Our Arctic province

by Henry Wood Elliott

The Big Mahklok.

In round numbers these Eskimo, or Innuits, of Alaska, number nearly eighteen thousand souls; they inhabit the entire coast-line of Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, with an exception of the Aleutian chain and that portion of the peninsula west of Oogashik. The numerous subdivisions of this great family are based wholly upon dialectic differentiation, and as its elaboration would entail a dreary and uninteresting chapter upon any reader save a studious ethnologist, it will not be itemized here. These Eskimo are all hunters and fishermen; those land animals to which we have made allusion are pursued by them at the proper seasons of the year. They do not have much, in the aggregate, of value to a trader; it is chiefly oil and walrus-ivory. Their proximity to a relatively warm coast renders the furs which they get of small value comparatively, since these pelts are paler and lighter-haired than those brought in from the distant interior, where the winters are vastly colder and longer. But an Innuit does not require a great deal from the trader—he is very much more independent than is his semi-civilized Aleutian brother; his wants are only a small supply of lead and powder, of sugar and of tobacco, a little red cloth and a small sack of flour which suffice for a large Innuit family during the year. The flour he makes up into pancakes and fries them in rancid oil; but, as a rule, all cooking is a mere boiling or stewing of fish and meat in sheet-iron or copper kettles. In those huts where they can afford to use tea, a small number of earthenware cups and saucers will be found carefully treasured in a little cupboard; but they never set a table or think of such a thing, except those highly favored individuals who live as servants about the trading-posts and missions, where they do boil a “samovar” (tea-urn) and spread a cloth over the top of a box or rude table upon which to place their teacups.

Down here at Nooshagak these natives have earned a distinction of being the most skilful sculptors of the whole northern range. Their carvings in walrus-ivory are exceedingly curious, and beautifully wrought in many examples. The patience and fidelity with which they cut from walrus-tusks delicate patterns furnished them by the traders are equal in many respects to that remarkable display made in the same line by the Chinese, and so much admired. Time to them, at Nooshagak, is never reckoned, and it does not raise a ripple of concern in the Innuit’s mind when, as he carves upon a tusk of white ivory, he pauses to think whether he shall be six hours or six months engaged upon the task. Shut up as he is from December until the end of February in his dark and smoky hut, he welcomes the task as one which enables him to “kill time” most agreeably, and bring in a trifle, at least, to him from the trader in the way of credit or of direct revenue.

All of these people, when they go hunting, use firearms of modern patterns and many old flint-lock muskets; for fish and bird-capture they never waste any precious ammunition; they employ spears and arrows of most artful construction and effective service. But a large number of those very primitive Eskimo, the Togiaks, just west and north of Nooshagak, use nothing at all in the chase other than the same antique bows and spears of a remote ancestry. The disposition of these people is one of greater bonhomie than that evidenced by the Aleutes or the Koloshians, who are rather taciturn. The Innuit is very independent in his bearing, without being at all vindictive or ugly. He is light-hearted, enjoys conversation with his fellows, tells jokes with great gusto, sings rude songs with much animation, in excellent time but with no music, and dances with exceeding exhilaration during the progress of those savage festivals which he calls in to enliven a long dreary winter solstice.

The Kashga.

Such a man is naturally quite sociable. Hence we find in every Innuit settlement, big or little, a town hall, or “kashga.” This is a building put up after the pattern of all winter houses in the village, but of very much larger dimensions; some of the more populous hamlets boast of a kashga which will measure as much as sixty feet square, and be from twenty to thirty feet high under its smoky rafters. A raised platform from the earth, of rough-hewn planks, runs all around the walls of the interior, and in the largest council-houses a series of three tiers of such staging is observed. The fireplace in the centre is large, often three or four feet deep and eight feet square; on ordinary days in the spring, and during the summer and early fall, when no fire is wanted, it is covered with planks. An underground tunnel-entrance to the kashga is made just as it is into some of the family huts, only here it is divided at the end; one branch leads to a fireplace below the flooring, and the other rises to the main apartment. The natives are obliged to crawl on all fours when they enter that underground passage or leave the kashga through its dark opening.

This is the great and sole rendezvous of the men and older boys of most settlements. The bachelors and widowers sleep here and prepare their simple meals; the village guest and visitors of the male sex are all quartered here; the discussion of all the town affairs is conducted here; the tanning of skins, the plaiting and weaving of wicker-work fish-traps, and the manufacture of sleds and dog-harness, spear- and arrow-heads, and carving of wood and ivory—in fact, everything done by these people under shelter, of that kind, is executed on the platforms of a kashga. It is the theatre for the absurd and vigorous masked dances and mummery of their festivals, and above all, it is the spot chosen for that vile ammoniacal bath of the Eskimo, the most popular of all their recreations.

Section showing Subterranean Entrance and Interior of a Kashga.