[14] Not “Peril,” as it is translated by American geographers and printed on all of our Alaskan maps.
[15] This building, as it stands upon its foundations, is 140 feet in length by 70 feet in width—two stories with lofts, capped with the light-house cupola; these foundations rest upon the summit of the rock, 60 feet above tide-water.
CHAPTER III.
ABORIGINAL LIFE OF THE SITKANS.
The White Man and the Indian Trading.—The Shrewdness and Avarice of the Savage.—Small Value of the entire Land Fur Trade of Alaska.—The Futile Effort of the Greek Catholic Church to Influence the Sitkan Indians.—The Reason why Missionary Work in Alaska has been and is Impotent.—The Difference between the Fish-eating Indian of Alaska and the Meat-eating Savage of the Plains.—Simply One of Physique.—The Haidahs the Best Indians of Alaska.—Deep Chests and Bandy Legs from Canoe-travel.—Living in Fixed Settlements because Obliged To.—Large “Rancheries” or Houses Built by the Haidahs.—Communistic Families.—Great Gamblers.—Indian “House-Raising Bees.”—Grotesque Totem Posts.—Indian Doctors “Kill or Cure.”—Dismal Interior of an Indian “Rancherie.”—The Toilet and Dress of Alaskan Siwashes.—The Unwritten Law of the Indian Village.—What Constitutes a Chief.—The Tribal Boundaries and their Scrupulous Regard.—Fish the Main Support of Sitkan Indians.—The Running of the Salmon.—Indians Eat Everything.—Their Salads and Sauces.—Their Wooden Dishes and Cups, and Spoons of Horn.—The Family Chests.—The Indian Woman a Household Drudge.—She has no Washing to Do, However.—Sitkan Indians not Great Hunters.—They are Unrivalled Canoe-builders.—Small-pox and Measles have Reduced the Indians of the Sitkan Archipelago to a Scanty Number.—Abandoned Settlements of these Savages Common.—The Debauchery of Rum among these People.—The White Man to Blame for This.
“Think you that yon church steeple
Will e’er work a change in these wild people?”
Our people living now in the Sitkan district are engaged either in general trading with the Indians, in prospecting for “mineral,” or actively mining; and, also, in a small fashion, in canning salmon and rendering dog-fish and herring oil. Perhaps we can give a fair idea of the traders by introducing the reader to one of them and his establishment just as we find him at Sitka. In a small frame one-story house, not usually touched by paint, the trader shelters a general assortment of notions and groceries, but principally tobacco, molasses, blankets of all sizes and colors, cotton prints and cheap rings, beads, looking-glasses, etc.; he stands behind a rude counter, with these wares displayed to best advantage on the rough shelves at his back; a wood-burning stove diffuses a genial glow, but no chairs or benches are convenient. A “Siwash”[16] and his squaw deliberately and gravely enter. The Indian slowly looks up and down the room, and then proceeds to price every object within his vision, no matter whether he has the least idea of purchasing or not; this is the prelude and invariable habit of a Sitkan Indian, and it arouses an immense amount of suppressed profanity on the part of the outwardly courteous trader. But our savage has come in this time bent upon buying, and selling also; his female partner has a bundle carefully done up under her blanket, and which she wholly concealed when she squatted down on her haunches the moment after entering the door; she also has a number of small silver coins in her mouth, for, funny as it may seem, this worthy pair have carefully agreed upon what they shall spend in the store before coming in; so the woman has taken out from the leathern purse which hangs on her breast and under her chemise, the exact amount, and, returning the pouch to the privacy of her bosom, she places the available coin in her mouth for safe keeping ad interim.
Finally the Indian, in the course of half an hour, or perhaps a whole half-day in preliminary skirmishing, boldly reaches down for his bundle in the squaw’s charge; then having, by so doing, given the trader to fully understand that he has something to sell, as well as desiring to buy, he reaches out for the groceries, the cloth, the tobacco, or whatever he may have fully decided to purchase; a long argument at once ensues as to the bottom cash price, and in every case of doubt the squaw decides; all the articles are done up in brown paper and neatly tied with attractive parti-colored twine. Then the dusky woman arises, with an indescribably vacant stare, bends over the counter and lets the jingling silver drop upon it, pausing just a moment until the tired but triumphant trader counts and sweeps it, still moist, into his till.
Now the Siwash, having bought, proceeds to sell, and he does it in his own peculiar way. He unrolls his package of furs; he eloquently discourses as he strokes each pelt out on the counter, in turn praising its size and its quality; the trader in the meanwhile sharply keeps one eye on the savage and one eye on the furs, and, after the story of their capture and quality has been told over the third or fourth time, he asks, “How much?” The crafty hunter promptly demands more than they would retail at in London; the trader answers with great emphasis and a most disgusted head-shake, “no;” he then offers just half or one-third the sum named, whereupon the Indians, affecting great contempt, both shout out “klaik!” which sounds like Poe’s “Raven”—roll up their furs and hustle out in a huff, still repeating, in sonorous unison, “klaik, klaik”—(no, no). Then they go to the rival trader’s establishment, and to all of them in turn, even if there are half a dozen, not leaving one of them unvisited; they finally finish the rounds in the course of a week or two, and then quietly march back to that trader who offered the most, and laying their peltries down in perfect silence on his counter, hold out a grimy hand for the exact sum he had previously proffered.
In this shrewd and aggravating manner does the simple untutored savage of the northwest coast deal with white traders—are they swindled, do you think? From the beginning to the end of any transaction you may have with an Alaskan Indian you will be met with the keenest understanding on his part of the full value in dollars and cents of whatsoever he may do for you or sell. When, however, the Hudson Bay or the Russian Company held an exclusive franchise in this district, then the Indian had no alternative but the single post-trader’s terms; and then the white man’s profits were enormous. But now, with the keen rivalry of competing stores, the trader barely makes a living anywhere in Alaska to-day, while the Indian gets the best of every bargain—vastly better compared with his former experience.