[142] Choris: Voyage Pittoresque autour du Monde.
[143] A curious, though doubtless authentic, story was told me in this connection illustrative of the strength and energy of the sea-lion bull when at bay. Many years ago (1847), on St. Paul Island, a drive of September sea-lions was brought down to the village in the usual style; but when the natives assembled to kill them, on account of a great scarcity at that time of powder on the island, it was voted best to lance the old males also, as well as the females, rather than shoot them in the customary style. The people had hardly set to work at the task when one of their number, a small, elderly, though tough, able-bodied Aleut, while thrusting his lance into the “life” of a large bull, was suddenly seen to fall on his back directly under that huge brute’s head. Instantly the powerful jaws of the “seevitchie” closed upon the waistband, apparently, of the native, and, lifting the yelling man aloft as a cat would a kitten, the sea-lion shook and threw him high into the air, away over the heads of his associates, who rushed up to the rescue and quickly destroyed the animal by a dozen furious spear-thrusts; yet death did not loosen its clinched jaws, in which were the tattered fragments of Ivan’s clothing.
[144] The natives appreciate this peculiarity of the sea-lion very keenly, for good and sufficient cause, though none of them have ever been badly injured in driving or “springing the alarm.” I camped with them for six successive nights of September, 1872, in order to witness the whole procedure. During the several drives made while I was with them I saw but one exciting incident. Everything went off in an orthodox manner, as described in the text above. The exceptional incident occurred during the first drive of the first night and rendered those natives so cautious that it was not repeated. When the alarm was sprung, old Luka Mandrigan was leading the van, and at that moment down upon him, despite his wildly gesticulating arms and vociferous yelling, came a squad of bull “seevitchie.” The native saw instantly that they were pointed for the water, and, in his sound sense, turned to run from under. His tarbosars slipped upon a slimy rock awash; he fell flat as a flounder just as a dozen or more big sea-lions plunged over and on to his prostrate form in the shallow water. In less time than this can be written the heavy pinnipeds had disappeared, while the bullet-like head of old Luka was quickly raised, and he trotted back to us with an alternation of mirth and chagrin in his voice. He was not hurt in the least.
[145] The curious behavior of sea-lions in the Big Lake when they are en route and driven from Novastoshnah to the village deserves mention. After the drove gets over the sand-dunes and beach between Webster’s house and the extreme northeastern head of the lake, a halt is called and the drove “penned” on the bank there. Then, when the sea-lions are well rested, they are started up and pell-mell into the water. Two natives in a bidarka keep them from turning out from shore into the broad bosom of Meesulkmahnee, while another bidarka paddles in their rear and follows their swift passage right down the eastern shore. In this method of procedure the drive carries itself nearly two miles by water in less than twenty minutes from the time the sea-lions are first turned in at the north end to that moment when they are driven out at the southeastern elbow of the Big Pond. The shallowness of the water here accounts probably for the strange failure of these sea-lions to regain their liberty, and it so retards their swimming as to enable the bidarka, with two men, to keep abreast of their leaders easily, as they plunge ahead; and, “as one goes, so all go sheep,” it is not necessary to pay attention to those which straggle behind in the wake. They are stirred up by a second bidarka, and none make the least attempt to diverge from that track which the swifter mark out in advance. If they did, they could escape “scot-free” in any one of the twenty minutes of this aquatic passage.
By consulting the map of St. Paul it will be observed that in a direct line between the village and Northeast Point there are quite a number of small lakes, including this large one of Meesulkmahnee. Into all of these ponds the sea-lion drove is successively driven. This interposition of fresh water at such frequent intervals serves to shorten the time of that journey fully ten days in warmish weather, and at least four or five under the best of climatic conditions.
This track between Webster’s house and the village killing-grounds is strewn with the bones of Eumetopias. They will drop in their tracks now and then, even when carefully driven, from cerebral or spinal congestion principally, and when they are hurried the mortality en route is very great. The natives when driving them keep them going day and night alike, but give them frequent resting-spells after every spurt ahead. The old bulls flounder along for a hundred yards or so, then sullenly halt to regain breath, five or ten minutes being allowed them; then they are stirred up again, and so on, hour after hour, until the tedious transit is completed.
The younger sea-lions and the cows which are in the drove carry themselves easily far ahead of the bulls, and, being thus always in the van, serve unconsciously to stimulate and coax the heavy males to travel. Otherwise I do not believe that a band of old bulls exclusively could be driven down over this long road successfully.
[146] When slowly sketching, by measurements, the outlines of a fine adult bull sea-lion which the ball from Booterin’s rifle had just destroyed, an old “starooka” came up abruptly; not seeming to see me, she deliberately threw down a large, greasy, skin meat-bag, and whipping out a knife, went to work on my specimen. Curiosity prompted me to keep still, in spite of the first sensations of annoyance, so that I might watch her choice and use of the animal’s carcass. She first removed the skin, being actively aided in this operation by an uncouth boy; she then cut off the palms to both fore flippers; the boy at the same time pulled out its mustache-bristles; she then cut out its gullet, from the glottis to its junction with the stomach, carefully divested it of all fleshy attachments and fat; she then cut out the stomach itself, and turned it inside out, carelessly scraping its gastric walls free of copious biliary secretions, the inevitable bunch of ascaris; she then told the boy to take hold of the duodenum end of the small intestine, and, as he walked away with it, she rapidly cleared it of its attachments, so that it was thus uncoiled to its full length of at least sixty feet; then she severed it and then it was recoiled by the “melchiska,” and laid up with the other members just removed, except the skin, which she had nothing more to do with. She then cut out the liver and ate several large pieces of that workhouse of the blood before dropping it into her meat-pouch. She then raked up several handfuls of the “leaf-lard,” or hard, white fat that is found in moderate quantity around the viscera of all these pinnipeds, which she also dumped into the flesh-bag; she then drew her knife through the large heart, but did not touch it otherwise, looking at it intently, however, as it still quivered in unison with the warm flesh of the whole carcass. She and the boy then poked their fingers into the tumid lobes of the immense lungs, cutting out portions of them only, which were also put into the grimy pouch aforesaid; then she secured the gall-bladder and slipped it into a small yeast-powder tin, which was produced by the urchin; then she finished her economical dissection by cutting the sinews out of its back in unbroken bulk from the cervical vertebra to the sacrum; all these were stuffed into that skin bag, which she threw on her back and supported it by a band over her head; she then trudged back to the barrabkie from whence she sallied a short hour ago, like an old vulture to the slaughter. She made the following disposition of its contents: The palms were used to sole a pair of tarbosars, or native boots, of which the uppers and knee-tops were made of the gullets—one sea-lion gullet to each boot-top; the stomach was carefully blown up and left to dry on the barrabkie roof, eventually to be filled with oil rendered from sea-lion or fur-seal blubber. The small intestine was carefully injected with water and cleansed, then distended with air, and pegged out between two stakes, sixty feet apart, with little cross-slats here and there between to keep it clear of the ground. When it is thoroughly dry it is ripped up in a straight line with its length and pressed out into a broad band of parchment gut, which she cuts up and uses in making a water-proof “kamlayka,” sewing it with those sinews taken from the back. The liver, leaf-lard, and lobes of the lungs were eaten without further cooking, and the little gall-bag was for some use in poulticing a scrofulous sore. The mustache-bristles were a venture of the boy, who gathers all that he can, then sends them to San Francisco, where they find a ready sale to the Chinese, who pay about one cent apiece for them. When the natives cut up a sea-lion carcass or one of a fur-seal, on the killing-grounds for meat, they take only the hams and the loins. Later in the season they eat the entire carcass, which they hang up by its hind flippers on a “laabas” by their houses.
CHAPTER XII.
INNUIT LIFE AND LAND.
“Nooshagak;” Wide Application of an Innuit Name.—The Post and River.—Countless Pools, Ponds, and Lakes of this District bordering Bristol Bay.—The Eskimo Inhabitants of the Coast.—The Features and Form of Alaskan Innuits.—Light-hearted, Inconstant, and Independent.—Their Dress, Manners, and Rude Dwellings.—Their Routine of Life.—Large and Varied Natural Food-supplies.—Indifferent Land Hunters, but Mighty Fishermen.—Limited Needs from Traders’ Stores.—Skilful Carvers in Ivory.—Their Town Hall, or “Kashga.”—They Build and Support no Churches here.—Not of a real Religious Cast, as the Aleutians are.—The Dogs and Sleds; Importance of Them here.—Great Interest of the Innuit in Savage Ceremonies.—The Wild Alaskan Interior.—Its Repellent Features alike Avoided by Savage and Civilized Man.—The Indescribable Misery of Mosquitoes.—The Desolation of Winter in this Region.—The Reindeer Slaughter-pen on the Kvichak River.—Amazing Improvidence of the Innuit.—The Tragic Death of Father Juvenals, on the Banks of the Great Ilyamna Lake, 1796.—The Queer Innuits of Togiak.—Immense Muskrat Catch.—The Togiaks are the Quakers of Alaska.—The Kuskokvim Mouth a Vast Salmon-trap.—The Ichthyophagi of Alaska.—Dense Population.—Daily Life of the Fish-eaters.—Infernal Mosquitoes of Kuskokvim; the Worst in Alaska.—Kolmakovsky; its History.