All this day and the next we passed many Indian villages, made up of white tents, with red dried salmon hung up on frames in front. Although these natives are classed as Indians, (belonging to the group of Athabascans) and although they show certain traits of physiognomy like them, yet in their general nature they are entirely different. Unlike the stoical Sioux or Arapahoe of the United States, these people are childlike and open in their manners. They chatter freely in their own language, whether it is understood or not; they are anxious to give and get information; and they seize the slightest excuse for a joke to giggle convulsively. They are fine boatmen, and good hunters and fishermen. All along the river could be seen their traps of stakes, set in some eddy near a bend of the river, and in the early frosty mornings the squaws would come down to the traps in their canoes,—which are broader than those of the men, and managed by a wider paddle—propelling them swiftly and rhythmically along, crooning a song. They are an intelligent, good-humored people, already a little spoiled in their manners and ideas by contact with whites who were hardly fitted to teach the untutored savage. Yet they are on the whole far from disagreeable people to deal with, and although their habits did not always seem up to the civilized standard, yet in contrast to the Eskimos whom we saw further down the river, they were models of cleanliness. There is no lack of variety in their faces, and in one camp I saw a woman whose dark beauty would have ornamented the finest drawing-room. Whether or not she had some share of white blood I do not know.
These Indians, as a rule, have no chief, but live in the most complete independence, the only authority over them being that of the shaman or medicine man, who attains his ascendency by his cleverness in duping others to believe he has supernatural gifts, such as prophecy. It is the custom for any one who aspires to high position to make prediction as to the weather, when the next steamboat will arrive, and so on. When his predictions become true frequently, he gradually obtains influence.
Great travellers are the Alaskan Indians too, and at a trading post along this part of the Yukon one may see, besides the Yukon Indians, others from the Koyukuk, the Tanana, and even the Kuskokwim; but one rarely sees Eskimos, who are not such great wanderers, and when they make voyages visit only the regions peopled by their own race. Those Indians who live on the flats of the river frequently go to the mountains a long distance off to hunt. Dr. Dall, in his "Alaska and its Resources," gives the following translation of a song which he heard a Koyukuk woman singing to her infant.
"The wind blows over the Yukon.
My husband hunts the deer on the Koyukun mountains.
Ahmi, Ahmi, sleep, little one.
"There is no wood for the fire.
The stone axe is broken, my husband carries the other.
Where is the sun-warmth? Hid in the dam of the beaver, waiting the springtime?
Ahmi, Ahmi, sleep, little one, wake not!
"Look not for ukali,[2] old woman.
Long since the cache was emptied, and the crow does not light on the ridge-pole!
Long since my husband departed. Why does he wait on the mountains?
Ahmi, Ahmi, sleep, little one, softly.
"Where is my own?
Does he lie starving on the hillside? Why does he linger?
Comes he not soon, I will seek him among the mountains.
Ahmi, Ahmi, sleep, little one, sleep.
"The crow has come, laughing.
His beak is red, his eyes glisten, the false one.
'Thanks for a good meal to Kuskokala the shaman.
On the sharp mountain quietly lies your husband.'
Ahmi, Ahmi, sleep, little one, wake not.
"Twenty deer's tongues tied to the pack on his shoulders;
Not a tongue in his mouth to call to his wife with.
Wolves, foxes, and ravens are tearing for morsels.
Tough and hard are the sinews; not so the child in your bosom.
Ahmi, Ahmi, sleep, little one, wake not!
"Over the mountain slowly staggers the hunter.
Two bucks' thighs on his shoulders, with bladders of fat between them.
Twenty deer's tongues in his belt. Go gather wood, old woman!
Off flew the crow,—liar, cheat, and deceiver!
Wake, little sleeper, wake, and call to your father!
"He brings you back fat, marrow, and venison fresh from the mountains.
Tired and worn, he has carved a toy of the deer's horn,
While he was sitting and waiting long for the deer on the hillside.
Wake, and see the crow, hiding himself from the arrow!
Wake, little one, wake, for here is your father."
Although we saw fish in front of all the tents and apparent contentment in every face, yet we were told that the catch had not been nearly so great as usual that summer, and that there must inevitably be much suffering during the winter. "Yes," said Mynook, at Mynook Creek, philosophically, "Goin' be hard winter; tink old people all die." We asked him why just the old people, and he explained that the old people had not been able to gather so much provisions as the young and vigorous ones, and would therefore sooner starve. We told him that in our country we cared for the old first, and he seemed to think such a custom very unjust, observing that the old who had lived should die if there was any famine, and make room for the younger ones who could live yet a long time if they could get food. It is starvation, one may add, which keeps the Indian population of the whole Alaskan interior within very meagre limits.
On the 3d of September we came to the mouth of the Tanana, a large tributary which enters the Yukon on the left side; the country around its mouth is low, and the river itself splits into many channels, forming a delta. On the bank of the Yukon opposite the mouth of the Tanana we found a trading post with two white men and a host of Indians. When we landed at the store we were met by the Indians, the white men having not yet observed us. The first was evidently a shaman or medicine man, a copper-colored old fellow with cross eyes and a cunning wrinkle around his mouth. He ceremoniously pulled off his buckskin gloves before offering his hand to shake; then pointing his finger to the sky he began a long speech in his own language, with many gestures. We all listened very gravely, and when he got through and looked at me with an air of self-satisfaction and triumph, I placed both hands on my stomach, and rolled my eyes, then thumbed my nose at him, and finally began to quote to him the immortal soliloquy of Hamlet "To be or not to be," with much emphasis and many variations. Everybody listened with evident delight, especially the shaman, and when we were through they conducted us up to the trading post. An old fellow was smoking a curiously carved wooden pipe, which filled the soul of one of our party with the desire to obtain it, since it seemed such a remarkable bit of native work. He offered five dollars for it as a starter, and the old fellow, astounded but willing to accept the gifts of the gods without questioning, handed over the pipe with an alacrity that made Goodrich examine it a little more before parting with his money. On the bottom of the bowl was stamped in the wood "Smith & Co., New York," and on closer inspection it was evident that the apparent carving was in reality pressed, and that the pipe was worth in the neighborhood of twenty-five cents in the States.
We were welcomed by the trader, and after a lunch with him floated down the river about eight miles to the mission below. There our eyes were delighted by a neat little building with a belfry and bell, and actually two dormer windows. It was the work of the pioneer Mike Hess, from whom the stream entering the Yukon above Mynook creek had been named. The missionary was absent in a parochial call five hundred miles away, but his wife and child and a nurse were there. The missionary published the only paper on the Yukon at that time; it appeared once a year, and consisted of four small pages, printed on a hand-press. The items were from all over the country, and many of them were very interesting and amusing.
From here we kept on travelling with the current down the Yukon, helping our speed by continuous rowing. There being three of us, "tricks" of one hour were arranged, so each man steered for an hour, rowed an hour, and then sat in the stern for an hour, regarding the landscape and making notes. It grew so chilly that often the time for resting was hardest to endure, for the skin would cool and the teeth would chatter even with all the clothes we could get on, and we would be glad to get a little vigorous exercise again. Storms were frequent, and we often had the pleasure of sitting in the driving rain all day long. We covered over our outfit as well as we could and even rigged up a sort of awning of sail-cloth on a frame-work of boughs, which kept the rain off the steersman, while the man who was resting crawled under a tarpaulin, and the oarsman rowed and got wet; so that under these conditions the position of steersman was most coveted. The wind blew with such violence that sometimes we took water over the bow and stern of our boat, and the steerman had to exert skill to keep from swamping. When the weather was clear, however, it was cool, and we enjoyed life more at such times than we had before done.
