The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft Part 3

"The purity of the material," says Sir John Franklin, who saw them build an edifice of this kind at Coppermine River, "of which the house was framed, the elegance of its construction, and the translucency of its walls, which transmitted a very pleasant light, gave it an appearance far superior to a marble building, and one might survey it with feelings somewhat akin to those produced by the contemplation of a Grecian temple, reared by Phidias; both are triumphs of art, inimitable in their kind."[42]

Eskimos, fortunately, have not a dainty palate. Everything which sustains life is food for them. Their substantials comprise the flesh of land and marine animals, fish and birds; venison, and whale and seal blubber being chief. Choice dishes, tempting to the appet.i.te, Arctic epicurean dishes, Eskimo nectar and ambrosia, are daintily prepared, hospitably placed before strangers, and eaten and drunk with avidity.

Among them are: a bowl of coagulated blood, mashed cranberries with rancid train-oil, whortleberries and walrus-blubber, alternate streaks of putrid black and white whale-fat; venison steeped in seal-oil, raw deer's liver cut in small pieces and mixed with the warm half-digested contents of the animal's stomach; bowls of live maggots, a draught of warm blood from a newly killed animal.[43] Fish are sometimes eaten alive. Meats are kept in seal-skin bags for over a year, decomposing meanwhile, but never becoming too rancid for our Eskimos. Their winter store of oil they secure in seal-skin bags, which are buried in the frozen ground. Charlevoix remarks that they are the only race known who prefer food raw. This, however, is not the case. They prefer their food cooked, but do not object to it raw or rotten. They are no lovers of salt.[44]

[Sidenote: MIGRATIONS FOR FOOD.]

In mid-winter, while the land is enveloped in darkness, the Eskimo dozes torpidly in his den. Early in September the musk-oxen and reindeer retreat southward, and the fish are confined beneath the frozen covering of the rivers. It is during the short summer, when food is abundant, that they who would not perish must lay up a supply for the winter. When spring opens, and the rivers are cleared of ice, the natives follow the fish, which at that time ascend the streams to sp.a.w.n, and spear them at the falls and rapids that impede their progress. Small wooden fish are sometimes made and thrown into holes in the ice for a decoy; salmon are taken in a whalebone seine. At this season also reindeer are captured on their way to the coast, whither they resort in the spring to drop their young. Mult.i.tudes of geese, ducks, and swans visit the ocean during the same period to breed.[45]

August and September are the months for whales. When a whale is discovered rolling on the water, a boat starts out, and from the distance of a few feet a weapon is plunged into its blubbery carca.s.s.

The harpoons are so constructed that when this blow is given, the shaft becomes disengaged from the barbed ivory point. To this point a seal-skin buoy or bladder is attached by means of a cord. The blows are repeated; the buoys enc.u.mber the monster in diving or swimming, and the ingenious Eskimo is soon able to tow the carca.s.s to the sh.o.r.e. A successful chase secures an abundance of food for the winter.[46] Seals are caught during the winter, and considerable skill is required in taking them. Being a warm-blooded respiratory animal, they are obliged to have air, and in order to obtain it, while the surface of the water is undergoing the freezing process, they keep open a breathing-hole by constantly gnawing away the ice. They produce their young in March, and soon afterward the natives abandon their villages and set out on the ice in pursuit of them. Seals, like whales, are also killed with a harpoon to which is attached a bladder. The seal, when struck, may draw the float under water for a time, but is soon obliged to rise to the surface from exhaustion and for air, when he is again attacked and soon obliged to yield.

The Eskimos are no less ingenious in catching wild-fowl, which they accomplish by means of a sling or net made of woven sinews, with ivory b.a.l.l.s attached. They also snare birds by means of whalebone nooses, round which fine gravel is scattered as a bait. They manoeuvre reindeer to near the edge of a cliff, and, driving them into the sea, kill them from canoes. They also waylay them at the narrow pa.s.ses, and capture them in great numbers. They construct large reindeer pounds, and set up two diverging rows of turf so as to represent men; the outer extremities of the line being sometimes two miles apart, and narrowing to a small enclosure. Into this trap the unsuspecting animals are driven, when they are easily speared.[47]

[Sidenote: BEAR-HUNTING.]

To overcome the formidable polar bear the natives have two strategems.

One is by imitating the seal, upon which the bear princ.i.p.ally feeds, and thereby enticing it within gunshot. Another is by bending a piece of stiff whalebone, encasing it in a ball of blubber, and freezing the ball, which then holds firm the bent whalebone. Armed with these frozen blubber b.a.l.l.s, the natives approach their victim, and, with a discharge of arrows, open the engagement. The bear, smarting with pain, turns upon his tormentors, who, taking to their heels, drop now and then a blubber ball. Bruin, as fond of food as of revenge, pauses for a moment, hastily swallows one, then another, and another. Soon a strange sensation is felt within. The thawing blubber, melted by the heat of the animal's stomach, releases the pent-up whalebone, which, springing into place, plays havoc with the intestines, and brings the bear to a painful and ignominious end. To vegetables, the natives are rather indifferent; berries, acid sorrel leaves, and certain roots, are used as a relish.

There is no native intoxicating liquor, but in eating they get gluttonously stupid.

Notwithstanding his long, frigid, biting winter, the Eskimo never suffers from the cold so long as he has an abundance of food. As we have seen, a whale or a moose supplies him with food, shelter, and raiment.

With an internal fire, fed by his oily and animal food, glowing in his stomach, his blood at fever heat, he burrows comfortably in ice and snow and frozen ground, without necessity for wood or coal.[48] Nor are those pa.s.sions which are supposed to develop most fully under a milder temperature, wanting in the half-frozen Hyperborean.[49] One of the chief difficulties of the Eskimo during the winter is to obtain water, and the women spend a large portion of their time in melting snow over oil-lamps. In the Arctic regions, eating snow is attended with serious consequences. Ice or snow, touched to the lips or tongue, blisters like caustic. Fire is obtained by striking sparks from iron pyrites with quartz. It is a singular fact that in the coldest climate inhabited by man, fire is less used than anywhere else in the world, equatorial regions perhaps excepted. Caloric for the body is supplied by food and supplemented by furs. Snow houses, from their nature, prohibit the use of fire; but cooking with the Eskimo is a luxury, not a necessity. He well understands how to utilize every part of the animals so essential to his existence. With their skins he clothes himself, makes houses, boats, and oil-bags; their flesh and fat he eats. He even devours the contents of the intestines, and with the skin makes water-proof clothing. Knives, arrow-points, house, boat, and sledge frames, fish-hooks, domestic utensils, ice-chisels, and in fact almost all their implements, are made from the horns and bones of the deer, whale, and seal. Bowstrings are made of the sinews of musk-oxen, and ropes of seal-skin.[50] The Eskimo's arms are not very formidable. Backed by his ingenuity, they nevertheless prove sufficient for practical purposes; and while his neighbor possesses none better, all are on an equal footing in war. Their most powerful as well as most artistic weapon is the bow. It is made of beech or spruce, in three pieces curving in opposite directions and ingeniously bound by twisted sinews, so as to give the greatest possible strength. Richardson affirms that "in the hands of a native hunter it will propel an arrow with sufficient force to pierce the heart of a musk-ox, or break the leg of a reindeer."

Arrows, as well as spears, lances, and darts, are of white spruce, and pointed with bone, ivory, flint, and slate.[51] East of the Mackenzie, copper enters largely into the composition of Eskimo utensils.[52]

Before the introduction of iron by Europeans, stone hatchets were common.[53]

[Sidenote: SLEDGES, SNOW-SHOES, AND BOATS.]

The Hyperboreans surpa.s.s all American nations in their facilities for locomotion, both upon land and water. In their skin boats, the natives of the Alaskan seaboard from Point Barrow to Mount St Elias, made long voyages, crossing the strait and sea of Bering, and held commercial intercourse with the people of Asia. Sixty miles is an ordinary day's journey for sledges, while Indians on snow-shoes have been known to run down and capture deer. Throughout this entire border, including the Aleutian Islands, boats are made wholly of the skins of seals or sea-lions, excepting the frame of wood or whale-ribs. In the interior, as well as on the coast immediately below Mount St Elias, skin boats disappear, and canoes or wooden boats are used.

Two kinds of skin boats are employed by the natives of the Alaskan coast, a large and a small one. The former is called by the natives _oomiak_, and by the Russians _baidar_. This is a large, flat-bottomed, open boat; the skeleton of wood or whale-ribs, fastened with seal-skin thongs or whale's sinews, and covered with oiled seal or sea-lion skins, which are first sewed together and then stretched over the frame. The baidar is usually about thirty feet in length, six feet in extreme breadth, and three feet in depth. It is propelled by oars, and will carry fifteen or twenty persons, but its capacity is greatly increased by las.h.i.+ng inflated seal-skins to the outside. In storms at sea, two or three baidars are sometimes tied together.[54] The small boat is called by the natives _kyak_, and by the Russians _baidarka_. It is constructed of the same material and in the same manner as the baidar, except that it is entirely covered with skins, top as well as bottom, save one hole left in the deck, which is filled by the navigator. After taking his seat, and thereby filling this hole, the occupant puts on a water-proof over-dress, the bottom of which is so secured round the rim of the hole that not a drop of water can penetrate it. This dress is provided with sleeves and a hood. It is securely fastened at the wrists and neck, and when the hood is drawn over the head, the boatman may bid defiance to the water. The baidarka is about sixteen feet in length, and two feet in width at the middle, tapering to a point at either end.[55] It is light and strong, and when skillfully handled is considered very safe. The native of Norton Sound will twirl his kyak completely over, turn an aquatic somersault, and by the aid of his double-bladed paddle come up safely on the other side, without even losing his seat. So highly were these boats esteemed by the Russians, that they were at once universally adopted by them in navigating these waters. They were unable to invent any improvement in either of them, although they made a baidarka with two and three seats, which they employed in addition to the one-seated kyak. The Kadiak baidarka is a little shorter and wider than the Aleutian.[56]

Sleds, sledges, dogs, and Arctic land-boats play an important part in Eskimo economy. The Eskimo sled is framed of spruce, birch, or whalebone, strongly bound with thongs, and the runners shod with smooth strips of whale's jaw-bone. This sled is heavy, and fit only for traveling over ice or frozen snow. Indian sleds of the interior are lighter, the runners being of thin flexible boards better adapted to the inequalities of the ground. Sledges, such as are used by the voyagers of Hudson Bay, are of totally different construction. Three boards, each about one foot in width and twelve feet in length, thinned, and curved into a semicircle at one end, are placed side by side and firmly lashed together with thongs. A leathern bag or blanket of the full size of the sled is provided, in which the load is placed and lashed down with strings.[57] Sleds and sledges are drawn by dogs, and they will carry a load of from a quarter to half a ton, or about one hundred pounds to each dog. The dogs of Alaska are scarcely up to the average of Arctic canine n.o.bility.[58] They are of various colors, hairy, short-legged, with large bushy tails curved over the back; they are wolfish, suspicious, yet powerful, sagacious, and docile, patiently performing an incredible amount of ill-requited labor. Dogs are harnessed to the sledge, sometimes by separate thongs at unequal distances, sometimes in pairs to a single line. They are guided by the voice accompanied by a whip, and to the best trained and most sagacious is given the longest tether, that he may act as leader. An eastern dog will carry on his back a weight of thirty pounds. The dogs of the northern coast are larger and stronger than those of the interior. Eskimo dogs are used in hunting reindeer and musk-oxen, as well as in drawing sledges.[59] Those at Cape Prince of Wales appear to be of the same species as those used upon the Asiatic coast for drawing sledges.

Snow-shoes, or foot-sledges, are differently made according to the locality. In traveling over soft snow they are indispensable. They consist of an open light wooden frame, made of two smooth pieces of wood each about two inches wide and an inch thick; the inner part sometimes straight, and the outer curved out to about one foot in the widest part.

They are from two to six feet in length, some oval and turned up in front, running to a point behind; others flat, and pointed at both ends, the s.p.a.ce within the frame being filled with a network of twisted deer-sinews or fine seal-skin.[60] The Hudson Bay snow-shoe is only two and a half feet in length. The Kutchin shoe is smaller than that of the Eskimo.

[Sidenote: PROPERTY.]

The merchantable wealth of the Eskimos consists of peltries, such as wolf, deer, badger, polar-bear, otter, hare, musk-rat, Arctic-fox, and seal skins; red ochre, plumbago, and iron pyrites; oil, ivory, whalebone; in short, all parts of all species of beasts, birds, and fishes that they can secure and convert into an exchangeable shape.[61]

The articles they most covet are tobacco, iron, and beads. They are not particularly given to strong drink. On the sh.o.r.e of Bering Strait the natives have constant commercial intercourse with Asia. They cross easily in their boats, carefully eluding the vigilance of the fur company. They frequently meet at the Gwosdeff Islands, where the Tschuktschi bring tobacco, iron, tame-reindeer skins, and walrus-ivory; the Eskimos giving in exchange wolf and wolverine skins, wooden dishes, seal-skins and other peltries. The Eskimos of the American coast carry on quite an extensive trade with the Indians of the interior,[62]

exchanging with them Asiatic merchandise for peltries. They are sharp at bargains, avaricious, totally devoid of conscience in their dealings; will sell their property thrice if possible, and, if caught, laugh it off as a joke. The rights of property are scrupulously respected among themselves, but to steal from strangers, which they practice on every occasion with considerable dexterity, is considered rather a mark of merit than otherwise. A successful thief, when a stranger is the victim, receives the applause of the entire tribe.[63] Captain Kotzebue thus describes the manner of trading with the Russo-Indians of the south and of Asia.

"The stranger first comes, and lays some goods on the sh.o.r.e 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 expects an addition from the buyer." If they cannot agree, each retires with his goods.

[Sidenote: 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]

[Sidenote: AMUs.e.m.e.nTS.]

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 lat.i.tude of innocency marks all their social relations; they refrain from doing in public nothing that they would do in private. Female chast.i.ty 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 the women is but little better than slavery. All the work, except the n.o.bler occupations of hunting, fis.h.i.+ng, 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 ent.i.tled 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 amus.e.m.e.nt. 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 the _Casine_ or _Kas.h.i.+m_. 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 scene by means of blubber-lamps. The dancers, who are usually young men, strip themselves to the waist, or even appear _in 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 friends.h.i.+p. 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 offense must 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 friends.h.i.+p 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, const.i.tute their chief disorders.[71] For protection to their eyes in hunting and fis.h.i.+ng, 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]

[Sidenote: THE KONIAGAS.]

THE KONIAGAS derive their name from the inhabitants of the island of Kadiak, who, when first discovered, called themselves _Kanagist_.[73]

They were confounded by 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: the _Koniagas_ proper, who inhabit the Koniagan Archipelago; the _Chugatshes_,[74] who occupy the islands and sh.o.r.es of Prince William Sound; the _Aglegmutes_, of Bristol Bay; the _Keyataigmutes_, who live upon the river Nus.h.a.gak and the coast as far as Cape Newenham; the _Agulmutes_, dwelling upon the coast between the Kuskoquim and Kishunak rivers; the _Kuskoquigmutes_,[75] occupying the banks of the river Kuskoquim; the _Magemutes_, in the neighborhood of Cape Romanzoff; the _Kwichpagmutes_, _Kwichluagmutes_, and _Pashtoliks_, on the Kwichpak, Kwickluak, and Pashtolik rivers; the _Chnagmutes_, near Pashtolik Bay; the _Anlygmutes_, of Golovnin Bay, and the _Kaviaks_ and _Malemutes_, 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 three thousand. 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.

[Sidenote: 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 canons, 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 darker than 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 sh.e.l.l or of amber. It is said that at times amber is thrown up in large quant.i.ties 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 s.e.xes wear beads wherever they can find a place for them, round the neck, wrists, and ankles, besides making a mult.i.tude of holes for them in the ears, nose, and chin. Into these holes they will also insert b.u.t.tons, nails, or any European trinket which falls into their possession.[83]

[Sidenote: KADIAK AND KUSKOQUIM DRESS.]

The aboriginal dress of a wealthy Kadiak was a bird-skin parka, or s.h.i.+rt, 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 gra.s.s, 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 lat.i.tude 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]

[Sidenote: DWELLINGS AND FOOD OF THE KONIAGAS.]

The Koniagas build two kinds of houses; one a large, winter village residence, called by the Russians _barabara_, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce over to const.i.tute 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 gra.s.s. 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. Adjoining rooms are sometimes made, with low underground pa.s.sages 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] The _kas.h.i.+m_, 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 dispose of enormous quant.i.ties 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 quant.i.ties 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 superst.i.tions 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 baidarkas for 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.

[Sidenote: 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 kas.h.i.+m, whither they retire at sunset. In the morning they are aroused by the appearance of the shaman, arrayed in his sacerdotal robes, and beating his sacred drum. After morning wors.h.i.+p, the women carry breakfast to their husbands in the kas.h.i.+m. At day-break the men depart for their hunting or fis.h.i.+ng, and when they return, immediately repair to the kas.h.i.+m, 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 kas.h.i.+m before daylight.