TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 35 



the Chinook lingo is an absolutely shapeless creature, 

 in short, nondescript skirts, with usually a gay plaid 

 shawl folded about her, tied in with string at the place 

 where her waist would be if she had one. Sometimes 

 a belle Indian adds a check apron. Very different all 

 this to the royal braves of Fenimore Cooper, with their 

 leather leggings, shoulder skins and feathers. There 

 is nothing magnificent or romantic about the Siwash. 

 He is a very low-grade person indeed, is always a 

 Siwash, and perpetually smells of fish. Of no stature 

 to speak of, bullet-headed, non-intelligent, he is every- 

 thing the Indian of the prairie is not. It almost seems 

 to argue that a fish diet for generations does not make 

 for the betterment of the race. 



The Chinook language, which is mostly used by the 

 coast Indians, was manufactured years and years ago 

 by a fur trader who found the necessity for some more 

 direct means of communication in his bartering deals 

 than arm wavings and signs. Now his invention has 

 spread far and wide, and even the Chinese use it. 

 With no grammar to bother one, the few words of its 

 composition may be picked up very quickly. They 

 are very few, and only need to be juggled with this 

 way and that. Always put the cart before the horse, 

 so to speak, and you've got it. 



The Indian reservations are a collection of ill-built, 

 rough-timbered barn-like houses of large size, and 

 lofty, roofed with shingles split from cedar-trees. So 

 far as we could make out, from observations at Sitka, 

 and other places, the men and women all camped 

 together in the same big earth-floored domiciles. 



