With Sack and Stock in Alaska

by Horatio George Broke

Thursday and Friday, August the 9th and 10th.—We wandered about the two villages hunting curios, but without much result, though I got a rather neat model of the skin bidarky. We got some excellent clams from the Indians, and a good lot of strawberries which W. and I hulled. We tried to arrange with Ned to take us up in his canoe to Disenchantment Bay, but there was a ‘potlatch’ in prospect, and he declined to make any agreement.

Saturday, the 11th.—Very fine and hot. Our Indians came over by order, and Matthew and Mike were set to cut wood, while the others took the boat to fetch water, an operation which involved some little time as the nearest good water was about a mile away. Having nothing better to do, H. undertook to make a pudding of corn-meal and raisins for supper. While we were all sitting round watching, the fire, as was its wont, began to collapse, and the kettle of water for the coffee took a header into the ashes. ‘Thank goodness,’ said H., ‘it’s not the pudding.’ Even as he spoke another log gave way and the pudding joined the coffee-water. However it was soon re-made, but proved better cold than hot. Just after supper great excitement was caused by an aged crone, who was leaning on the palings, pointing out to sea and saying ‘schooner,’ but, on bringing the telescope to bear, it proved to be only a big iceberg drifting down from Disenchantment Bay.

In the evening Sub-chief George came round to pay us a visit, and said that he and nine other Indians had once seen the back of Mount St. Elias, when after goats, and that it was a gentle snow-slope. They landed at Cape Yaktagi, which he described as being a better beach than Icy Bay. There used once to be a village there, the westernmost point to which the Tlinkits ever reached, but now only three tumble-down houses are left. They went up the right bank of the river Kokhtasch for a day, and then for two days along moraine at the back of Mount Snowshoe and the range north of it, which was green and nearly clear of snow on that side; they then turned east for half a day over ice and saw the mountain as described.

In the afternoon Murphy’s little eleven-ton schooner, the ‘Active,’ came down from Disenchantment Bay, where he, Callsen, and Dalton had been prospecting, and had found coal in a spot where it seemed so likely to pay that some of them went back later from Sitka to winter there, so as to begin working it directly spring began.

Sunday, the 12th.—Very fine, with a light west wind. As we were short of meat Lyons and I took the canoe along the shore towards Ankau Creek, where we found several flocks of small plover, and I shot about thirty. I had only No. 4 shot; with No. 8 or 10 the bag would probably have been doubled. In the afternoon Murphy came over; W. wanted to go down with him, but they were already very full. He managed it at last by exchanging places with Finn, who was to stay and go down with us.

Monday, the 13th.—The ‘Active’ sailed at six, and W. went over about four o’clock. He must have left the shed door open, and some dogs have made their entrance, for H.’s sealskin gloves were found outside, and my model bidarky had vanished altogether; Ned subsequently discovered it unhurt in the bushes outside. These Siwash dogs were a horrid nuisance, and we several times rose in the night to pursue them, but without result, as they always escaped by the holes in the palings before we could stop them up. Once they got into the store-tent by digging under the side, and went off with a bit of bacon and the only piece of cheese in Yakutat.

Tuesday, the 14th.—This afternoon the potlatch began in the second house. These potlatches generally follow a funeral or some great misfortune; thus an Indian at Dry Bay, who possessed three large trading canoes, had one of them wrecked and some men drowned, on which he promptly held a potlatch and gave away the other two canoes and all the rest of his property, with the view of appeasing the anger of the Great Spirit. A potlatch is sometimes, but very rarely, held for the purpose of gaining influence in the tribe in order that the donor may some day succeed to the position of chief. This one we attended was consequent on the exhumation and reburial of the ashes of members of the two families.

Just before proceedings commenced Matthew summoned us, and ushered us in in great pew-opener style. We were rather surprised at finding blankets spread for us in the place of honour facing the door, as we had been told they might perhaps object to our presence, so we were pleased and said they really did know how to do things in Yakutat. About two hundred spectators crowded in, and there was consequently a fairish ‘froust.’ A blanket was then held up over the small oval hole which served as a doorway, and the play began. The ‘Ravens,’ seventeen men, four women, and three boys, wondrously painted and arrayed, came and thundered on the wall outside, after which the old doctor, who wore a curious wooden mask representing a raven’s head, crept under the blanket, and singing and yelling postured slowly down the three or four steps from the door, followed gradually by the rest, howling at the top of their voices. When they were all in they danced, but only for a short time. Some of the head-dresses, made of ermine-skins and abelone shells, were very quaint.

They then retired, and, after a pause during which we all went out for some fresh air, the ‘Eagles’ entered in the same way. This time we saw the old chief and doctor both skip into the house at the first warning with somewhat undignified haste, and when we followed, we found them ensconced in the place of honour, and realised that we had been intruders before, though they had been too polite to turn us out. We huddled into a corner, and watched the performance, which was much the same. Gums and Jimmy were in great form, skipping about as if they were birds, and waving their arms wrapped in cloaks. Our George was also most resplendent, having on his head De Groff’s big tin funnel decorated with skins and red feathers. One blanket was then torn up and distributed, and then came a long wait, so H., Finn, and Shorty went back with the missionaries.