MRS. SCHOOLTKA, WHO LIVED 300 YEARS WITH HER HUSBAND
MRS. SCHOOLTKA, WHO LIVED 300 YEARS WITH HER HUSBAND
There is one thing in which the Haidas differ widely from other Indians: they are not fond of bright colors in their clothing, black being always preferred. Even in their shawls and handkerchiefs they prefer that they be black or some other conservative color. Missionary societies sending them second-handed clothing make a great mistake in this particular.
Though the Haidas are as fond of display as formerly their ceremonial dances, in which the whole tribe engaged, are now rare, in fact they have not been seen for several years. The spirit of imitation has taken hold of the Haida and he now copies the methods of Europeans in such matters. Most of the petty chiefs have been to Victoria, B. C., and seen the soldiers drill. They have also witnessed the operations of the fire department of that place.
SILVER AND COPPER ORNAMENTSHAIDA INDIANS
SILVER AND COPPER ORNAMENTS
HAIDA INDIANS
Copying British styles they have uniformed themselves with red coats, forming quite a large army, and have a brilliantly uniformed fire company. Their parades are frequent and they present a very self-important, if not formidable, appearance as they march proudly along, keeping time to the wild, grand music of the tribes, their own boisterous drums, and the native whistles and trumpets, through their rough narrow streets, performing various evolutions and halting to drill. Indifferent whether armed with guns or sticks, many of the swords of the officers being of wood, they draw up in line, go through the facings, marching and counter-marching, the manual of arms and various other exercises. Conspicuous on such occasions is Mr. John, whose portrait is here presented. He is very ambitious to become one of the general officers of the army. So, as often as the drilling day comes around he calls on the Rev. Gould, who was a soldier in the late civil war, for instructions in military tactics. On one occasion the good man asked him if he expected to learn in a moment what it took him (Mr. Gould) three years to learn. This discouraged Mr. John for a time, but he soon recovered and is now occasionally a military pupil of Mr. Gould’s. The parades of the fire company are pompous and magnificent, but damaging stories are told of them so far as their real usefulness is concerned. One evening Mr. E. T. McLeod looked out of the door of his store and beheld one of the Indian’s houses in flames. With the aid of a fire extinguisher and a little water he quickly quenched the blaze before the fire company arrived. The Indians who composed the company were very angry with him for not waiting until they could get their suits on and reach the scene in dress parade uniform. The latter incident illustrates the childish notions of a savage race capable of a high degree of cultivation.
The potlatch was the greatest institution of the Indian and is to this day. It was the crowning glory of the Indian life and worth the meade of a thousand victories over the foe. It was the ambition of the hyas tyee, the politics of every ruler who could secure wealth enough to accomplish the great and glorious end. It impoverished the giver but brought gladness to the hearts of the people, and honor ever after to him who gave. It was a beautiful custom; beautiful in the eyes of the natives of high or low degree, confined to no particular tribe but to be met with everywhere along the coast. It no doubt had its origin far back in the misty past. Come from whence—who can tell? Perhaps, through the generations of the world down through all the ups and downs and changes and variation of mankind, keeping step with that most beautiful of all civilized customs, the gifts of Yuletide, for Christ’s sake, and perchance the very same origin marked the beginning of both.
Before the introduction of the cloths and implements of civilized man, the simple native satisfied himself and the people by giving of those things he could gather from the chase or manufacture by his crude arts. Skins of wild animals fancifully wrought and colored, the wild ponies of his herds, bows and arrows, his canoes, everything he sacrificed on the altar of the potlatch which meant a gift, to give, etc. When he was enabled to get blankets, knives, guns, etc., from the whites the potlatch took a wider range and not even the glittering yellow gold was spared the sacrifice. The great day set so many suns or moons ahead, arrived, great was the interest and excitement of the occasion. From far and near assembled the invited guests and tribes and with feasting, singing, chanting and dancing, the bounteous collection was distributed; a chief was made penniless, the wealth of a life time was dissipated in an hour, but his head forever after was crowned with the glory of a satisfied ambition; he had won the honor and reverence of the people.
The gifts were not always preserved by the recipients, especially with some of the Sound tribes for it was a work of a noble unselfish brave to immediately destroy whatever had been thrown to him. So it was that fine new blankets, guns, bows and arrows and the like were often destroyed scarcely before they touched the ground. At the Old-Man-House potlatches have been given withinthe residency of the whites when the frenzied Indians have fallen upon a shower of gifts and soon had them entirely destroyed. The blankets, easily secured by barter with the Hudsons Bay company’s agents, were usually hung up and with knives and daggers would in a twinkling be slashed and cut into hundreds of fragments and strips. The blankets in those days cost a great deal of money, $10 to $20 a pair, so that in a very short time hundreds of dollars worth of valuables would soon be destroyed.
Back in the distant past and not within the memory of the Indians of to-day the ceremony had its attendant features of a more heathenish kind, for the blood of sacrifice was spilled as a more fitting observance of the grand occasion. Slaves succumbed to the horrible rites and moaned out their death chants which blended and contrasted with the mirthful song of their possessors, engaged for the time in their dance of blood. An incident of the awful tragedies is inspiringly told, if such a construction can be put upon it, by an early missionary, an eye witness, whose description is re-clothed in the splendid words of Hezzekiah Butterworth:
“I once witnessed a potlatch and I hope I may never see such a scene again. I had landed among a tribe of northern Indians on the Whulge, where I had gathered a little church some months before, and I expected to hold a meeting on the night I arrived in one of the canoes. The place was deserted; the woods were all silent. Sunset flashed his red light along the sea, such a sunset as one only sees here in these northern latitudes. A wannish glare of smoky crimson lingering long into the night. As soon as the sun went down I began to hear a piping sound like birds in all the woods around. The calls answered one another everywhere. I had never heard a sound like that. I tried to approach one of the sounds but it receded before me.
“Suddenly a great fire blazed up and lit the sky. I approached it; it was built on a little prairie. Near it was a large platform covered with canoes, blankets, pressed fish, berry cakes, soap—clayey or berry soap, wampum and beads. Not an Indian was in sight save one. She was an old squaw bound to a stake or tree.
“‘What is this?’ I asked in Chinook.
“‘Cultus tee-hee.’
“‘Cultus tee-hee?’
“‘Dah-blo!’
“She wailed in Chinook.
“‘When—tamala?’ (to-morrow.)
“‘Ding Ding’—
“‘Cultus tee-hee.’
“‘Cultus hee-hee.’
“‘Dah-blo!’
“Then I knew that all was preparation for a potlatch, and that there was to be a devil dance—ding ding—at that very hour.
“It was a night of the full moon, as such a night would be selected for such a ceremony. The moon rose red in the smoky air, and the sounds like the bird calls grew louder and wilder. Then there was a yell; it was answered everywhere, and hundreds of Indians in paint and masks came running out of the timber upon the prairie. Some were on all fours, some had the heads of beasts, fishes and birds, some had wings and many tails.
“Then came biters attended by raving squaws. The biters were to tear the flesh from the arms of any who were not found at the dance after a certain hour.
“Now the drums began to beat and the shells to blow. Indians poured out of the woods in paint, blankets and beads.
“A great circle dance was formed; the ta-mahn-a-wis or spirit dance was enacted. Great gifts were made as at a pow-wow or wah-wah. Then the dark crowd grew frantic, and under the full moon gleaming on high came the devil’s dance.
“The first victim was a live dog. He was seized, torn in pieces and eaten by the dancers, so as to redden their faces with blood. The yells were now more furious; the dancers leaped into the air and circled around the old woman tied to the tree.
“I will not describe the sickening sight that followed; I will only say that the old hag, who was accused of casting an evil eye, shared the same fate as the dog.
“Why do you worship the devil?’ I asked an exhausted brave the next day.
“‘Good spirits always good; him we no fear. Please the devil and him no harm you. All well—happy; good ta-mahn-a-wis, bad ta-mahn-a-wis, see?’”
It was plain—the old philosophy of the sinking sailor who prayed ‘good lord! good devil!’ The tradition was—it came out of the long past—that the devil must be appeased.
QUINIAULT TRIBESMAN
QUINIAULT TRIBESMAN
The T’Klinkit is the name applied to all the Indians on the upper coast who reside between the north end of Prince of Wales island and Yakutat bay, near the base of Mt. St. Elias.
These T’Klinkits are divided into so-called tribes; virtually families, the chieftainship descending through the female line. The T’Klinkits were generally known to the Siwash of Puget Sound under the general name of Stickeens.
Among the principal families of T’Klinkits are the Stickeens, located on the Stikeen river, which is near Fort Wrangle; the Takous and Aukos, whose headquarters are in Takou inlet and on the present site of Juneau; the Chilkats and Chilkoots, at the present head of navigation near Pyramid harbor; the Hoonyas, near Glacier bay, and the Hootzenoos, near the present town of Killisnoo, and the Sitkas, on Baranoff island. The Sitkas are really composed of two families—the Kaksutis and the Kokwautans.
In 1858 Commander Meade, U. S. N., found it necessary to reduce to ashes two villages of the Kake Indians on Kiou island, on account of the murder of innocent prospectors. These Kake Indians are the most hostile of any of the Alaska families. They are probably not T’Klinkits. It has been urged by some that they, as well as the Haidas, just to the south of them, are descendants of the ancient Aztecs of Mexico, who were driven out upon the fall of the great Montezuma.
Later outbreaks occurred among the northern Indians as late as 1879. The garrison at Sitka, which had been established in 1877, had been withdrawn, and Catlian, chief of the Kaksutis, had an idea, and so informed all the T’Klinkits, that the United States had abandoned the country; the natives were sole owners, and all persons in the country were there at their peril. He first started off making orations at Sitka, where he stirred up the young men of his family to attempt the massacre of all the residents of Sitka, telling his friends that “they could kill everybody, loot the stores, secure enough to keep them several years, take to the mountains, and in a year or so all would be forgotten by the United States government.” Luckily for the people of Sitka, Annahootz, thechief of the Kokwautans, learned of Catlian’s threats, and one evening when a crowd of drunken Kaksutis attempted to pass the stockade between what is called Indian Town and Sitka, Annahootz, with several of his young men met them at the gate. A skirmish took place. Annahootz was badly wounded, but prevented Catlian’s crowd from reaching the citizens.
YAKUTAT, ALASKA
YAKUTAT, ALASKA
The then collector of customs, Col. M. D. Ball, as far as possible armed the citizens, who patroled the town night and day until the arrival of the mail steamer from the Sound. An urgent request was forwarded the government for help, and help was also asked from the British government at Victoria. The American government being dilatory, Capt. A’Court, of H. M. S. Osprey, went immediately to the scene of trouble. Through the urgent representations of Major Wm. Gouveneur Morris, at that time special agent of the treasury department (afterwards collector of customs for Alaska), the revenue marine steamer Wolcott was immediately sent north. As soon as orders could be given, the United States corvette Alaska was sent to Sitka. Upon the arrival of the Wolcott, Capt. A’Court offered the hospitalities of his cabin to Mrs. Ball and family to convey them from the scene of trouble. Col. Ball thought he, with the assistance of the Wolcott and Alaska, could hold the natives in shape, and declined the offer. The trouble blew over, as Catlian saw he was over-matched. The Alaska sailed south, and trouble again being threatened the Jamestown was ordered to that port. Under the wise regulations of Captains Beardsley and Glass, Indian Town (so called) was cleansed, whitewashed, the turbulent natives being made policemen and carried on the rolls of the ship as landsmen. They liked their authority, and with their big tin stars, brass buttons and blue uniforms kept the place in good order.
The only other trouble was in 1883, at the Hootzenoo village uprising, when Capt. Merriman, of the navy, was forced to destroy the village, for which he was afterwards court-martialed and acquitted.
The Chilkats and Kakes have, up to this time, had the reputations of being the worst in Alaska.
Of the T’Klinkits and their peculiar customs and changed conditions at the present day, theAlaska Searchlightin March last had the following to say:
“Inter-tribal wars among the natives of southeastern Alaska have become things of the past. A century’s contact with the whites has made the T’Klinkits a changed people, differing in exact ratio as that association has been the more or less intimate. Gone forever are their most striking characteristics, their native customs and institutions, until today their warlike achievements live only in song and story. Shamenism, witchcraft and slavery have disappeared before the growing power of the white man as the dreams of night are chased away by the morning sun; but as in bosky dell or depth of woodland shade the dewy shadows linger longest, so traces of former customs still remain among those natives farthest removed from the white man’s influence. Fierce and bloody were the frequent wars waged among the different tribes before they felt the rule of the Russians, who did all in their power to divert the attention of the Indians from warfare to the less dangerous pursuit of hunting. Gradually they caught the spirit of trade which actuated their new and powerful neighbors, and adapted new methods for the settlement of their feuds and differences. In time blankets and other articles of value came to be received in payment for insulted dignity or outraged honor, for which formerly no atonement was known save that of blood. Captives of war became slaves to their captors and passed their lives in bondage, unless fortune chanced to smile upon the standards of their people and they were retaken by them. The T’Klinkits waged war upon the British Columbia Indians and took from them many prisoners. At times the most warlike tribes held a considerable number of slaves, but as marriages among them were of rare occurrence, and their number depleted by sacrifice, when the wars ceased, thus cutting off the source of supply, slavery soon died out, until at the present time there are no slaves left. An old doctor at the village on the Takou river has a man with him who is said to be a slave, but he has so many opportunities to escape and implore the protection of the law that either he must be free or does not find his bondage irksome. Kuh-hahla-tloo-ut was formerly a slave. Her face is an exceedingly good type of the old T’Klinkit women, who have learned patience and submission through long years of toil and hardship. Report has it that there is one slave at the Chilkat village of Klak-wan, but practically he is free, although at one time he was owned by a former chief. Under the Russian rule wars among the T’Klinkit tribes became of rare occurrence, but the number of slaves was keptup by purchase from the Indians of British Columbia, chiefly the Flatheads. Throughout the history of the world in all climes and under all conditions slavery has presented the same general characteristics, and among the T’Klinkits there was no exception to the rule. Slaves had no civil rights whatever. They could own no property; whatever came to them through labor or gift belonged to the master. They could not marry without his consent, which was rarely ever given. When liberated, as they sometimes were, they ranked the lowest among the people and were counted with their mother’s clan. On festive occasions they were often killed or set free. At the death of a chief or head man it was customary to kill one or more slaves, sometimes ten or fifteen, that they might accompany their master and serve him in the life beyond this earthly existence. The killing of these slaves was attended with but little pomp or ceremony, their death was the one thing to be accomplished. Among the Chilkats, it would be decided in a secret council which of the slaves should be put to death. Unconscious of their impending doom they would be struck down from behind with a huge stone hammer. Able-bodied slaves were seldom sacrificed, as they were considered of too much value, but the old and diseased were usually selected as victims. If a slave should learn of his doom and succeed in escaping or concealing himself he was allowed to live, and after the festivities were over might return to the house of his master with no fear of punishment. Chiefs often used to help favorite slaves make their escape. After death the body of a slave received no more honor than that of a dog. It was denied the right of cremation and thrown upon the beach, food for the wolves, the fish and the birds. On the last evening of great feasts the host would retire to a corner of the house accompanied by all his slaves and don his finest costume—one kept especially for such occasions. His favorite slave would be called upon to dress him, and would receive for his services his freedom. One or more of the otherswould be put to death, and after the sacrifice the valor of the chief and his ancestors would be sung, and a distribution of gifts take place. Sometimes a host would present guests whom he wished to honor greatly with one or more slaves. At the potlatch at Klakwan last fall the wolf robe of the chief was taken from its hiding place and shown the people, and no blood sacrifice demanded, though the last time their eyes rested upon this much-prized relic it is said that six slaves were killed to do honor to the host.”
VOLCANO BOGUSLOF, OF ALEUTIAN ISLANDS
VOLCANO BOGUSLOF, OF ALEUTIAN ISLANDS
On the Aleutian islands, or peninsula of Alaska, are found the Aleuts, still presided over by priests and bishops of the Greek church. It is probable that no thoroughbred Aleuts now remain in the territory. The present inhabitants of the Aleutian isles all contain Russian blood in their veins. The mixture has improved them much, in appearance at least. Formerly they were of diminutive stature, not unlike the Eskimo in their appearance and in the treachery of their disposition. Now they are much larger in size, and it would be difficult to distinguish many of them from Europeans, so fair is their complexion and regular their features. The children, who attend the government schools, learn everything easily, except mathematics. They very rarely pass fractions in the arithmetic. Many of them sing hymns and patriotic songs well, and use the English language very fluently when at play. Apparently all are devout Christians according to the Greek faith, but the sailor who goes ashore at night will be accosted many times by the Aleuts, both men and women, who want “huchi-noo,” or whisky as we would call it. Cattle, sheep and goats are raised to a considerable extent around Unalaska. Several fine appearing Jersey and Guernsey cows were seen there with their udders well filled with milk. The Aleuts ride from place to place in bidarkees, or skin canoes. About Dutch harbor are centers interesting for the tribe, and churches and schools are maintained. The services are largely attended by the Aleut portion of Unalaska’s population. There are a bishop and several priests present, who chant the service in Slavonian, which is responded to by a small choir consisting for the most part of young boys. Vast sums are lavished on the ornamentation of Greek churches. Many are the designs in gold and silver on the furniture used in the service. Like in the ancient Roman churches the services are conducted by the light of many brilliant candles of various size. Some of the paintings that ornamented the Alaskan Greek churches, especially those of Sitka and Kodiak, are among the finest artistic productions of the Slavonian school. While the dignitaries are chanting the service the greater portion of the congregation keep constantly in motion, kneeling and bowing their heads, and kissing the floor and crossing themselves in Grecian fashion.
The Grecian cross differs materially from the Roman cross. The Roman cross is but one erect cross. The upright portion of the Greek cross is crossed three times, once by a horizontal bar and twice by inclined cross bars, one beingabove and the other below the horizontal bar. These crosses are to be found on all their churches and in all their cemeteries.
Dutch harbor is the headquarters of the North American Commercial company for the northern district, and contains such buildings as are usual in a station of its importance. It is the outfitting point for most whalers and sealers for Bering sea, and is the place where American war vessels receive their supply of coal, which is imported from Nanaimo, B. C. The harbor is one of those small bays, well protected by the steep, high hills which surround it, that are so common in Alaska.
KODIAK, ALASKA
KODIAK, ALASKA
Unalaska proper is about a mile and a half away—situated on a long, low flat under the shadow of several lofty hills. Its harbor is as safe as Dutch harbor, but not so handy. The Alaska Commercial company has a large establishment there. The town consists chiefly of the company’s large buildings and about a hundred or more small tenement houses that the company has erected for the use of its native hunters. All the houses are built of imported rustic, and in most cases are painted with brown ocher. The old Greek church has been demolished to give place to a grand new cathedral, which is now under construction. At the present time the devotees meet to burn their incense and otherwise worship in one of the smaller ecclesiastical buildings.
The Alaska Commercial company has secured passage of a special law allowing the natives of Unalaska to hunt sea otters at sea on schooners fitted out in Unalaska, a privilege that none other than they enjoy.
The readers of accounts of adventures on northern seas and frigid lands, such as often appear in magazines and story books, are apt to confound the fur seal, hunted for that rich under fur which he possesses, with the hair seal hunted bythe natives of northern regions for the most part for his fat. However, the skins of the latter are of considerable value to a savage man. In the Aleutian islands their bidarkees (skin canoes), houses, clothing, etc., are largely made from the skin of the hair seal. It has not been uncommon in recent years to see in the great illustrated monthlies and weeklies pictures and descriptions of Greenland Eskimos and Siberian Tungusees stealing upon the inoffensive seal as he lies sleeping on a block of ice, with their short spears and other weapons used in his capture. Though so much has been written about hair seals, but very little has appeared in popular publications concerning the more valuable fur seal. This is largely due to the difficulty of obtaining correct information concerning them. In former times they inhabited the northern and southern parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. But they have been so closely hunted that at the present time the only rookeries left that are worthy of mention are those on the Pribylof islands, of which St. Paul and St. George are the chief, the Copper island rookeries along the coast of Siberia and those in the waters of Japan. There are also rookeries in the southern seas, along the coast of Patagonia, but the seals are not very plentiful, and owing to the inclemency of the weather can only be obtained by raiding the rookeries.
In order that the process of hunting the fur seal may be better understood it may be proper to give a little space to a description of them and their habits. They are usually brown or gray in color. The males reach maturity when about ten years old. They often measure eight feet from the nose to the end of the flipper, and their weight often approaches 400 pounds. Some of them live to a great age and have fine long manes on their necks. The females arrive at maturity when about three years old, and vary in weight from 40 to 100 pounds. The male seals are all congregated on the rookery in the latter part of June. The females arrive there several weeks later. As fast as the females arrive the strong old patriarchs take them in charge, each caring for as many as he can guard, usually about fifteen in number. Very soon after the female reaches the island the young one, usually known as the “pup,” is born. At birth it weighs only a couple of pounds, and grows to weigh 25 or 30 pounds during the first year. It is said the noise of fierce fighting among the many thousands male seals that gather on these wild, barren, rocky shores at breeding time is beyond the power of human speech to describe. Many thousands of them are killed every year, so fierce are their raging battles. Strange as it may seem, in most cases the young pups do not take readily to the water at first. More often than not the older ones have to teach them how to swim.
As soon as the pups can travel the herds leave the rookery and proceed southward. They go through passes that separate the Aleutian islands one from the other in the latter part of September. The 1st of November finds them drifting around in their winter quarters off the coast of Mexico. Assoon as good weather returns they proceed northward slowly, congregating along the various fishing banks, where they are most successfully hunted.
The country on the main land, both on the Shumagin islands and the Alaska peninsula as well as on the Aleutian chain, is composed of ragged bluffs and deep canyons, betraying evidence of much volcanic activity in recent times. Where the rocks do not come to the surface these hills are generally covered by a thin growth of small alders which rarely grow to be more than six or seven feet in height. Between the clusters of alder there are often found growing salmon-berry bushes which seldom exceed a foot in height. Grass sprinkled with fragrant violets, grows luxuriantly in some places. In others wild strawberries and small blackberry vines are abundant.
In those latitudes strawberries and salmon-berries are ripe in the middle of August; red and black huckleberries and blackberries in the latter part of September. It is one of the few places where a cranberry marsh can be found on a steeply sloping hillside.
Sand Point station contains a store with warehouses, and customs house and such other buildings as are usually found in a frontier trading post. There is also a large hotel which was built during the administration of Mr. O’Bryon as factor for Lynde & Hough. O’Bryon has since been lost in the schooner Mary Brown which was wrecked off Queen Charlotte island on her passage down last fall. The hotel is probably the finest building in Alaska. It is furnished with many of the modern improvements, and helps to give the place the appearance of one of those boom towns that used to be seen on Puget Sound a few years ago. No one to-day knows why the hotel was built, not even the company. It is thought that O’Bryon intended establishing a pleasure resort for tourists who would go there to fish and hunt during their summer vacations. In front of the station lies the hull of the old three-masted schooner John Hancock, which was wrecked there several years ago.
The Hancock has quite an interesting history. The gunboat John Hancock was built at Charleston, S. C., in 1846. She was then a side-wheel steamer. After the Mexican war she was transferred to the Pacific coast. She was Commodore Perry’s flagship when he negotiated his famous treaty with the emperor of Japan. In later times the Hancock was purchased by Lynde & Hough, of San Francisco, and transformed into a three-masted schooner for the Alaskan trade. Her model was suited for swift sailing, having been very long and slender. She made the quickest passage ever made by a sailing vessel on that route. After she drifted ashore the wreck was filled with rock and a wharf was built out over it.
Intimately associated with the legend and folk lore of the Indians of Puget Sound is the south wind, the balmy Chinook, the harbinger, the first breath of early spring time. It is the precursor of all that is glorious in pleasant days, sunshine and joy. It comes up over the land, perfumed and odorous from the sea islands. Its touch is like that of a maiden’s palm, gentle and soft. Its tread is silent like the flight of a peri, but it is strong in its coming, for snow peaks and icy crags melt before it like banks of fog. It may come in May or it may come in December, and its influence is felt for good. The Indians watch for its coming as they did for the salmon, the king of fishes, long before the white man came upon the coast to share in its benign influence.
There was a beautiful superstition or tradition among the Indians that the Chinook always came in the night time and the white man with all his learning has never yet proved that it does not. The stolid Indian waked in the morning, went to the door of his wigwam and found it fanning his cheeks. The white man came, and he too when he waked himself at morning would find the Chinook a-blowing. So it is to-day. Though the white man has had a half century to discover the secrets of this pleasant wind, they have never yet been told. They only know from whence to look for it—from over the sea—as did the Indians before them.
As all meteorologists on the coast know and old residents as well, the prevailing winds of the year are southerly, but all southerly winds are not Chinook blows. They are as distinctly different as the vesper and the Dakota blizzard. The Chinook is always a strong, steady southerly wind, never from any other point of the compass, unless it be slightly southwesterly. It is distinctly peculiar to the Northwest Pacific coast and its source is far out in the nasty storm center of the Pacific ocean, emanating from the famed Japan current which is the source of the remarkable humidity of the North Pacific coast.
The Chinook is remarkable for the warming-up it brings, and what is still more singular the glow from its presence is not dependent upon its force. This peculiar wind is, indeed, not a blow in the sense that the word is usually taken, but a smooth, steady flow of a great wind current that is the delight of all who come under its enchanting spell. And what warmth it brings. By official record on the Sound it has been known to elevate the mercury in the thermometer19 degrees in an hour’s time, and yet the Chinook was not blowing above a 12-mile-an-hour rate. That is good evidence that the amount of heat it brings is independent of the force of the wind.
The spring months of the year is the season proper of the Chinook, but meteorologists say there are exceptions and the old and observant pioneer will doubtless bear out this statement. It has been observed to blow in December at Olympia, where is located the oldest weather station in Washington. There 20 years’ records of the weather in Western Washington, from a total of 5,700 distinct and separate observations made with a statement of every plus and minus change of 10 degrees or more in both the maximum and minimum of the temperature, shows that the months of the year when the most decided changes occur in Western Washington are March, April, May and October. During the other months the temperature varies but little from day to day. Of decided temperature in this western country 24 degrees is the record of greatest variation in any 24 hours, either of maximum or minimum, that was ever noticed. A change in the maximum of 40 degrees in 24 hours in Texas in winter is said to be a common thing. The cause is said to be that immediately preceding a norther comes a warm, moist wave, which runs the thermometer up to 65 or 70 degrees on a winter day, and by next morning the thermometer has fallen to 30 or more degrees. By reason of our contiguity to the Japan current such extreme and sudden changes are impossible.
“KLA-HOW-YA”—HOW ARE YOU
“KLA-HOW-YA”—HOW ARE YOU
It is only for two months in the year—July and August—that the prevailing winds are not southerly; then they may be said to be northerly. June immediately preceding the first of these two months, and September immediately following them, each have about 50 per cent of northerly and southerly winds.
This mere statement of wind courses is really an explanation of the cause of such a long rainy season on the Northwest coast. By scientific investigation it has been demonstrated that all cyclonic depressions originating in or over the Pacific ocean during those ten months of the year when southerly winds prevail pass at a sufficiently low latitude to cause the winds in Western Washington to blow from the south or southwest. These winds always bring up from the ocean that excess of humidity or moistness which is so characteristic of the country.
SPEARING THE HAIR SEAL
SPEARING THE HAIR SEAL
This prevailing moist-laden atmosphere or wind current from the ocean and the presence of the towering Cascade barrier paralleling the coast so closely is the true secret of the peculiar climate. Move the Cascade range of mountains and meteorologists tell us that we would at once experience a great difference in climatic conditions. The excess of moisture now so common on a comparatively narrow strip of coast line would find its way inland and distribute itself over a vast area of country. Desert and sagebrush plains would be turned into blooming gardens, and corn and wine would grow and flow where now only the sagehen and jack rabbit find congenial homes. The prevailing south and southwesterly winds would not, say the meteorologists, be interrupted in their regular course because their source would not be interrupted. And there is so much of that dirty weather always present in the ocean caused by the presence of the Japan current which strikes our coast that the atmosphere would still have its excess of humidity. In the Japan current lies the source of bad weather off shore and on the coast line. To such a nicety have meteorologists reduced this potent factor in our weather that they can always with a degree of certainty scarcely attainable in other sections, predict the character of the weather coming on.
Checked by the impenetrable forests that covered all the interior of the country bordering on Puget Sound, the native Indians found pleasure and profit in investigating the marsh lands, tules and tide lands and beaver dams, and chasing the festive musk rat and the industrious beaver; or taking the numerous water fowl by simple methods now forgotten or long in disuse.
Nature for ages had been in process of forming vast tide marshes at the deltas and mouths of the numerous streams, the Duwamish, the Stillaguamish, the Skagit and Nooksack, Puyallup, Skokomish and others. Around the mouths of these rivers many of the largest Indian settlements were to be found. How long these rivers have been silently at work day and night tearing down the mountains and carrying the fragments away to the sea is a question no man can answer. For ages this work has been going on, with results perceptible in the acres of marsh where the rivers meet the tide. If diked and tilled this tide land is the richest and most productive of the whole state for certain kinds of crops.
All hunters know that snipe, ducks and migratory water fowl galore are temporary tenants of these marshy depths every fall and that good sport comes in with the tide at the right season of the year.
At flood tide the “flats” are full of life, for then the little channels that penetrate the tules like a labyrinth are peopled with thousands of gull, ducks, snipe, heron and other water birds, feeding on the crawfish, crabs and other crustacea that dwell in the slimy mud and only come forth when the waters cover the myriads of holes that constitute their homes. Muskrats paddle about towing bits of dead wood or tule in a streaming wake as they take advantage of the tide for water transportation to bring their winter bed to their burrow. Quaint little fellows they are, with beady black eyes that see everything, and a shining coat of brown fur which they oil and comb every time they can find a warm sunny nook where the wind doesn’t blow too brisk. They are not very shy if left alone and can often be seen swimming about or perched on some snag smoothing their coat with a little black paw or huddled up until they look like a brown ball of fur as big as your two fists. They have a tireless enemy in theperson of the farmer who owns diked land, for they are the bane of his existence. Dikes seem to be a favorite place for them to dig their burrows in, presumably because it affords them an elevation above water level, consequently a dry home in the otherwise slimy expanse of marsh that forms their habitat.
Muskrats are not the only inhabitants of these lonesome, wind-swept deposits. Gulls wing their circling flight along the borders in quest of food left by the last tide, and croaking herons rise on heavy, uncertain wing, as they adjust their lank proportions to the conditions of aerial navigation. The crows are there always; high tide, low tide or no tide, the crows are about. At low water they pick up the clams and cockles left on top of the sand, take out the meat of such as they are able, and have a way of their own of opening those that persist in keeping their shells tightly closed. On finding one of this kind they take hold of it with their beak, give a preliminary croak or so, and rise in the air for several yards, then they drop the clam and follow it like a black plumb bob to the beach. The clam shell is cracked and mashed by the fall and the crow has everything his own way by his sharp practices. They clean up about everything considered eatable in the crow bill of fare that is left on the beach by the tide and what they miss the gulls get, so that the mud flats constitute a kind of a short order restaurant for the bird-folk that inhabit our bay shores.
INDIAN DUCK HUNTING
INDIAN DUCK HUNTING
The stoical Siwash stalks, barefooted, over the broad expanse of sand, gathering clams at low tide, or with silent paddle urges his cedar canoe among the canals of the tule patches, looking for a “pot shot” at ducks with his old Hudsons bay company musket. He never wastes any powder on a single duck or risks a wing shot. There must be a whole patch of ducks and they must be closeand sitting still on the water before he turns his old gas-pipe fusee loose in their direction. He don’t go for sport, or sportsmanship, this aborigine, so he nearly always gets ducks and generally several of them every time he chucks a double handful of slugs among them.
He is silent as a shadow and piles branches and grass all over his canoe to enable him to do just the right kind of a “sneak” on his unsuspecting victims.
Mrs. Siwash paddles along the canals too, but she is on a peaceful mission and only takes the tules and rushes that grow thick on the tide-flat marshes for no other purpose, in her estimation, than for making mats for her dwelling on the other side of the bay. She knows all the devious windings of every little channel, though some of them are only about wide enough to float her light craft and are hung so close with grass and rushes that you would hardly suspect an open waterway. She knows that this or that blind canal opens out and gives access to a particularly fine patch of rushes a little further on and urges her boat ahead with lazy stroke that makes it glide along even if there is no water to be seen from your point of view.
KLOOTCHMAN GATHERING RUSHES
KLOOTCHMAN GATHERING RUSHES
These little waterways lead everywhere, and in walking about you find yourself unexpectedly confronted by a ditch a little too wide to jump over and a trifle to deep to wade, when you stop to consider that the bottom mud may be any depth you take a notion to imagine it, but at best deep enough to let the water in over the tops of your waders.
In the deeper ones crabs scurry away in a misfit, sideways fashion, peculiarly their own, and flounders fan their shingle shaped bulk down in the friendly slime and there lie buried as the roil drifts away, conforming so closely with the color of the bottom as to be invisible to any one but a Siwash. They can’t fool a Siwash a little bit for he just picks up a spear from his canoe, makes a jab at the muddy spot and eats flounder when he gets hungry.
There’s dusky maidsIn pinks and plaids,Maids from the forest free;In bright attire,Aglow, afire,On Ballast island by the sea.There’s the chief of his clanWith his ughly klootchman;The gay young dude and his bride,With bows and quiver,And dog fish liver,And the ictas of his curious tribe.Camped below,In the beauteous glow,Such a “gypsy” crew so novel and bold;In their long canoes,And moccasin shoes,From the land of the Totem pole.Dotted all over,Like pigs in clover,The wickyups cover Ballast isle;Brown flitched salmon,Pappooses agammon,Pots and kettles in curious pile.When picking’s o’erWe’ll have no moreThe smell that comes from Ballast isle;Glad then my eyesMy spirits rise,For they’ve gone back to their paradise.
There’s dusky maidsIn pinks and plaids,Maids from the forest free;In bright attire,Aglow, afire,On Ballast island by the sea.There’s the chief of his clanWith his ughly klootchman;The gay young dude and his bride,With bows and quiver,And dog fish liver,And the ictas of his curious tribe.Camped below,In the beauteous glow,Such a “gypsy” crew so novel and bold;In their long canoes,And moccasin shoes,From the land of the Totem pole.Dotted all over,Like pigs in clover,The wickyups cover Ballast isle;Brown flitched salmon,Pappooses agammon,Pots and kettles in curious pile.When picking’s o’erWe’ll have no moreThe smell that comes from Ballast isle;Glad then my eyesMy spirits rise,For they’ve gone back to their paradise.
There’s dusky maidsIn pinks and plaids,Maids from the forest free;In bright attire,Aglow, afire,On Ballast island by the sea.
There’s dusky maids
In pinks and plaids,
Maids from the forest free;
In bright attire,
Aglow, afire,
On Ballast island by the sea.
There’s the chief of his clanWith his ughly klootchman;The gay young dude and his bride,With bows and quiver,And dog fish liver,And the ictas of his curious tribe.
There’s the chief of his clan
With his ughly klootchman;
The gay young dude and his bride,
With bows and quiver,
And dog fish liver,
And the ictas of his curious tribe.
Camped below,In the beauteous glow,Such a “gypsy” crew so novel and bold;In their long canoes,And moccasin shoes,From the land of the Totem pole.
Camped below,
In the beauteous glow,
Such a “gypsy” crew so novel and bold;
In their long canoes,
And moccasin shoes,
From the land of the Totem pole.
Dotted all over,Like pigs in clover,The wickyups cover Ballast isle;Brown flitched salmon,Pappooses agammon,Pots and kettles in curious pile.
Dotted all over,
Like pigs in clover,
The wickyups cover Ballast isle;
Brown flitched salmon,
Pappooses agammon,
Pots and kettles in curious pile.
When picking’s o’erWe’ll have no moreThe smell that comes from Ballast isle;Glad then my eyesMy spirits rise,For they’ve gone back to their paradise.
When picking’s o’er
We’ll have no more
The smell that comes from Ballast isle;
Glad then my eyes
My spirits rise,
For they’ve gone back to their paradise.
[Ballast isle is the camping spot near Seattle of the Indians during their stop over to and from the hop fields.]
Hop picking on bright days in the valleys of Western Washington is the delight of the native. It is for him and all his kith and kin, a joy unspeakable. He comes from near and far. He will travel hundreds of miles in his big canim with his full household and all his earthly possessions to enjoy the delightful season as much for his real love for it as for the money that he knows will always come at the close. Then the hop field is redolent of perfume and melody. The fields are alive with pickers; the air is joyous with sound. There is a richness and coloring in the surrounding which form a perpetual delight. There is a novelty to the beholder and a rurality of scene so peculiar, that makes one feel as if they were in some enchanted country. If you have never witnessed a season of hop picking you have missed a rare old time-treat which has its equal only in the maple woods of the East during sugar making time, or in the co’n shuckin’ days of old Kentuck, “when the mast am fallin’ and the darkies am a singin’ and raccoon and possum am simmerin’ in the pot.”
In addition to its scenic beauties and pleasant surroundings a hop field is a sanitarium for the invalid, and a resting place for the weary and overworked.
Ranking next to the delightful exhilarating smell of the fresh pine woods of Puget Sound is the rich agreeable odor of the hop fields. The hazy half humid air of the lazy September days, the variegated coloring of thousands of native pickers chattering in their gutteral Chinook; the heavy foliaged banks of deep, intensely green fields of vines, with the equally deep green of the conifera woods in the background; the white canvas tents, the lines of curling smoke ascending heavenward; the half agreeable smell of frying salmon, the universal meal of the brownskinned Indians; the mingling and assimilation of a thousand rural and novel et ceteras, form pictures and attractions seen no where else on earth save in a Washington hop field. They are delights which enjoyed once, never are obliterated from the pleasant memories of the beholder.