The sea-bear is nearly as valuable as the sea-otter to the fur company, as the woolly skin of the young animal is the only one of the whole seal tribe which is reckoned among the finer peltry. The sea-bears are chiefly killed on the Commodore and Pribilow islands, particularly on St. Paul, where they are hunted by a certain number of Aleuts located there under Russian superintendence. The chase begins in the latter part of September, on a cold, foggy day, when the wind blows from the side where the animals are assembled on the rocky shore. The boldest huntsmen open the way, then follow the older people and the children, and the chief personage of the band comes last, to be the better able to direct and survey the movements of his men, who are all armed with clubs. The main object is to cut off the herd as quickly as possible from the sea. All the grown-up males and females are spared and allowed to escape, but most of the young animals are sentenced to death. Those which are only four months old (their furs being most highly prized) are doomed without exception; while of the others that have attained an age of one, two, or three years, only the males are killed. For several days after the massacre, the mothers swim about the island, seeking and loudly wailing for their young.
From October 5 St. Paul is gradually deserted by the sea-bears, who then migrate to the south and re-appear towards the end of April, the males arriving first. Each seeks the same spot on the shore which he occupied during the preceding year, and lies down among the large stone blocks with which the flat beach is covered. About the middle of May the far more numerous females begin to make their appearance, and the sea-bear families take full possession of the strand. Each male is the sultan of a herd of females, varying in number according to his size and strength; the weaker brethren contenting themselves with half a dozen, while some of the sturdier and fiercer fellows preside over harems 200 strong. Jealousy and intrusion frequently give rise to terrible battles. The full-grown male sea-bear, who is about four or five times larger than the female, grows to the length of eight feet, and owes his name to his shaggy blackish fur, and not to his disposition, which is far from being cruel or savage.
Armed with a short spear, a single Aleut does not hesitate to attack the colossal whale. Approaching cautiously from behind in his baidar until he reaches the head, he plunges his weapon into the animal’s flank under the fore fin, and then retreats as fast as his oar can carry him. If the spear has penetrated into the flesh, the whale is doomed; it dies within the next two or three days, and the currents and the waves drift the carcass to the next shore. Each spear has its peculiar mark by which the owner is recognized. Sometimes the baidar does not escape in time, and the whale, maddened by pain, furiously lashes the water with his tail, and throws the baidar high up into the air, or sinks it deep into the sea. The whale-fishers are highly esteemed among the Aleuts, and their intrepidity and skill well deserve the general admiration. Of course many of the whales are lost. In the summer of 1831, 118 whales were wounded near Kadjack, of which only forty-three were found. The others may have been wafted far out into the sea to regale the sharks and sea-birds, or driven to more distant shores, whose inhabitants no doubt gladly welcomed their landing. Wrangell informs us that since 1833 the Russians have introduced the use of the harpoon, and engaged some English harpooners to teach the Aleuts a more profitable method of whale-catching, but we are not told how the experiment has succeeded.
The company, besides purchasing a great quantity of walrus-teeth from the Tchuktchi of the Bering’s Straits and Bristol Bay, send every year a detachment of Aleuts to the north coast of Aliaska, where generally a large number of young walruses, probably driven away by the older ones, who prefer the vicinity of the polar ice, spend the summer months.
The walruses herd on the lowest edge of the coast which is within reach of the spring tides. When the Aleuts prepare to attack the animals, they take leave of each other as if they were going to face death, being no less afraid of the tusks of the walruses than of the awkwardness of their own companions. Armed with lances and heavy axes, they stealthily approach the walruses, and having disposed their ranks, suddenly fall upon them with loud shouts, and endeavor to drive them from the sea, taking care that none of them escape into the water, as in that case the rest would irresistibly follow and precipitate the huntsmen along with them. As soon as the walruses have been driven far enough up the strand, the Aleuts attack them with their lances, striking at them in places where the hide is not so thick, and then pressing with all their might against the spear, to render the wound deep and deadly. The slaughtered animals tumble one over the other and form large heaps, whilst the huntsmen, uttering furious shouts and intoxicated with carnage, wade through the bloody mire. They then cleave the jaws and extract the tusks, which are the chief objects of the slaughter of several thousand walruses, since neither their flesh nor their fat is made use of in the colony. The carcasses are left on the shore to be washed away by the spring tides, which soon efface the mark of the massacre, and in the following year the inexhaustible north sends new victims to the coast.
Sir George Simpson, in his “Overland Journey round the World,” relates that the bales of fur sent to Kiachta are covered with walrus hide; it is then made to protect the tea-chests which find their way to Moscow, and after all these wanderings, the far-travelled skin returns again to New Archangel, where, cut into small pieces and stamped with the company’s mark, it serves as a medium of exchange.
The skin of the sea-lion (Otaria Stelleri) has but little value in the fur-trade, as its hair is short and coarse, but in many other respects the unwieldy animal is of considerable use to the Aleut. Its hide serves to cover his baidar; with the entrails he makes his water-tight kamleika, a wide, long shirt which he puts on over his dress to protect himself against the rain or the spray; the thick webs of its flippers furnish excellent soles for his boots, and the bristles of its lip figure as ornaments in his head-dress.
101. FORT ST. MICHAEL.