A Pacific Coast Vacation

by Mrs. James Edwin Morris

The average rainfall at this point is eighty-two inches. Native grasses and berries grow plentifully in the valleys. The chief wealth of the country lies in its forests, fish, fur-bearing animals and mines. The forest consists of yellow pine, spruce, larch, fir of great size, cypress and hemlock. The wild animals include the elk, deer and bear. The fur-bearing animals are the fox, wolf, beaver, ermine, otter and squirrel. Fur-bearing seals inhabit the waters along the coast. Salmon abound in the rivers.

It is one of the secrets of the rebellion that the large sum paid to Russia for Alaska was to compensate her for the presence of her warships in our harbor during the early days of the Civil War, thus helping to prevent English interference.

Fort Wrangel is delightfully located on the green slopes of the mountains. It was once a Russian military post and takes its name from the Russian governor of Alaska, Baron Wrangel.

Here are some fine totem poles. Totemism is a species of heraldry. Their whales, frogs, crows, and wolves are no more difficult to understand than the dragons, griffins, and fleur-de-lis of European heraldry. The totem pole of the Alaskan Indian is his crest, his monument. The totem is his clan name, his god. He is a crow, a raven, an eagle, a bear, a whale, or a wolf. It is the old story of Beauty and the Beast. The beautiful raven maiden may live happily with her bear husband.

Every Indian claims kinship with three totems. The clan totem is the animal from which the clan descended. There is a totem common to all the women of the clan. The men of the clan have a totem and each individual when he or she arrives at manhood or womanhood chooses a totem sacred to him or herself. This totem is his guardian angel and protects him from danger and harm. The Alaskan Indian believes the eagle to be the American man’s totem and the lion and the unicorn the two totems of the Englishman.

The civilized races of antiquity all passed through the totem period. Our Indians all had their totems as their names indicate, Blackfeet, Crow and Sioux. Totems are common to all savage races, but the Alaskan Indian is the only North American who erects a monument to his totem.

While the totem protects the Indian the Indian is in duty bound to protect his totem. He may neither kill nor eat his own totem, but he may with impunity kill the god of another. If you kill his totem he will be grieved and sorrowfully ask, “Why you kill him, my brother?”

These people were evolutionists long before Darwin. There are no monkeys, however, among the totems of the Alaskan Indians.

When an Indian marries he takes his wife’s name, the name of her clan totem. The children, too, belong to the mother’s totem, and, of course, take her name. The wife is the head of the family, managing it and transacting all the business.

These Indians and all the Indians of southern Alaska are Tlingits. Tlingit means people. There are many traditions among them of a supernatural origin; one to the effect that the crow in whom dwelt the Great Spirit lived on the Nass River, where he turned two blades of grass into a man and a woman. This was the first pair from whom sprang all Tlingits. They have tales of a migration from the southeast, the Mars River country. Their propitiation of evil spirits, their shamanism and their belief in the transmigration of souls, all point to Asiatic origin, yet there is no tradition among them of any such origin. Once, many thousands of snows ago, a Tlingit stole the sun and hid it, then nearly all the people died, but the crow found it and placed it in the sky again. After this the tribe increased.