Chapter II: Hyperboreans (1)

GENERAL DIVISIONS--HYPERBOREAN NATIONS--ASPECTS OF
NATURE--VEGETATION--CLIMATE--ANIMALS--THE ESKIMOS--THEIR
COUNTRY--PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS--DRESS--DWELLINGS--
FOOD--WEAPONS--BOOTS--SLEDGES--SNOW-SHOES--GOVERNMENT--DOMESTIC
AFFAIRS--AMUSEMENTS--DISEASES--BURIAL--THE KONIAGAS, THEIR
PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION--THE ALEUTS--THE
THLINKEETS--THE TINNEH.

I shall attempt to describe the physical and mental characteristics of the Native Races of the Pacific States under seven distinctive groups; namely, I. Hyperboreans, being those nations whose territory lies north of the fifty-fifth parallel; II. Columbians, who dwell between the fifty-fifth and forty-second parallels, and whose lands to some extent are drained by the Columbia River and its tributaries; III. Californians, and the Inhabitants of the Great Basin; IV. New Mexicans, including the nations of the Colorado River and northern Mexico; V. Wild Tribes of Mexico; VI. Wild Tribes of Central America; VII. Civilized Nations of Mexico and Central America. It is my purpose, without any attempt at ethnological classification, or further comment concerning races and stocks, plainly to portray such customs and characteristics as were peculiar to each people at the time of its first intercourse with European strangers; leaving scientists to make their own deductions, and draw specific lines between linguistic and physiological families, as they may deem proper. I shall endeavor to picture these nations in their aboriginal condition, as seen by the first invaders, as described by those who beheld them in their savage grandeur, and before they were startled from their lair by the treacherous voice of civilized friendship. Now they are gone,--those dusky denizens of a thousand forests,--melted like hoar-frost before the rising sun of a superior intelligence; and it is only from the earliest records, from the narratives of eye witnesses, many of them rude unlettered men, trappers, sailors, and soldiers, that we are able to know them as they were. Some division of the work into parts, however arbitrary it may be, is indispensable. In dealing with Mythology, and in tracing the tortuous course of Language, boundaries will be dropped and beliefs and tongues will be followed wherever they lead; but in describing Manners and Customs, to avoid confusion, territorial divisions are necessary.

[Sidenote: GROUPINGS AND SUBDIVISIONS.]

In the groupings which I have adopted, one cluster of nations follows another in geographical succession; the dividing line not being more distinct, perhaps, than that which distinguishes some national divisions, but sufficiently marked, in mental and physical peculiarities, to entitle each group to a separate consideration.

The only distinction of race made by naturalists, upon the continents of both North and South America, until a comparatively recent period, was by segregating the first of the above named groups from all other people of both continents, and calling one Mongolians and the other Americans. A more intimate acquaintance with the nations of the North proves conclusively that one of the boldest types of the American Indian proper, the Tinneh, lies within the territory of this first group, conterminous with the Mongolian Eskimos, and crowding them down to a narrow line along the shore of the Arctic Sea. The nations of the second group, although exhibiting multitudinous variations in minor traits, are essentially one people. Between the California Diggers of the third division and the New Mexican Towns-people of the fourth, there is more diversity; and a still greater difference between the savage and civilized nations of the Mexican table-land. Any classification or division of the subject which could be made would be open to criticism. I therefore adopt the most simple practical plan, one which will present the subject most clearly to the general reader, and leave it in the best shape for purposes of theorizing and generalization.

In the first or HYPERBOREAN group, to which this chapter is devoted, are five subdivisions, as follows: The _Eskimos_, commonly called Western Eskimos, who skirt the shores of the Arctic Ocean from Mackenzie River to Kotzebue Sound; the _Koniagas_ or Southern Eskimos, who, commencing at Kotzebue Sound, cross the Kaviak Peninsula, border on Bering Sea from Norton Sound southward, and stretch over the Alaskan[1] Peninsula and Koniagan Islands to the mouth of the Atna or Copper River, extending back into the interior about one hundred and fifty miles; the _Aleuts_, or people of the Aleutian Archipelago; the _Thlinkeets_, who inhabit the coast and islands between the rivers Atna and Nass; and the _Tinneh_, or Athabascas, occupying the territory between the above described boundaries and Hudson Bay. Each of these families is divided into nations or tribes, distinguished one from another by slight dialectic or other differences, which tribal divisions will be given in treating of the several nations respectively.

Let us first cast a glance over this broad domain, and mark those aspects of nature which exercise so powerful an influence upon the destinies of mankind. Midway between Mount St Elias and the Arctic seaboard rise three mountain chains. One, the Rocky Mountain range, crossing from the Yukon to the Mackenzie River, deflects southward, and taking up its mighty line of march, throws a barrier between the east and the west, which extends throughout the entire length of the continent. Between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, interposes another called in Oregon the Cascade Range, and in California the Sierra Nevada; while from the same starting-point, the Alaskan range stretches out to the southwest along the Alaskan Peninsula, and breaks into fragments in the Aleutian Archipelago. Three noble streams, the Mackenzie, the Yukon, and the Kuskoquim, float the boats of the inland Hyperboreans and supply them with food; while from the heated waters of Japan comes a current of the sea, bathing the icy coasts with genial warmth, tempering the air, and imparting gladness to the oily watermen of the coast, to the northernmost limit of their lands. The northern border of this territory is treeless; the southern shore, absorbing more warmth and moisture from the Japan current, is fringed with dense forests; while the interior, interspersed with hills, and lakes, and woods, and grassy plains, during the short summer is clothed in luxuriant vegetation.

Notwithstanding the frowning aspect of nature, animal life in the Arctic regions is most abundant. The ocean swarms with every species of fish and sea-mammal; the land abounds in reindeer, moose, musk-oxen; in black, grizzly, and Arctic bears; in wolves, foxes, beavers, mink, ermine, martin, otters, raccoons, and water-fowl. Immense herds of buffalo roam over the bleak grassy plains of the eastern Tinneh, but seldom venture far to the west of the Rocky Mountains. Myriads of birds migrate to and fro between their breeding-places in the interior of Alaska, the open Arctic Sea, and the warmer latitudes of the south. From the Gulf of Mexico, from the islands of the Pacific, from the lakes of California, of Oregon, and of Washington they come, fluttering and feasting, to rear their young during the sparkling Arctic summer-day.

[Sidenote: MAN AND NATURE.]

The whole occupation of man throughout this region, is a struggle for life. So long as the organism is plentifully supplied with heat-producing food, all is well. Once let the internal fire go down, and all is ill. Unlike the inhabitants of equatorial latitudes, where, Eden-like, the sheltering tree drops food, and the little nourishment essential to life may be obtained by only stretching forth the hand and plucking it, the Hyperborean man must maintain a constant warfare with nature, or die. His daily food depends upon the success of his daily battle with beasts, birds, and fishes, which dispute with him possession of sea and land. Unfortunate in his search for game, or foiled in his attempt at capture, he must fast. The associate of beasts, governed by the same emergencies, preying upon animals as animals prey upon each other, the victim supplying all the necessities of the victor, occupying territory in common, both alike drawing supplies directly from the storehouse of nature,--primitive man derives his very quality from the brute with which he struggles. The idiosyncrasies of the animal fasten upon him, and that upon which he feeds becomes a part of him.

Thus, in a nation of hunters inhabiting a rigorous climate, we may look for wiry, keen-scented men, who in their war upon wild beasts put forth strength and endurance in order to overtake and capture the strong; cunning is opposed by superior cunning; a stealthy watchfulness governs every movement, while the intelligence of the man contends with the instincts of the brute. Fishermen, on the other hand, who obtain their food with comparatively little effort, are more sluggish in their natures and less noble in their development. In the icy regions of the north, the animal creation supplies man with food, clothing, and caloric; with all the requisites of an existence under circumstances apparently the most adverse to comfort; and when he digs his dwelling beneath the ground, or walls out the piercing winds with snow, his ultimate is attained.

The chief differences in tribes occupying the interior and the seaboard,--the elevated, treeless, grassy plains east of the Rocky Mountains, and the humid islands and shores of the great Northwest,--grow out of necessities arising from their methods of procuring food. Even causes so slight as the sheltering bend of a coast-line; the guarding of a shore by islands; the breaking of a seaboard by inlets and covering of the strand with sea-weed and polyps, requiring only the labor of gathering; or the presence of a bluff coast or windy promontory, whose occupants are obliged to put forth more vigorous action for sustenance--all govern man in his development. Turn now to the most northern division of our most northern group.

[Sidenote: THE ESKIMOS.]

THE ESKIMOS, Esquimaux, or as they call themselves, _Innuit_, 'the people,' from _inuk_, 'man,'[2] occupy the Arctic seaboard from eastern Greenland along the entire continent of America, and across Bering[3] Strait to the Asiatic shore. Formerly the inhabitants of our whole Hyperborean sea-coast, from the Mackenzie River to Queen Charlotte Island--the interior being entirely unknown--were denominated Eskimos, and were of supposed Asiatic origin.[4] The tribes of southern Alaska were then found to differ essentially from those of the northern coast. Under the name Eskimos, therefore, I include only the Western Eskimos of certain writers, whose southern boundary terminates at Kotzebue Sound.[5]

[Sidenote: ESKIMO LAND.]

Eskimo-land is thinly peopled, and but little is known of tribal divisions. At the Coppermine River, the Eskimos are called _Naggeuktormutes_, or deer-horns; at the eastern outlet of the Mackenzie, their tribal name is _Kittegarute_; between the Mackenzie River and Barter Reef, they go by the name of _Kangmali Innuit_; at Point Barrow they call themselves _Nuwungmutes_; while on the Nunatok River, in the vicinity of Kotzebue Sound, they are known as _Nunatangmutes_. Their villages, consisting of five or six families each,[6] are scattered along the coast. A village site is usually selected upon some good landing-place, where there is sufficient depth of water to float a whale. Between tribes is left a spot of unoccupied or neutral ground, upon which small parties meet during the summer for purposes of trade.[7]

The Eskimos are essentially a peculiar people. Their character and their condition, the one of necessity growing out of the other, are peculiar. First, it is claimed for them that they are the anomalous race of America--the only people of the new world clearly identical with any race of the old. Then they are the most littoral people in the world. The linear extent of their occupancy, all of it a narrow seaboard averaging scarcely one hundred miles in width, is estimated at not less than five thousand miles. Before them is a vast, unknown, icy ocean, upon which they scarcely dare venture beyond sight of land; behind them, hostile mountaineers ever ready to dispute encroachment. Their very mother-earth, upon whose cold bosom they have been borne, age after age through countless generations,[8] is almost impenetrable, thawless ice. Their days and nights, and seasons and years, are not like those of other men. Six months of day succeed six months of night. Three months of sunless winter; three months of nightless summer; six months of glimmering twilight.

About the middle of October[9] commences the long night of winter. The earth and sea put on an icy covering; beasts and birds depart for regions sheltered or more congenial; humanity huddles in subterraneous dens; all nature sinks into repose. The little heat left by the retreating sun soon radiates out into the deep blue realms of space; the temperature sinks rapidly to forty or fifty degrees below freezing; the air is hushed, the ocean calm, the sky cloudless. An awful, painful stillness pervades the dreary solitude. Not a sound is heard; the distant din of busy man, and the noiseless hum of the wilderness alike are wanting. Whispers become audible at a considerable distance, and an insupportable sense of loneliness oppresses the inexperienced visitor.[10] Occasionally the aurora borealis flashes out in prismatic coruscations, throwing a brilliant arch from east to west--now in variegated oscillations, graduating through all the various tints of blue, and green, and violet, and crimson; darting, flashing, or streaming in yellow columns, upwards, downwards; now blazing steadily, now in wavy undulations, sometimes up to the very zenith; momentarily lighting up in majestic grandeur the cheerless frozen scenery, but only to fall back with exhausted force, leaving a denser obscurity. Nature's electric lantern, suspended for a time in the frosty vault of heaven;--munificent nature's fire-works; with the polar owl, the polar bear, and the polar man, spectators.

In January, the brilliancy of the stars is dimmed perceptibly at noon; in February, a golden tint rests upon the horizon at the same hour; in March, the incipient dawn broadens; in April, the dozing Eskimo rubs his eyes and crawls forth; in May, the snow begins to melt, the impatient grass and flowers arrive as it departs.[11] In June, the summer has fairly come. Under the incessant rays of the never setting sun, the snow speedily disappears, the ice breaks up, the glacial earth softens for a depth of one, two, or three feet; circulation is restored to vegetation,[12] which, during winter, had been stopped,--if we may believe Sir John Richardson, even the largest trees freezing to the heart. Sea, and plain, and rolling steppe lay aside their seamless shroud of white, and a brilliant tint of emerald overspreads the landscape.[13] All Nature, with one resounding cry, leaps up and claps her hands for joy. Flocks of birds, lured from their winter homes, fill the air with their melody; myriads of wild fowls send forth their shrill cries; the moose and the reindeer flock down from the forests;[14] from the resonant sea comes the noise of spouting whales and barking seals; and this so lately dismal, cheerless region, blooms with an exhuberance of life equaled only by the shortness of its duration. And in token of a just appreciation of the Creator's goodness, this animated medley--man, and beasts, and birds, and fishes--rises up, divides, falls to, and ends in eating or in being eaten.

[Sidenote: PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.]

The physical characteristics of the Eskimos are: a fair complexion, the skin, when free from dirt and paint, being almost white;[15] a medium stature, well proportioned, thick-set, muscular, robust, active,[16] with small and beautifully shaped hands and feet;[17] a pyramidal head;[18] a broad egg-shaped face; high rounded cheek-bones; flat nose; small oblique eyes; large mouth; teeth regular, but well worn;[19] coarse black hair, closely cut upon the crown, leaving a monk-like ring around the edge,[20] and a paucity of beard.[21] The men frequently leave the hair in a natural state. The women of Icy Reef introduce false hair among their own, wearing the whole in two immense bows at the back of the head. At Point Barrow, they separate the hair into two parts or braids, saturating it with train-oil, and binding it into stiff bunches with strips of skin. Their lower extremities are short, so that in a sitting posture they look taller than when standing.

[Sidenote: IMPROVEMENTS UPON NATURE.]

Were these people satisfied with what nature has done for them, they would be passably good-looking. But with them as with all mankind, no matter how high the degree of intelligence and refinement attained, art must be applied to improve upon nature. The few finishing touches neglected by the Creator, man is ever ready to supply.

Arrived at the age of puberty, the great work of improvement begins. Up to this time the skin has been kept saturated in grease and filth, until the natural color is lost, and until the complexion is brought down to the Eskimo standard. Now pigments of various dye are applied, both painted outwardly and pricked into the skin; holes are cut in the face, and plugs or labrets inserted. These operations, however, attended with no little solemnity, are supposed to possess some significance other than that of mere ornament. Upon the occasion of piercing the lip, for instance, a religious feast is given.

On the northern coast the women paint the eyebrows and tattoo the chin; while the men only pierce the lower lip under one or both corners of the mouth, and insert in each aperture a double-headed sleeve-button or dumb-bell-shaped labret, of bone, ivory, shell, stone, glass, or wood. The incision when first made is about the size of a quill, but as the aspirant for improved beauty grows older, the size of the orifice is enlarged until it reaches a width of half or three quarters of an inch.[22] In tattooing, the color is applied by drawing a thread under the skin, or pricking it in with a needle. Different tribes, and different ranks of the same tribe, have each their peculiar form of tattooing. The plebeian female of certain bands is permitted to adorn her chin with but one vertical line in the centre, and one parallel to it on either side, while the more fortunate noblesse mark two vertical lines from each corner of the mouth.[23] A feminine cast of features, as is common with other branches of the Mongolian race, prevails in both sexes. Some travelers discover in the faces of the men a characteristic expression of ferociousness, and in those of the women, an extraordinary display of wantonness. A thick coating of filth and a strong odor of train-oil are inseparable from an Eskimo, and the fashion of labrets adds in no wise to his comeliness.[24]

[Sidenote: ESKIMO DRESS.]

For covering to the body, the Eskimos employ the skin of all the beasts and birds that come within their reach. Skins are prepared in the fur,[25] and cut and sewed with neatness and skill. Even the intestines of seals and whales are used in the manufacture of water-proof overdresses.[26] The costume for both sexes consists of long stockings or drawers, over which are breeches extending from the shoulders to below the knees; and a frock or jacket, somewhat shorter than the breeches with sleeves and hood. This garment is made whole, there being no openings except for the head and arms. The frock of the male is cut at the bottom nearly square, while that of the female reaches a little lower, and terminates before and behind in a point or scollop. The tail of some animal graces the hinder part of the male frock; the woman's has a large hood, in which she carries her infant. Otherwise both sexes dress alike; and as, when stripped of their facial decorations, their physiognomies are alike, they are not unfrequently mistaken one for the other.[27] They have boots of walrus or seal skin, mittens or gloves of deer-skin, and intestine water-proofs covering the entire body. Several kinds of fur frequently enter into the composition of one garment. Thus the body of the frock, generally of reindeer-skin, may be of bird, bear, seal, mink, or squirrel skin; while the hood may be of fox-skin, the lining of hare-skin, the fringe of wolverine-skin, and the gloves of fawn-skin.[28] Two suits are worn during the coldest weather; the inner one with the fur next the skin, the outer suit with the fur outward.[29] Thus, with their stomachs well filled with fat, and their backs covered with furs, they bid defiance to the severest Arctic winter.[30]

[Sidenote: DWELLINGS OF THE ESKIMOS.]

In architecture, the Eskimo is fully equal to the emergency; building, upon a soil which yields him little or no material, three classes of dwellings. Penetrating the frozen earth, or casting around him a frozen wall, he compels the very elements from which he seeks protection to protect him. For his _yourt_ or winter residence he digs a hole of the required dimensions, to a depth of about six feet.[31] Within this excavation he erects a frame, either of wood or whalebone, lashing his timbers with thongs instead of nailing them. This frame is carried upward to a distance of two or three feet above the ground,[32] when it is covered by a dome-shaped roof of poles or whale-ribs turfed and earthed over.[33] In the centre of the roof is left a hole for the admission of light and the emission of smoke. In absence of fire, a translucent covering of whale-intestine confines the warmth of putrifying filth, and completes the Eskimo's sense of comfort. To gain admittance to this snug retreat, without exposing the inmates to the storms without, another and a smaller hole is dug to the same depth, a short distance from the first. From one to the other, an underground passage-way is then opened, through which entrance is made on hands and knees. The occupants descend by means of a ladder, and over the entrance a shed is erected, to protect it from the snow.[34] Within the entrance is hung a deer-skin door, and anterooms are arranged in which to deposit frozen outer garments before entering the heated room. Around the sides of the dwelling, sleeping-places are marked out; for bedsteads, boards are placed upon logs one or two feet in diameter, and covered with willow branches and skins. A little heap of stones in the centre of the room, under the smoke-hole, forms the fireplace. In the corners of the room are stone lamps, which answer all domestic purposes in the absence of fire-wood.[35] In the better class of buildings, the sides and floor are boarded. Supplies are kept in a store house at a little distance from the dwelling, perched upon four posts, away from the reach of the dogs, and a frame is always erected on which to hang furs and fish. Several years are sometimes occupied in building a hut.[36]

Mark how nature supplies this treeless coast with wood. The breaking-up of winter in the mountains of Alaska is indeed a breaking-up. The accumulated masses of ice and snow, when suddenly loosened by the incessant rays of the never-setting sun, bear away all before them. Down from the mountain-sides comes the avalanche, uprooting trees, swelling rivers, hurrying with its burden to the sea. There, casting itself into the warm ocean current, the ice soon disappears, and the driftwood which accompanied it is carried northward and thrown back upon the beach by the October winds. Thus huge forest-trees, taken up bodily, as it were, in the middle of a continent, and carried by the currents to the incredible distance, sometimes, of three thousand miles, are deposited all along the Arctic seaboard, laid at the very door of these people, a people whose store of this world's benefits is none of the most abundant.[37] True, wood is not an absolute necessity with them, as many of their houses in the coldest weather have no fire; only oil-lamps being used for cooking and heating. Whale-ribs supply the place of trees for house and boat timbers, and hides are commonly used for boards. Yet a bountiful supply of wood during their long, cold, dark winter comes in no wise amiss.[38] Their summer tents are made of seal or untanned deer skins with the hair outward, conical or bell-shaped, and without a smoke-hole as no fires are ever kindled within them. The wet or frozen earth is covered with a few coarse skins for a floor.[39]

[Sidenote: SNOW HOUSES.]

But the most unique system of architecture in America is improvised by the Eskimos during their seal-hunting expeditions upon the ice, when they occupy a veritable crystal palace fit for an Arctic fairy. On the frozen river or sea, a spot is chosen free from irregularities, and a circle of ten or fifteen feet in diameter drawn on the snow. The snow within the circle is then cut into slabs from three to four inches in thickness, their length being the depth of the snow, and these slabs are formed into a wall enclosing the circle and carried up in courses similar to those of brick or stone, terminating in a dome-shaped roof. A wedge-like slab keys the arch; and this principle in architecture may have first been known to the Assyrians, Egyptians, Chinese or Eskimos.[40] Loose snow is then thrown into the crevices, which quickly congeals; an aperture is cut in the side for a door; and if the thin wall is not sufficiently translucent, a piece of ice is fitted into the side for a window. Seats, tables, couches, and even fireplaces are made with frozen snow, and covered with reindeer or seal skin. Out-houses connect with the main room, and frequently a number of dwellings are built contiguously, with a passage from one to another. These houses are comfortable and durable, resisting alike the wind and the thaw until late in the season. Care must be taken that the walls are not so thick as to make them too warm, and so cause a dripping from the interior. A square block of snow serves as a stand for the stone lamp which is their only fire.[41]

"The purity of the material," says Sir John Franklin, who saw them build an edifice of this kind at Coppermine River, "of which the house was framed, the elegance of its construction, and the translucency of its walls, which transmitted a very pleasant light, gave it an appearance far superior to a marble building, and one might survey it with feelings somewhat akin to those produced by the contemplation of a Grecian temple, reared by Phidias; both are triumphs of art, inimitable in their kind."[42]

Eskimos, fortunately, have not a dainty palate. Everything which sustains life is food for them. Their substantials comprise the flesh of land and marine animals, fish and birds; venison, and whale and seal blubber being chief. Choice dishes, tempting to the appetite, Arctic epicurean dishes, Eskimo nectar and ambrosia, are daintily prepared, hospitably placed before strangers, and eaten and drunk with avidity. Among them are: a bowl of coagulated blood, mashed cranberries with rancid train-oil, whortleberries and walrus-blubber, alternate streaks of putrid black and white whale-fat; venison steeped in seal-oil, raw deer's liver cut in small pieces and mixed with the warm half-digested contents of the animal's stomach; bowls of live maggots, a draught of warm blood from a newly killed animal.[43] Fish are sometimes eaten alive. Meats are kept in seal-skin bags for over a year, decomposing meanwhile, but never becoming too rancid for our Eskimos. Their winter store of oil they secure in seal-skin bags, which are buried in the frozen ground. Charlevoix remarks that they are the only race known who prefer food raw. This, however, is not the case. They prefer their food cooked, but do not object to it raw or rotten. They are no lovers of salt.[44]

[Sidenote: MIGRATIONS FOR FOOD.]

In mid-winter, while the land is enveloped in darkness, the Eskimo dozes torpidly in his den. Early in September the musk-oxen and reindeer retreat southward, and the fish are confined beneath the frozen covering of the rivers. It is during the short summer, when food is abundant, that they who would not perish must lay up a supply for the winter. When spring opens, and the rivers are cleared of ice, the natives follow the fish, which at that time ascend the streams to spawn, and spear them at the falls and rapids that impede their progress. Small wooden fish are sometimes made and thrown into holes in the ice for a decoy; salmon are taken in a whalebone seine. At this season also reindeer are captured on their way to the coast, whither they resort in the spring to drop their young. Multitudes of geese, ducks, and swans visit the ocean during the same period to breed.[45]

August and September are the months for whales. When a whale is discovered rolling on the water, a boat starts out, and from the distance of a few feet a weapon is plunged into its blubbery carcass. The harpoons are so constructed that when this blow is given, the shaft becomes disengaged from the barbed ivory point. To this point a seal-skin buoy or bladder is attached by means of a cord. The blows are repeated; the buoys encumber the monster in diving or swimming, and the ingenious Eskimo is soon able to tow the carcass to the shore. A successful chase secures an abundance of food for the winter.[46] Seals are caught during the winter, and considerable skill is required in taking them. Being a warm-blooded respiratory animal, they are obliged to have air, and in order to obtain it, while the surface of the water is undergoing the freezing process, they keep open a breathing-hole by constantly gnawing away the ice. They produce their young in March, and soon afterward the natives abandon their villages and set out on the ice in pursuit of them. Seals, like whales, are also killed with a harpoon to which is attached a bladder. The seal, when struck, may draw the float under water for a time, but is soon obliged to rise to the surface from exhaustion and for air, when he is again attacked and soon obliged to yield.

The Eskimos are no less ingenious in catching wild-fowl, which they accomplish by means of a sling or net made of woven sinews, with ivory balls attached. They also snare birds by means of whalebone nooses, round which fine gravel is scattered as a bait. They manoeuvre reindeer to near the edge of a cliff, and, driving them into the sea, kill them from canoes. They also waylay them at the narrow passes, and capture them in great numbers. They construct large reindeer pounds, and set up two diverging rows of turf so as to represent men; the outer extremities of the line being sometimes two miles apart, and narrowing to a small enclosure. Into this trap the unsuspecting animals are driven, when they are easily speared.[47]

[Sidenote: BEAR-HUNTING.]

To overcome the formidable polar bear the natives have two strategems. One is by imitating the seal, upon which the bear principally feeds, and thereby enticing it within gunshot. Another is by bending a piece of stiff whalebone, encasing it in a ball of blubber, and freezing the ball, which then holds firm the bent whalebone. Armed with these frozen blubber balls, the natives approach their victim, and, with a discharge of arrows, open the engagement. The bear, smarting with pain, turns upon his tormentors, who, taking to their heels, drop now and then a blubber ball. Bruin, as fond of food as of revenge, pauses for a moment, hastily swallows one, then another, and another. Soon a strange sensation is felt within. The thawing blubber, melted by the heat of the animal's stomach, releases the pent-up whalebone, which, springing into place, plays havoc with the intestines, and brings the bear to a painful and ignominious end. To vegetables, the natives are rather indifferent; berries, acid sorrel leaves, and certain roots, are used as a relish. There is no native intoxicating liquor, but in eating they get gluttonously stupid.

Notwithstanding his long, frigid, biting winter, the Eskimo never suffers from the cold so long as he has an abundance of food. As we have seen, a whale or a moose supplies him with food, shelter, and raiment. With an internal fire, fed by his oily and animal food, glowing in his stomach, his blood at fever heat, he burrows comfortably in ice and snow and frozen ground, without necessity for wood or coal.[48] Nor are those passions which are supposed to develop most fully under a milder temperature, wanting in the half-frozen Hyperborean.[49] One of the chief difficulties of the Eskimo during the winter is to obtain water, and the women spend a large portion of their time in melting snow over oil-lamps. In the Arctic regions, eating snow is attended with serious consequences. Ice or snow, touched to the lips or tongue, blisters like caustic. Fire is obtained by striking sparks from iron pyrites with quartz. It is a singular fact that in the coldest climate inhabited by man, fire is less used than anywhere else in the world, equatorial regions perhaps excepted. Caloric for the body is supplied by food and supplemented by furs. Snow houses, from their nature, prohibit the use of fire; but cooking with the Eskimo is a luxury, not a necessity. He well understands how to utilize every part of the animals so essential to his existence. With their skins he clothes himself, makes houses, boats, and oil-bags; their flesh and fat he eats. He even devours the contents of the intestines, and with the skin makes water-proof clothing. Knives, arrow-points, house, boat, and sledge frames, fish-hooks, domestic utensils, ice-chisels, and in fact almost all their implements, are made from the horns and bones of the deer, whale, and seal. Bowstrings are made of the sinews of musk-oxen, and ropes of seal-skin.[50] The Eskimo's arms are not very formidable. Backed by his ingenuity, they nevertheless prove sufficient for practical purposes; and while his neighbor possesses none better, all are on an equal footing in war. Their most powerful as well as most artistic weapon is the bow. It is made of beech or spruce, in three pieces curving in opposite directions and ingeniously bound by twisted sinews, so as to give the greatest possible strength. Richardson affirms that "in the hands of a native hunter it will propel an arrow with sufficient force to pierce the heart of a musk-ox, or break the leg of a reindeer." Arrows, as well as spears, lances, and darts, are of white spruce, and pointed with bone, ivory, flint, and slate.[51] East of the Mackenzie, copper enters largely into the composition of Eskimo utensils.[52] Before the introduction of iron by Europeans, stone hatchets were common.[53]

[Sidenote: SLEDGES, SNOW-SHOES, AND BOATS.]

The Hyperboreans surpass all American nations in their facilities for locomotion, both upon land and water. In their skin boats, the natives of the Alaskan seaboard from Point Barrow to Mount St Elias, made long voyages, crossing the strait and sea of Bering, and held commercial intercourse with the people of Asia. Sixty miles is an ordinary day's journey for sledges, while Indians on snow-shoes have been known to run down and capture deer. Throughout this entire border, including the Aleutian Islands, boats are made wholly of the skins of seals or sea-lions, excepting the frame of wood or whale-ribs. In the interior, as well as on the coast immediately below Mount St Elias, skin boats disappear, and canoes or wooden boats are used.

Two kinds of skin boats are employed by the natives of the Alaskan coast, a large and a small one. The former is called by the natives _oomiak_, and by the Russians _baidar_. This is a large, flat-bottomed, open boat; the skeleton of wood or whale-ribs, fastened with seal-skin thongs or whale's sinews, and covered with oiled seal or sea-lion skins, which are first sewed together and then stretched over the frame. The baidar is usually about thirty feet in length, six feet in extreme breadth, and three feet in depth. It is propelled by oars, and will carry fifteen or twenty persons, but its capacity is greatly increased by lashing inflated seal-skins to the outside. In storms at sea, two or three baidars are sometimes tied together.[54] The small boat is called by the natives _kyak_, and by the Russians _baidarka_. It is constructed of the same material and in the same manner as the baidar, except that it is entirely covered with skins, top as well as bottom, save one hole left in the deck, which is filled by the navigator. After taking his seat, and thereby filling this hole, the occupant puts on a water-proof over-dress, the bottom of which is so secured round the rim of the hole that not a drop of water can penetrate it. This dress is provided with sleeves and a hood. It is securely fastened at the wrists and neck, and when the hood is drawn over the head, the boatman may bid defiance to the water. The baidarka is about sixteen feet in length, and two feet in width at the middle, tapering to a point at either end.[55] It is light and strong, and when skillfully handled is considered very safe. The native of Norton Sound will twirl his kyak completely over, turn an aquatic somersault, and by the aid of his double-bladed paddle come up safely on the other side, without even losing his seat. So highly were these boats esteemed by the Russians, that they were at once universally adopted by them in navigating these waters. They were unable to invent any improvement in either of them, although they made a baidarka with two and three seats, which they employed in addition to the one-seated kyak. The Kadiak baidarka is a little shorter and wider than the Aleutian.[56]

Sleds, sledges, dogs, and Arctic land-boats play an important part in Eskimo economy. The Eskimo sled is framed of spruce, birch, or whalebone, strongly bound with thongs, and the runners shod with smooth strips of whale's jaw-bone. This sled is heavy, and fit only for traveling over ice or frozen snow. Indian sleds of the interior are lighter, the runners being of thin flexible boards better adapted to the inequalities of the ground. Sledges, such as are used by the voyagers of Hudson Bay, are of totally different construction. Three boards, each about one foot in width and twelve feet in length, thinned, and curved into a semicircle at one end, are placed side by side and firmly lashed together with thongs. A leathern bag or blanket of the full size of the sled is provided, in which the load is placed and lashed down with strings.[57] Sleds and sledges are drawn by dogs, and they will carry a load of from a quarter to half a ton, or about one hundred pounds to each dog. The dogs of Alaska are scarcely up to the average of Arctic canine nobility.[58] They are of various colors, hairy, short-legged, with large bushy tails curved over the back; they are wolfish, suspicious, yet powerful, sagacious, and docile, patiently performing an incredible amount of ill-requited labor. Dogs are harnessed to the sledge, sometimes by separate thongs at unequal distances, sometimes in pairs to a single line. They are guided by the voice accompanied by a whip, and to the best trained and most sagacious is given the longest tether, that he may act as leader. An eastern dog will carry on his back a weight of thirty pounds. The dogs of the northern coast are larger and stronger than those of the interior. Eskimo dogs are used in hunting reindeer and musk-oxen, as well as in drawing sledges.[59] Those at Cape Prince of Wales appear to be of the same species as those used upon the Asiatic coast for drawing sledges.

Snow-shoes, or foot-sledges, are differently made according to the locality. In traveling over soft snow they are indispensable. They consist of an open light wooden frame, made of two smooth pieces of wood each about two inches wide and an inch thick; the inner part sometimes straight, and the outer curved out to about one foot in the widest part. They are from two to six feet in length, some oval and turned up in front, running to a point behind; others flat, and pointed at both ends, the space within the frame being filled with a network of twisted deer-sinews or fine seal-skin.[60] The Hudson Bay snow-shoe is only two and a half feet in length. The Kutchin shoe is smaller than that of the Eskimo.

[Sidenote: PROPERTY.]

The merchantable wealth of the Eskimos consists of peltries, such as wolf, deer, badger, polar-bear, otter, hare, musk-rat, Arctic-fox, and seal skins; red ochre, plumbago, and iron pyrites; oil, ivory, whalebone; in short, all parts of all species of beasts, birds, and fishes that they can secure and convert into an exchangeable shape.[61] The articles they most covet are tobacco, iron, and beads. They are not particularly given to strong drink. On the shore of Bering Strait the natives have constant commercial intercourse with Asia. They cross easily in their boats, carefully eluding the vigilance of the fur company. They frequently meet at the Gwosdeff Islands, where the Tschuktschi bring tobacco, iron, tame-reindeer skins, and walrus-ivory; the Eskimos giving in exchange wolf and wolverine skins, wooden dishes, seal-skins and other peltries. The Eskimos of the American coast carry on quite an extensive trade with the Indians of the interior,[62] exchanging with them Asiatic merchandise for peltries. They are sharp at bargains, avaricious, totally devoid of conscience in their dealings; will sell their property thrice if possible, and, if caught, laugh it off as a joke. The rights of property are scrupulously respected among themselves, but to steal from strangers, which they practice on every occasion with considerable dexterity, is considered rather a mark of merit than otherwise. A successful thief, when a stranger is the victim, receives the applause of the entire tribe.[63] Captain Kotzebue thus describes the manner of trading with the Russo-Indians of the south and of Asia.

"The stranger first comes, and lays some goods on the shore and then retires; the American then comes, looks at the things, puts as many things near them as he thinks proper to give, and then also goes away. Upon this the stranger approaches, and examines what is offered him; if he is satisfied with it, he takes the skins and leaves the goods instead; but if not, then he lets all the things lie, retires a second time, and expects an addition from the buyer." If they cannot agree, each retires with his goods.

[Sidenote: SOCIAL ECONOMY.]

Their government, if it can be called a government, is patriarchal. Now and then some ancient or able man gains an ascendency in the tribe, and overawes his fellows. Some tribes even acknowledge an hereditary chief, but his authority is nominal. He can neither exact tribute, nor govern the movements of the people. His power seems to be exercised only in treating with other tribes. Slavery in any form is unknown among them. Caste has been mentioned in connection with tattooing, but, as a rule, social distinctions do not exist.[64]

[Sidenote: AMUSEMENTS.]

The home of the Eskimo is a model of filth and freeness. Coyness is not one of their vices, nor is modesty ranked among their virtues. The latitude of innocency marks all their social relations; they refrain from doing in public nothing that they would do in private. Female chastity is little regarded. The Kutchins, it is said, are jealous, but treat their wives kindly; the New Caledonians are jealous, and treat them cruelly; but the philosophic Eskimos are neither jealous nor unkind. Indeed, so far are they from espionage or meanness in marital affairs, that it is the duty of the hospitable host to place at the disposal of his guest not only the house and its contents, but his wife also.[65] The lot of the women is but little better than slavery. All the work, except the nobler occupations of hunting, fishing, and fighting, falls to them. The lesson of female inferiority is at an early age instilled into the mind of youth. Nevertheless, the Eskimo mother is remarkably affectionate, and fulfills her low destiny with patient kindness. Polygamy is common; every man being entitled to as many wives as he can get and maintain. On the other hand, if women are scarce, the men as easily adapt themselves to circumstances, and two of them marry one woman. Marriages are celebrated as follows: after gaining the consent of the mother, the lover presents a suit of clothes to the lady, who arrays herself therein and thenceforth is his wife.[66] Dancing, accompanied by singing and violent gesticulation, is their chief amusement. In all the nations of the north, every well-regulated village aspiring to any degree of respectability has its public or town house, which among the Eskimos is called the _Casine_ or _Kashim_. It consists of one large subterranean room, better built than the common dwellings, and occupying a central position, where the people congregate on feast-days.[67] This house is also used as a public work-shop, where are manufactured boats, sledges, and snow-shoes. A large portion of the winter is devoted to dancing. Feasting and visiting commence in November. On festive occasions, a dim light and a strong odor are thrown over the scene by means of blubber-lamps. The dancers, who are usually young men, strip themselves to the waist, or even appear _in puris naturalibus_, and go through numberless burlesque imitations of birds and beasts, their gestures being accompanied by tambourine and songs. Sometimes they are fantastically arrayed in seal or deer skin pantaloons, decked with dog or wolf tails behind, and wear feathers or a colored handkerchief on the head. The ancients, seated upon benches which encircle the room, smoke, and smile approbation. The women attend with fish and berries in large wooden bowls; and, upon the opening of the performance, they are at once relieved of their contributions by the actors, who elevate the provisions successively to the four cardinal points and once to the skies above, when all partake of the feast. Then comes another dance. A monotonous refrain, accompanied by the beating of an instrument made of seal-intestines stretched over a circular frame, brings upon the ground one boy after another, until about twenty form a circle. A series of pantomimes then commences, portraying love, jealousy, hatred, and friendship. During intervals in the exercises, presents are distributed to strangers. In their national dance, one girl after another comes in turn to the centre, while the others join hands and dance and sing, not unmusically, about her. The most extravagant motions win the greatest applause.[68]

Among other customs of the Eskimo may be mentioned the following. Their salutations are made by rubbing noses together. No matter how oily the skin, nor how rank the odor, he who would avoid offense must submit his nose to the nose of his Hyperborean brother,[69] and his face to the caressing hand of his polar friend. To convey intimations of friendship at a distance, they extend their arms, and rub and pat their breast. Upon the approach of visitors they form a circle, and sit like Turks, smoking their pipes. Men, women, and children are inordinately fond of tobacco. They swallow the smoke and revel in a temporary elysium. They are called brave, simple, kind, intelligent, happy, hospitable, respectful to the aged. They are also called cruel, ungrateful, treacherous, cunning, dolorously complaining, miserable.[70] They are great mimics, and, in order to terrify strangers, they accustom themselves to the most extraordinary contortions of features and body. As a measure of intellectual capacity, it is claimed for them that they divide time into days, lunar months, seasons, and years; that they estimate accurately by the sun or stars the time of day or night; that they can count several hundred and draw maps. They also make rude drawings on bone, representing dances, deer-hunting, animals, and all the various pursuits followed by them from the cradle to the grave.

But few diseases are common to them, and a deformed person is scarcely ever seen. Cutaneous eruptions, resulting from their antipathy to water, and ophthalmia, arising from the smoke of their closed huts and the glare of sun-light upon snow and water, constitute their chief disorders.[71] For protection to their eyes in hunting and fishing, they make goggles by cutting a slit in a piece of soft wood, and adjusting it to the face.

The Eskimos do not, as a rule, bury their dead; but double the body up, and place it on the side in a plank box, which is elevated three or four feet from the ground, and supported by four posts. The grave-box is often covered with painted figures of birds, fishes, and animals. Sometimes it is wrapped in skins, placed upon an elevated frame, and covered with planks, or trunks of trees, so as to protect it from wild beasts. Upon the frame or in the grave-box are deposited the arms, clothing, and sometimes the domestic utensils of the deceased. Frequent mention is made by travelers of burial places where the bodies lie exposed, with their heads placed towards the north.[72]

[Sidenote: THE KONIAGAS.]

THE KONIAGAS derive their name from the inhabitants of the island of Kadiak, who, when first discovered, called themselves _Kanagist_.[73] They were confounded by early Russian writers with the Aleuts. English ethnologists sometimes call them Southern Eskimos. From Kadiak they extend along the coast in both directions; northward across the Alaskan Peninsula to Kotzebue Sound, and eastward to Prince William Sound. The Koniagan family is divided into nations as follows: the _Koniagas_ proper, who inhabit the Koniagan Archipelago; the _Chugatshes_,[74] who occupy the islands and shores of Prince William Sound; the _Aglegmutes_, of Bristol Bay; the _Keyataigmutes_, who live upon the river Nushagak and the coast as far as Cape Newenham; the _Agulmutes_, dwelling upon the coast between the Kuskoquim and Kishunak rivers; the _Kuskoquigmutes_,[75] occupying the banks of the river Kuskoquim; the _Magemutes_, in the neighborhood of Cape Romanzoff; the _Kwichpagmutes_, _Kwichluagmutes_, and _Pashtoliks_, on the Kwichpak, Kwickluak, and Pashtolik rivers; the _Chnagmutes_, near Pashtolik Bay; the _Anlygmutes_, of Golovnin Bay, and the _Kaviaks_ and _Malemutes_, of Norton Sound.[76] "All of these people," says Baron von Wrangell, "speak one language and belong to one stock."

The most populous district is the Kuskoquim Valley.[77] The small islands in the vicinity of Kadiak were once well peopled; but as the Russians depopulated them, and hunters became scarce, the natives were not allowed to scatter, but were forced to congregate in towns.[78] Schelikoff, the first settler on Kadiak, reported, in that and contiguous isles, thirty thousand natives. Thirty years later, Saritsheff visited the island and found but three thousand. The Chugatshes not long since lived upon the island of Kadiak, but, in consequence of dissensions with their neighbors, they were obliged to emigrate and take up their residence on the main land. They derived their manners originally from the northern nations; but, after having been driven from their ancient possessions, they made raids upon southern nations, carried off their women, and, from the connections thus formed, underwent a marked change. They now resemble the southern rather than the northern tribes. The Kadiaks, Chugatshes, Kuskoquims, and adjacent tribes, according to their own traditions, came from the north, while the Unalaskas believe themselves to have originated in the west. The Kaviaks intermingle to a considerable extent with the Malemutes, and the two are often taken for one people; but their dialects are quite distinct.

[Sidenote: LAND OF THE KONIAGAS.]

The country of the Koniagas is a rugged wilderness, into many parts of which no white man has ever penetrated. Mountainous forests, glacial cañons, down which flow innumerable torrents, hills interspersed with lakes and marshy plains; ice-clad in winter, covered with luxuriant vegetation in summer. Some sheltered inlets absorb an undue proportion of oceanic warmth. Thus the name Aglegmutes signifies the inhabitants of a warm climate.

Travelers report chiefs among the Koniagas seven feet in height, but in general they are of medium stature.[79] Their complexion may be a shade darker than that of the Eskimos of the northern coast, but it is still very light.[80] The Chugatshes are remarkable for their large heads, short necks, broad faces, and small eyes. Holmberg claims for the Koniagas a peculiar formation of the skull; the back, as he says, being not arched but flat. They pierce the septum of the nose and the under lip, and in the apertures wear ornaments of various materials; the most highly prized being of shell or of amber. It is said that at times amber is thrown up in large quantities by the ocean, on the south side of Kadiak, generally after a heavy earthquake, and that at such times it forms an important article of commerce with the natives. The more the female chin is riddled with holes, the greater the respectability. Two ornaments are usually worn, but by very aristocratic ladies as many as six.[81] Their favorite colors in face-painting are red and blue, though black and leaden colors are common.[82] Young Kadiak wives secure the affectionate admiration of their husbands by tattooing the breast and adorning the face with black lines; while the Kuskoquim women sew into their chin two parallel blue lines. The hair is worn long by men as well as women. On state occasions, it is elaborately dressed; first saturated in train-oil, then powdered with red clay or oxide of iron, and finished off with a shower of white feathers. Both sexes wear beads wherever they can find a place for them, round the neck, wrists, and ankles, besides making a multitude of holes for them in the ears, nose, and chin. Into these holes they will also insert buttons, nails, or any European trinket which falls into their possession.[83]

[Sidenote: KADIAK AND KUSKOQUIM DRESS.]