SPRINGING THE ALARM
Natives surprising a Herd of Sea-lions at Tolstoi, St. George’s Island. August 3, 1673
When the drive is started, the natives gather around the herd on all sides, save an opening which they leave pointing to that direction they desire the animals to travel; in this manner they escort and urge the “seevitchie” along to their final resting and slaughter near the village. The young lions and the females, being much lighter than old males, less laden with fat or blubber, take the lead, for they travel twice and thrice as easy and as fast as the latter; these, by reason of their immense avoirdupois, are incapable of moving ahead more than a few rods at a time, then they are completely checked by sheer loss of breath, though the vanguard of the females allures them on; but when an old sea-lion feels his wind coming short, he is sure to stop, sullenly and surlily turning upon the drivers, not to move again until his lungs are clear.
In this method and manner of direction the natives stretch a herd out in extended file, or as a caravan, over the line of march, and as the old bulls pause to savagely survey the field and catch their breath, showing their wicked teeth, the drivers have to exercise every art and all their ingenuity in arousing them to fresh efforts. This they do by clapping boards and bones together, firing fusees, and waving flags; and of late, and best of all, the blue gingham umbrella repeatedly opened and closed in the face of an old bull has been a more effective starter than all the other known artifices or savage expedients of the natives.[145]
The procession of sea-lions, managed in this strange manner day and night—for the natives never let up—is finally brought to rest within a stone’s throw of the village, which has pleasurably anticipated for days and for weeks its arrival, and rejoices in its appearance. The men get out their old rifles and large sea-lion lances, and sharpen their knives, while the women look well to their oil-pouches, and repair to the field of slaughter with meat-baskets on their heads.
No attempt is made, even by the boldest Aleut, to destroy an adult bull sea-lion by spearing the enraged, powerful beast, which, now familiar with man and conscious, as it were, of his puny strength, would seize the lance between its jaws and shake it from the hands of the stoutest one in a moment. Recourse is had to a rifle. The herd is started up those sloping flanks of the Black Bluff hillside; the females speedily take the front, while the old males hang behind. Then the marksmen, walking up to within a few paces of each animal, deliberately draw gun-sight upon their heads and shoot them just between the eye and the ear. The old males thus destroyed, the cows and females are in turn surrounded by the natives, who, dropping their rifles, thrust big heavy iron lances into their trembling bodies at a point behind the fore flippers, touching the heart with a single lunge. It is an unparalleled spectacle, dreadfully cruel and bloody.[146]
This surrounding of the cows is, perhaps, the strangest procedure on the islands. To fully appreciate this subject the reader must first call to his mind’s eye the fact that these female sea-lions, though small beside the males, are yet large animals; seven and eight feet long and weighing each as much as any four or five average men. But, in spite of their strength and agility, fifteen or twenty Aleutes, with rough, iron-tipped lances in their hands, will surround a drove of fifty or one hundred and fifty of them by forming a noisy, gesticulating circle, gradually closing up, man to man, until the sea-lions are literally piled in a writhing, squirming, struggling mass, one above the other, three or four deep, heads, flippers, bellies, backs, all so woven and interwoven in this panic-stricken heap of terrified creatures that it defies adequate description. The natives spear those cows on top, which, as they sink in death, are mounted in turn by the live animals underneath; these meet the deadly lance, in order, and so on until the whole herd is quiet and stilled in the fatal ebbing of their hearts’ blood.
Although the sea-lion has little or no commercial value for us, yet to the service of the natives themselves, who live all along the Bering Sea coast of Alaska, Kamchatka, and the Kuriles, it is invaluable; they set great store by it. It supplies them with its hide, mustaches, flesh, fat, sinews, and intestines, which they make up into as many necessary garments, food-dishes, etc. They have abundant reason to treasure its skin highly, since it is the covering to their neat bidarkas and bidarrahs, the former being the small kayak of Bering Sea, while the latter is a boat of all work, exploration and transportation. These skins are unhaired by sweating in a pile, then they are deftly sewed and carefully stretched over a light keel and frame of wood, making a perfectly water-tight boat that will stand, uninjured, the softening influence of water for a day or two at a time, if properly air-dried and oiled. After being used during the day these skin boats are always drawn out on the beach, turned bottom-side up and air-dried during the night—in this way made ready for employment again on the morrow.
A peculiar value is attached to the intestines of the sea-lion, which, after skinning, are distended with air and allowed to dry in that shape; then they are cut into ribbons and sewed strongly together into that most characteristic rain-proof garment of the world, known as the “kamlayka,” which, while being fully as water-repellant as india-rubber, has far greater strength, and is never affected by grease and oil. It is also transparent in its fitting over dark clothes. The sea-lions’ throats are treated in a similar manner, and when cured, are made into boot tops, which are in turn soled by very tough skin that composes the palms of this animal’s fore flippers.
