308 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Their boats were of sealskin stretched on fraines, and were of different 

 sizes. In one of these Cook counted twenty won^en and one man, 

 besides children. At that time, though thievish in i)roi)ensity, they 

 were not unamiable. Shortly afterwards they were reported by llussian 

 traders, who had much to do with tliem, as " good people," who behaved 

 "in a very friendly manner." (Uillings' "Voyage," p. 11)7.) I do not 

 know that they have lost this character since. 



Here, too, is the accustomed multiplicity of tribes, each with its idiom, 

 and sometimes differing in religious sui)erstition, especially on the grave 

 question of descent liom the dog or the crow. There is also a prevail- 

 ing usage for the men of one tribe to choose their wives from another 

 tribe, when the tribal character of the mother attaches to the offspring, 

 which is another illustration of tlie law of slavery partus sequitur ven- 

 trem. The late departure from this usage is quoted by the old men as 

 a sufficient reason for the mortality which has affiicted the Kenaians, 

 although a better reason may be found in the ravages of the small-pox, 

 unhappily introduced by the Russians. In 1838, 10,000 persons on the 

 coast are reported to have fallen victims to this disease. 



(4) Last of the four races are the Koluschians, numbering about 4,000, 

 who occupy the coast and islands from the nu)uth of the Copper Eiver 

 to the southern boundary of Eussian America, making about sixteen 

 Settlements. They belong to an Indian group extending as far south 

 as the Straits of Fuca, and estimated to contain 25,000 souls. La 

 Perouse, after considerable experience of the aborigines on the Atlan- 

 tic coast, asserts that those whom he saw here are not Esquimaux. 

 C Voyage," Tom. 2, p. 20o.) The name seems to be of Eussian origin, 

 and is equivalent to Indian. Here again is another variety of languages 

 and as many separate luitions. ISfear Mount St. Elias are the Jacoutats, 

 who are the least known; then come the Thlinkitts, who occupy the 

 islands and coast near Sitka, and are known in Oregon under the name 

 of Stikines; and then again we have the Kaigans, who, beginning on 

 Eussian teriitory, overla]) (»>ueen Charlotte's Island, beneath theLritish 

 flag. All these, with their subdivisions, are Koloschians, but every 

 tribe or nation has four different divisions, derived from four different 

 animals, the whale, the eagle, the crow, and the wolf, which are so many 

 heraldic devices, marking distinct groups. 



There are i)oints already noticed in the more northern groups which 

 are repeated here. As among the Kenaians, husband and wife are of 

 different animal devices. A crow cannot nuirry a crow. There is the 

 same skill in the construction of canoes, but the stretched seal-skin gives 

 place liere to the trunk of a tree shai)ed and hollowed so that it will 

 sonu^times hold forty i)ersons. There are good qualities among tlie 

 Aleutians which the Koh)schians do not possess, but they have perhaps 

 a stronger sense. They are of constant courage. As daring navigators 

 they are unsurpassed, sailing (iOO or 700 miles in their open canoes. 

 Some are thrifty, and show a. sense of property. Some have develoi)ed 

 an aptitude for trade unknown to their northern neighbours or to the 

 Indians of the (Inited States, and will work for wages, whether in tilling 

 the ground or other eniploynient. Their superior nature discards cor- 

 poral punishment, even for boys, as an ignominy not to be endured. 

 They believe in a Creator and in the immortality of the soul; but here a 

 mystic fable is woven into their faith. The spirits of heroes dead in bat- 

 tle are placed in the sky and a]»pear in the Aurorai Borealis. Long ago 

 a deluge occurred, when the human family was saved in a floating ves- 

 sel, which, after the subsidence of the waters, struck on a ro(;k and broke 

 in halves. The Koloschians leiuesent one-half of the vessel, and the 



