The Whale House of the Chilkat

by George Thornton Emmons

Fig. 4. The Whale House of the Chilkat.

Fig. 5. Groundplan of the Whale House. In size, it was 49 ft. 10 in. front by 53 ft. deep. From a plan drawn by the author.

The interior formed an excavation four feet nine inches below the ground level, with two receding step-like platforms. The lower square floor space 26 feet by 26 feet 9 inches, constituted the general living and working room common to all, except that portion in the rear and opposite the entrance, which was reserved for the use of the house chief, his immediate family and most distinguished guests. This was the place of honor in all Tlingit houses upon all occasions, ceremonial or otherwise. The flooring of heavy, split, smoothed planks of varying widths extended around a central gravelled fireplace six feet by six feet and a half, where all of the cooking was done, over a wood fire which also heated the house in winter. In front of and a little to the right of the fire space entered by a small trap door in the floor barely large enough to admit a person, was a small cellar-like apartment used as a steam bath, by heating boulders in the nearby fire, dropping them on the floor below with split wood tongs, and pouring water upon them to generate the vapor when the bather entered and the opening was covered over.

The first platform extending around the main floor at an elevation of 2¾ feet, comparatively narrow, with a width of 2½ feet along the sides, and slightly more at the ends, served both as a step, and a lounging place in the daytime, and that in front, broken by the steps descending from the doorway, was utilized for firewood, fresh game, fish, water baskets, and such larger household articles and implements as were in general use. The retaining walls of this platform consisted of four heavy hewn spruce timbers approximately 27 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 5 inches thick, and so fitted with mortise and tenon at opposite ends that they supported each other without artificial fastenings. The faces of these timbers were beautifully finished in the finest adze work, and those on either side and at the back were carved in low relief to represent a remarkable extended figure, neither wholly human nor animal, with widely outstretched arms and legs, painted in red. It may be that the artist conceived and executed this form merely as a decorative feature, without meaning, or if it was his purpose to present a recognizable figure he followed that characteristic and well established privilege of native art in exaggeration to make the subject conform to the decorative field. The old chief, Yehlh-guou, "Raven's slave," said that the figure symbolized "Kee-war-kow" the highest heaven where those who were killed in war and died violent deaths went, and are seen at play in the Aurora Borealis. Another explanation is that it merely represented a man warming himself before the central fire. (Plate 1.)

The upper and broader platform, rising two feet above that below, was at the ground level, and was floored with heavy planks. It had a depth of ten feet on the sides which was greatly increased at the back and correspondingly diminished in front. The four heavy retaining timbers forming the walls and supporting the platform were thirty-one feet at the front and back and thirty-three feet along the sides, two feet wide, and five inches in thickness, and were fitted together at the ends as previously described, and shown in the house plan. On the carefully adzed face carved in low relief, equidistant from the corners and from each other, arranged in echelon, were three representations of the "tinneh" the ceremonial copper and in connection with this it may be noted that one of the names of the house chief was Tinneh-sarta "Keeper of the copper." This platform constituted the sleeping place of the inmates. Each family occupied a certain space according to number and relative importance, the poorer members being nearer the door. The spaces were separated from each other by walls of chests, baskets, and bundles containing the family wealth in skins, blankets, clothing, ceremonial paraphernalia, and food products. On the walls were hung weapons, traps, snares, and hunting gear. Cedarbark mats covered the floor over which was laid the bedding consisting of pelts of the caribou, mountain sheep, goat, and bear, and blankets of lynx, fox, and squirrel, which in the daytime were ordinarily rolled up for economy of space. Sometimes these chambers were partly enclosed by skins or old canoe sails. The back compartment occupying the space between the two rear interior posts was partitioned off by a very beautiful carved wood screen which will be described later. This was the chamber of the chief and his immediate family. (Plate 2)

At the level of this upper platform, firmly imbedded in the ground equidistant from the sides and nearer the front than the back wall, were four vertical elaborately carved posts "gars" nine feet three inches high and two feet six inches wide, which supported the roof structure. The heads were hollowed to receive two neatly rounded tree trunks almost two feet in diameter extending from front to rear, on top of these at intervals were placed heavy cross bars which in turn supported two smaller rounded longitudinal beams placed that distance towards the center that would give the necessary pitch to the roof, lighter cross pieces spanned these, on which rested the ridge pole in two sections to allow for the smoke hole.

The private apartment of the house chief occupied the central portion of the upper rear platform, and was partitioned off in front, by a screen of thin native-split red cedar planks of varying widths, neatly fitted vertically, and sewed together with withes of spruce root, countersunk, to make it appear a solid piece. It extended between the two rear carved posts that supported the roof structure, and was twenty feet long by nine and a half feet high. The front surface was smoothed with dogfish skin or equisetum, and elaborately carved in low relief and painted to represent the rain spirit, which was symbolized by the great central figure with outstretched arms, while the small crouching figures in the border around the sides and top known as Su-con-nutchee "raindrops splash up," represented the splash of the falling drops after striking the ground. The whole partition was called Su-kheen "rain wall."

The round hole through the body, over which was formerly hung a dressed caribou or goatskin, formed the entrance to the chamber, which received its only light and ventilation over the top of the screen from the smoke hole in the roof. There seems to be a difference of opinion today as to who executed this work. Yehlh-kok the present chief of the family says that it was done by Kate-tsu, the chief who built the house, and that the painting was the work of Skeet-lah-ka, a later chief and an artist of wide repute, the father of Chartrich, who in 1834 just prior to the lease of the littoral by the Russian Government to the Hudson's Bay Company, accompanied the first Russians who ascended the Chilkat River, which would carry it well back in the early portion of the last century which was the Victorian age of Northwest Coast art.