Vancouver thus describes the dress of a chief at Lynn Canal. His "external robe was a very fine large garment, that reached from his neck down to his heels, made of wool from the mountain sheep, neatly variegated with several colors, and edged and otherwise decorated with little tufts or frogs of woolen yarn, dyed of various colors. His head-dress was made of wood, much resembling in its shape a crown, adorned with bright copper and brass plates, from whence hung a number of tails or streamers, composed of wool and fur, wrought together, dyed of various colors, and each terminating in a whole ermine skin. The whole exhibited a magnificent appearance, and indicated a taste for dress and ornament that we had not supposed the natives of these regions to possess."
The men make a wooden mask, which rests on a neckpiece, very ingeniously carved, and painted in colors, so as to represent the head of some bird or beast or mythological being. This was formerly worn in battle, probably, as La Pérouse suggests, in order to strike terror into the hearts of enemies, but is now used only on festive occasions.[152]
A small hat of roots and bark, woven in the shape of a truncated cone, ornamented with painted figures and pictures of animals, is worn by both sexes.[153] Ordinarily, however, the men wear nothing on the head; their thick hair, greased and covered with ochre and birds' down, forming a sufficient covering. The hat is designed especially for rainy weather, as a protection to the elaborately dressed hair.[154] Besides their every-day dress, they have a fantastic costume for tribal holidays.
For their winter habitations, a little back from the ocean, the Thlinkeets build substantial houses of plank or logs, sometimes of sufficient strength to serve as a fortress. They are six or eight feet in height, the base in the form of a square or parallelogram, the roof of poles placed at an angle of forty-five degrees and covered with bark. The entrance is by a small side door. The fire, which is usually kept burning night and day, occupies the centre of the room; over it is a smoke-hole of unusual size, and round the sides of the room are apartments or dens which are used as store-houses, sweat-houses, and private family rooms. The main room is very public and very filthy.[155] Summer huts are light portable buildings, thrown up during hunting excursions in the interior, or on the sea-beach in the fishing-season. A frame is made of stakes driven into the ground, supporting a roof, and the whole covered with bark, or with green or dry branches, and skins or bark over all. The door is closed by bark or a curtain of skins. Each hut is the rendezvous for a small colony, frequently covering twenty or thirty persons, all under the direction of one chief.[156]
FOOD OF THE THLINKEETS.
The food of the Thlinkeets is derived principally from the ocean, and consists of fish, mussels, sea-weeds, and in fact whatever is left upon the beach by the ebbing tide—which at Sitka rises and falls eighteen feet twice a day—or can be caught by artificial means. Holmberg says that all but the Yakutats hate whale as the Jews hate pork. Roots, grasses, berries, and snails are among their summer luxuries. They chew a certain plant as some chew tobacco, mixing with it lime to give it a stronger effect,[157] and drink whale-oil as a European drinks beer. Preferring their food cooked, they put it in a tight wicker basket, pouring in water, and throwing in heated stones, until the food is boiled.[158] For winter, they dry large quantities of herring, roes, and the flesh of animals.
For catching fish, they stake the rivers, and also use a hook and line; one fisherman casting from his canoe ten or fifteen lines, with bladders for floats. For herring, they fasten to the end of a pole four or five pointed bones, and with this instrument strike into a shoal, spearing a fish on every point. They sometimes make the same instrument in the shape of a rake, and transfix the fish with the teeth. The Sitkas catch halibut with large, wooden, bone-pointed hooks.[159]
The arms of the Thlinkeets denote a more warlike people than any we have hitherto encountered. Bows and arrows; hatchets of flint, and of a hard green stone which cuts wood so smoothly that no marks of notches are left; great lances, six or eight varas in length, if Bodega y Quadra may be trusted, hardened in the fire or pointed with copper, or later with iron; a large, broad, double-ended dagger, or knife,—are their principal weapons. The knife is their chief implement and constant companion. The handle is nearer one end than the other, so that it has a long blade and a short blade, the latter being one quarter the length of the former. The handle is covered with leather, and a strap fastens it to the hand when fighting. Both blades have leathern sheaths, one of which is suspended from the neck by a strap.[160]
THE THLINKEETS IN WAR.
They also encase almost the entire body in a wooden and leathern armor. Their helmets have curiously carved vizors, with grotesque representations of beings natural or supernatural, which, when brilliantly or dismally painted, and presented with proper yells, and brandishings of their ever-glittering knives, are supposed to strike terror into the heart of their enemies. They make a breast-plate of wood, and an arrow-proof coat of thin flexible strips, bound with strings like a woman's stays.[161]