164 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



paring down the thick cuticle to that thin, tough transparency so 

 marked on their bidarrahs, for the pelt of the hair seal or sea lion 

 does not require any more attention when applied to this service than 

 simply unhairing it. This is done by first sweating the ' ' loughtak " in 

 piles, then rudely but rapidly scraping, with blunt knives or stone 

 flensers, the hair off in large i)atches at every stroke ; the skin is then 

 air dried, being stretched on a stout frame, where, in the lapse of a 

 few weeks, it becomes as rigid as a board. When required for use 

 thereafter it is soaked in water until soft or "green" again, then it is 

 sewed with sinews, while in this fresh condition, tightly over the 

 slight wooden skeleton of the bidarka or the heavier frame of the 

 bidarrah. In this manner the skin boats and lighters at the islands 

 are covered ; then they are air dried thoroughly before oiling, which is 

 done when the skin has become well indurated, so as to bind the ribs 

 and keel as with an iron plating; the thick, unrefined seal oil keeps 

 the water out for twelve to twenty hours, according to the character 

 of the hides. When, however, the skin covering begins to "bag in" 

 between the ribs of the frame, then it is necessary to haul the bidar- 

 rah out and air dry it again and reoil it. If attended to thoroughly 

 and constantly those skin-covered boats are the best species of lighter 

 which can be used at these islands, for they will stand more thump- 

 ing and pounding on the rocks and alongside ship than all wooden or 

 even corrugated iron lighters could endure and remain seaworthy. 



Manner of dressing walrus and sea-lion hides. — I noticed that 

 the St. Lawrence Eskimo pared the walrus hide down from the outer 

 surface or hairy side, while at St. Paul, when it became necessary to 

 reduce the thickness of a sea lion's skin at spots around the neck and 

 shoulders, the paring was done on the fleshy side. Very little thin- 

 ning, however, was needed in the case of sea-lion "loughtak."^ 



' When I stepped for tlie first tiine into the baidar of St. Paul Island and went 

 ashore from the Alexander, over a heavy sea, safely to the lower bight of Lukannon 

 Bay, my sensations were of emx)hatic distrust. The partially water-softened skin 

 covering would puff tip between the wooden ribs and then draw back as the waves 

 rose and fell, so much like an unstable support above the cold green water below, 

 that I frankly exx)ressed my surprise at such an outlandish craft. My thoughts 

 quickly turned to a higher appreciation of those hardy navigators who used these 

 vessels in circumpolar seas years ago, and the Russians who, more recently, 

 employed bidarrahs chiefly to explore Alaskan and Kamtchatkan terra incognita. 

 There is an old poem in Avitus, written by a Roman as early as 445 A. D., which 

 describes the ravages of Saxon pirates along the southern coasts of Britain, who 

 used just such vessels as is this bidarrah of St. Paul: 



Quin et armoricus piratim Saxona tractus 

 Spirabat, cui pelle t'alum f ulcare Britannum 

 Ludus, et assiito glaucum mare findere lembo. 



These boats were probably covered with either horse or bull hides. When used 

 in England they were known as coracles; in Ireland they were styled curachs. 

 Pliny tells us that Cssar moved his army in Britain over lakes and rivers in such 

 boats. Even the Greeks used them, terming them karabia, and the Russian word 

 of korabl', or "ship," is derived from it. King Alfred, in 870-872, tells us that the 

 Finns made sad havoc among the Swedish settlements on the numerous "meres" 

 (lakes) in the moors of their country by "carrying their ships (baidars) overland 

 in the meres whence they make depredations on the Northmen. Their ships are 

 small and very light." 



All air-dried seal pelts, no matter whether hair or fur seal, sea lion or walrus 

 hides, are called by the Aleutians, and also by the Kamtchadales, " loughtak" or 

 "lofftak." When the natives of Kamchatka told Steller in 1740-42 that the large 

 hair seal, Phoca barhata, was known to them as "loughtak" they evidently did 

 not give him their specific name for the seal, but rather expressed their sense of its 

 large skin, which was so highly prized by them as to be "the loughtak " of all 

 other loughtak in those waters of their country. Erlghathvs barhatxs has never 

 been seen around or on these islands of the Pribilof group, but every air-dried fur- 

 eeal or sea-lion skin there is called "loughtak " by the people. 



