle from a pole in the open air. They seem to guard the body as much as possible from contact with the ground.[133]
CHARACTER OF THE ALEUTS.
In their nature and disposition, these islanders are sluggish but strong. Their sluggishness gives to their character a gentleness and obsequiousness often remarked by travelers; while their inherent strength, when roused by brutal passions, drives them on to the greatest enormities. They are capable of enduring great fatigue, and, when roused to action by necessity, they will perform an incredible amount of work, suffering the severest cold or heat or hunger with the most stoical calmness. They are very quiet in their demeanor; sometimes sitting in companies within their dens, or on their house-topsgazing at the sea for hours, without speaking a word. It is said that formerly they were much more gay and cheerful, but that an acquaintance with civilization has been productive of the usual misfortune and misery.[134]
It does not appear that the Russians were behind the Spaniards in their barbarous treatment of the natives.[135]Notwithstanding their interest lay in preserving life, and holding the natives in a state of serfdom as fishers and hunters, the poor people were soon swept away. Father Innocentius Veniaminoff, a Russian missionary who labored among the islanders long and faithfully, gives them the highest character for probity and propriety. Among other things, he affirms that during a residence of ten years in Unalaska, there did not occur a single fight among the natives. Proselytes were made by the Russians with the same facility as by the Spaniards. Tribute was levied by the Russians upon all the islanders, but, for three years after their conversion, neophytes were exempt; a cheap release from hateful servitude, thought the poor Aleut; and a polity which brought into the folds of the church pagan multitudes.
THE THLINKEETS.
The Thlinkeets, as they call themselves, orKolosches, as they are designated by the Russians, inhabit the coast and islands from Mount St Elias to the river Nass. The name Thlinkeet signifies 'man,' or 'human being.'Kolosch,[136]or more properlyKaluga, is the Aleutian word for 'dish,' and was given to this people by Aleutian seal-hunters whom the Russians employed during their first occupation of the Island of the Sitkas. Perceiving a resemblance in the shape of the Thlinkeet lip-ornament, to the wooden vessels of their own country, they applied to this nation the name Kaluga, whence the Kolosches of the Russians.
Holmberg carries their boundaries down to the Columbia River; and Wrangell perceives a likeness, real or imaginary, to the Aztecs.[137]Indeed the differences between the Thlinkeets and the inhabitants of New Caledonia, Washington, and Oregon, are so slight that the whole might without impropriety be called one people. The Thlinkeets have, however, some peculiarities not found elsewhere; they are a nation distinct from the Tinneh upon their eastern border, and I therefore treat of them separately.
The three families of nations already considered, namely, the Eskimos, the Koniagas, and the Aleuts, are all designated by most writers as Eskimos. Some even include the Thlinkeets, notwithstanding their physical and philological differences, which, as well as their traditions, are as broadly marked as those of nations that these same ethnologists separate into distinct families. Nomadic nations, occupying lands by a precarious tenure, with ever-changing boundaries, engaged in perpetual hostilities with conterminous tribes that frequently annihilate or absorb an entire community, so graduate into one another that the dividing line is often with difficulty determined. Thus the Thlinkeets, now almost universally held to be North American Indians proper, and distinct from the Eskimos, possess, perhaps, as many affinities to their neighbors on the north, as to those upon the south and east. The conclusion is obvious. The native races of America, by their geographical position and the climaticinfluences which govern them, are of necessity to a certain degree similar; while a separation into isolated communities which are acted upon by local causes, results in national or tribal distinctions. Thus the human race in America, like the human race throughout the world, is uniform in its variety, and varied in its unity.
The Thlinkeet family, commencing at the north, comprises theUgalenzes,[138]on the shore of the continent between Mount St Elias and Copper River; theYakutats, of Bering Bay; theChilkats, at Lynn Canal; theHoodnids, at Cross Sound; theHoodsinoos, of Chatham Strait; and, following down the coast and islands, theTakoos, theAuks, theKakas, theSitkas,[139]theStikines,[140]and theTungass. The Sitkas on Baranoff Island[141]are the dominant tribe.
Descending from the north into more genial climes, the physical type changes, and the form assumes more graceful proportions. With the expansion of nature and a freer play of physical powers, the mind expands, native character becomes intensified, instinct keener, savage nature more savage, the nobler qualities become more noble; cruelty is more cruel, torture is elevated into an art, stoicism is cultivated,[142]human sacrifice and human slavery begin, and the oppression and degradation of woman is systematized. "If an original American race is accepted," says Holmberg, "the Thlinkeets must be classed with them." They claim to have migrated from the interior of the continent, opposite Queen Charlotte Island.
The Ugalenzes spend their winters at a small bay eastfrom Kadiak, and their summers near the mouth of Copper River, where they take fish in great quantities. Their country also abounds in beaver. The Chilkats make two annual trading excursions into the interior. The Tacully tribes, the Sicannis and Nehannes, with whom the Chilkats exchange European goods for furs, will allow no white man to ascend their streams.
THLINKEET PECULIARITIES.
Naturally, the Thlinkeets are a fine race; the men better formed than the boatmen of the north;[143]the women modest, fair, and handsome;[144]but the latter have gone far out of their way to spoil the handiwork of nature. Not content with daubing the head and body with filthy coloring mixtures; with adorning the neck with copper-wire collars, and the face with grotesque wooden masks; with scarring their limbs and breast with keen-edged instruments; with piercing the nose and ears, and filling the apertures with bones, shells, sticks, pieces of copper, nails, or attaching to them heavy pendants, which drag down the organs and pull the features out of place;[145]they appear to have taxed their inventive powers to the utmost, and with a success unsurpassed by any nation in the world, to produce a model of hideous beauty.
THLINKEET LIP-ORNAMENT.
This success is achieved in their wooden lip-ornament, the crowning glory of the Thlinkeet matron, described by a multitude of eye-witnesses; and the ceremony of its introduction may be not inappropriately termed, the baptism of the block. At the age of puberty,—some say during infancy or childhood,—in the under lip of all free-born female Thlinkeets,[146]a slit is made parallel with the mouth, and about half an inch below it.[147]If the incision is made during infancy, it is only a small hole, into which a needle of copper, a bone, or a stick is inserted, the size being increased as the child grows. If the baptism is deferred until the period when the maiden merges into womanhood, the operation is necessarily upon a larger scale, and consequently more painful.[148]Whenthe incision is made, a copper wire, or a piece of shell or wood, is introduced, which keeps the wound open and the aperture extended; and by enlarging the object and keeping up a continuous but painful strain, an artificial opening in the face is made of the required dimensions. On attaining the age of maturity, this wire or other incumbrance is removed and a block of wood inserted. This block is oval or elliptical in shape, concaved or hollowed dish-like on the sides, and grooved like the wheel of a pulley on the edge in order to keep it in place.[149]The dimensions of the block are from two to six inches in length, from one to four inches in width, and about half an inch thick round the edge, and highly polished.[150]Old age has little terror in the eyes of a Thlinkeet belle, for larger lip-blocks are introduced as years advance, and each enlargement adds to the lady's social status, if not to her facial charms. When the block is withdrawn, the lip drops down upon the chin like a piece of leather, displaying the teeth, and presenting altogethera ghastly spectacle.[151]This custom is evidently associated in their minds with womanly modesty, for when La Pérouse asked them to remove their block, some refused; those who complied manifesting the same embarrassment shown by a European woman who uncovers her bosom. The Yakutats alone of all the Thlinkeet nation have never adopted this fashion.
DRESS OF THE THLINKEETS.
Their dress, which is made from wolf, deer, bear, or other skin, extends from the shoulder to the knee, and consists of a mantle, or cape, with sleeves, which reaches down to the waist, and to which the women attach a skirt, or gown, and the men a belt and apron. A white blanket is made from the wool of the wild sheep, embroidered with figures, and fringed with furs, all of native work. This garment is most highly prized by the men. They wear it thrown over the shoulder so as to cover the whole body.
Vancouver thus describes the dress of a chief at Lynn Canal. His "external robe was a very fine large garment,that reached from his neck down to his heels, made of wool from the mountain sheep, neatly variegated with several colors, and edged and otherwise decorated with little tufts or frogs of woolen yarn, dyed of various colors. His head-dress was made of wood, much resembling in its shape a crown, adorned with bright copper and brass plates, from whence hung a number of tails or streamers, composed of wool and fur, wrought together, dyed of various colors, and each terminating in a whole ermine skin. The whole exhibited a magnificent appearance, and indicated a taste for dress and ornament that we had not supposed the natives of these regions to possess."
The men make a wooden mask, which rests on a neckpiece, very ingeniously carved, and painted in colors, so as to represent the head of some bird or beast or mythological being. This was formerly worn in battle, probably, as La Pérouse suggests, in order to strike terror into the hearts of enemies, but is now used only on festive occasions.[152]
A small hat of roots and bark, woven in the shape of a truncated cone, ornamented with painted figures and pictures of animals, is worn by both sexes.[153]Ordinarily, however, the men wear nothing on the head; their thick hair, greased and covered with ochre and birds' down, forming a sufficient covering. The hat is designed especially for rainy weather, as a protection to the elaboratelydressed hair.[154]Besides their every-day dress, they have a fantastic costume for tribal holidays.
For their winter habitations, a little back from the ocean, the Thlinkeets build substantial houses of plank or logs, sometimes of sufficient strength to serve as a fortress. They are six or eight feet in height, the base in the form of a square or parallelogram, the roof of poles placed at an angle of forty-five degrees and covered with bark. The entrance is by a small side door. The fire, which is usually kept burning night and day, occupies the centre of the room; over it is a smoke-hole of unusual size, and round the sides of the room are apartments or dens which are used as store-houses, sweat-houses, and private family rooms. The main room is very public and very filthy.[155]Summer huts are light portable buildings, thrown up during hunting excursions in the interior, or on the sea-beach in the fishing-season. A frame is made of stakes driven into the ground, supporting a roof, and the whole covered with bark, or with green or dry branches, and skins or bark over all. The door is closed by bark or a curtain of skins. Each hutis the rendezvous for a small colony, frequently covering twenty or thirty persons, all under the direction of one chief.[156]
FOOD OF THE THLINKEETS.
The food of the Thlinkeets is derived principally from the ocean, and consists of fish, mussels, sea-weeds, and in fact whatever is left upon the beach by the ebbing tide—which at Sitka rises and falls eighteen feet twice a day—or can be caught by artificial means. Holmberg says that all but the Yakutats hate whale as the Jews hate pork. Roots, grasses, berries, and snails are among their summer luxuries. They chew a certain plant as some chew tobacco, mixing with it lime to give it a stronger effect,[157]and drink whale-oil as a European drinks beer. Preferring their food cooked, they put it in a tight wicker basket, pouring in water, and throwing in heated stones, until the food is boiled.[158]Forwinter, they dry large quantities of herring, roes, and the flesh of animals.
For catching fish, they stake the rivers, and also use a hook and line; one fisherman casting from his canoe ten or fifteen lines, with bladders for floats. For herring, they fasten to the end of a pole four or five pointed bones, and with this instrument strike into a shoal, spearing a fish on every point. They sometimes make the same instrument in the shape of a rake, and transfix the fish with the teeth. The Sitkas catch halibut with large, wooden, bone-pointed hooks.[159]
The arms of the Thlinkeets denote a more warlike people than any we have hitherto encountered. Bows and arrows; hatchets of flint, and of a hard green stone which cuts wood so smoothly that no marks of notches are left; great lances, six or eight varas in length, if Bodega y Quadra may be trusted, hardened in the fire or pointed with copper, or later with iron; a large, broad, double-ended dagger, or knife,—are their principal weapons. The knife is their chief implement and constant companion. The handle is nearer one end than the other, so that it has a long blade and a short blade, the latter being one quarter the length of the former. The handle is covered with leather, and a strap fastens it to the hand when fighting. Both blades have leathern sheaths, one of which is suspended from the neck by a strap.[160]
THE THLINKEETS IN WAR.
They also encase almost the entire body in a wooden and leathern armor. Their helmets have curiously carved vizors, with grotesque representations of beings natural or supernatural, which, when brilliantly or dismally painted, and presented with proper yells, and brandishings of their ever-glittering knives, are supposed to strike terror into the heart of their enemies. They make a breast-plate of wood, and an arrow-proof coat of thin flexible strips, bound with strings like a woman's stays.[161]
When a Thlinkeet arms for war, he paints his face and powders his hair a brilliant red. He then ornaments his head with white eagle-feathers, a token of stern, vindictive determination. During war they pitch their camp in strong positions, and place the women on guard. Trial by combat is frequently resorted to, not only to determine private disputes, but to settle quarrels between petty tribes. In the latter case, each side chooses a champion, the warriors place themselves inbattle array, the combatants armed with their favorite weapon, the dagger, and well armored, step forth and engage in fight; while the people on either side engage in song and dance during the combat. Wrangell and Laplace assert that brave warriors killed in battle are devoured by the conquerors, in the belief that the bravery of the victim thereby enters into the nature of the partaker.[162]