The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft Part 4

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 the women 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 ill.u.s.trates 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 sh.o.r.e. The others follow, and are speared or killed with bow and arrows. Blueberries and huckleberries are gathered in quant.i.ties 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 quant.i.ties 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]

[Sidenote: WAR, IMPLEMENTS, AND GOVERNMENT.]

In former times, the Koniagas went to war behind a huge wooden s.h.i.+eld 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 implements were few--a stone adze, a sh.e.l.l or flint knife, a polis.h.i.+ng 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 polis.h.i.+ng tools of sh.e.l.l. 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 n.o.bility 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 of the 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, succ.u.mbed; 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]

[Sidenote: 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 chast.i.ty 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 gra.s.s 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 they so 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 princ.i.p.al 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, a.s.sociating 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 called _achnutschik_ or _schopans_.[105]

[Sidenote: KONIAGAN SWEAT-HOUSES.]

A most cruel superst.i.tion is enforced upon maidens at the age of p.u.b.erty; 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 princ.i.p.al men obtain the right of access to the kas.h.i.+m by undergoing a ceremonial yielding up of their virginity to the shaman.[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 inst.i.tution 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 la.s.situde occasioned by perspiration pa.s.ses 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 a.s.sisted 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 kas.h.i.+m. Four birds carved from wood, a screech-owl with 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 of _Jug-jak_, the spirit of the sea.

Every time the dancing ceases, one of the a.s.sistants lights some straw, burning it like incense before the birds and the bladders. The princ.i.p.al 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.

[Sidenote: SUPERSt.i.tIONS OF THE KONIAGAS.]

The shaman, 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 shaman has several a.s.sistants, male and female, sages and disciples; the first in rank being called _kaseks_, 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 shaman 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 a.s.sistant accompanies him with groans and growls. Should this prove ineffectual, the shaman 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 a.s.sistants 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 shaman 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 kas.h.i.+m, 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 superst.i.tious 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.

[Sidenote: THE ALEUTS.]

THE ALEUTS are the inhabitants of the Aleutian Archipelago. The origin of the word is unknown;[111] the original name being _Kagataya Koung'ns_, or 'men of the east,' indicating an American origin.[112] The nation consists of two tribes speaking different dialects; the _Unalaskans_, occupying the south-western portion of the Alaskan Peninsula, the Shumagin Islands, and the Fox Islands; and the _Atkhas_, 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 North Americans." 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 s.e.xes 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]

[Sidenote: 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 as to 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 s.h.i.+eld 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 called _Ullaa_, 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 part.i.tioned 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 ash.o.r.e is always the occasion of great rejoicing. From all parts the people congregate upon the sh.o.r.e, lay in their winter supplies, and stuff themselves until not a morsel remains. November is their best hunting-season. Whale-fis.h.i.+ng 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 fis.h.i.+ng.[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] An Aleut 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 a.s.sist 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.

[Sidenote: 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s to catch the fire; then they take two pieces of quartz, and, holding them over the gra.s.s, rub them well with native sulphur. A few feathers are scattered over the gra.s.s to catch the particles of sulphur, and, when all is ready, holding the stones over the gra.s.s, 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 its _toyon_, 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 of the 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 a.s.sembled 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 a.s.suming 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]

[Sidenote: 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 pa.s.sions, 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-tops gazing 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 mult.i.tudes.

[Sidenote: THE THLINKEETS.]

THE THLINKEETS, as they call themselves, or _Kolosches_, as they are designated by the Russians, inhabit the coast and islands from Mount St Elias to the river Na.s.s. The name Thlinkeet signifies 'man,' or 'human being.' Kolosch,[136] or more properly _Kaluga_, 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, Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 climatic influences 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 the _Ugalenzes_,[138] on the sh.o.r.e of the continent between Mount St Elias and Copper River; the _Yakutats_, of Bering Bay; the _Chilkats_, at Lynn Ca.n.a.l; the _Hoodnids_, at Cross Sound; the _Hoodsinoos_, of Chatham Strait; and, following down the coast and islands, the _Takoos_, the _Auks_, the _Kakas_, the _Sitkas_,[139] the _Stikines_,[140] and the _Tunga.s.s_. 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 a.s.sumes 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 n.o.bler qualities become more n.o.ble; 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 cla.s.sed 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 east from Kadiak, and their summers near the mouth of Copper River, where they take fish in great quant.i.ties. 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.

[Sidenote: 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, sh.e.l.ls, 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 unsurpa.s.sed by any nation in the world, to produce a model of hideous beauty.

[Sidenote: THLINKEET LIP-ORNAMENT.]