CHAPTER III. 



ABORIGINAL LIFE OF THE SITKANS. 



The White Man and the Indian Trading. The Shrewdness and Avarice of the 

 Savage. Small Value of the entire Land Fur Trade of Alaska. The 

 Futile Effort of the Greek Catholic Church to Influence the Sitkan In- 

 dians. The Reason why Missionary Work in Alaska has been and is 

 Impotent. The Difference between the Fish-eating Indian of Alaska and 

 the Meat-eating Savage of the Plains. Simply One of Physique. The 

 Haidahs the Best Indians of Alaska. Deep Chests and Bandy Legs from 

 Canoe-travel. Living in Fixed Settlements because Obliged To. Large 

 "Rancheries" or Houses Built by the Haidahs. Communistic Families. 

 Great Gamblers. Indian " House -Raising Bees." Grotesque Totem 

 Posts. Indian Doctors "Kill or Cure." Dismal Interior of an Indian 

 " Rancherie." The Toilet and Dress of Alaskan Siwashes. The Unwrit- 

 ten Law of the Indian Village. What Constitutes a Chief. The Tribal 

 Boundaries and their Scrupulous Regard. Fish the Main Support of 

 Sitkan Indians. The Running of the Salmon. Indians Eat Everything. 

 Their Salads and Sauces. Their Wooden Dishes and Cups, and Spoons 

 of Horn. The Family Chests. The Indian Woman a Household Drudge. 

 She has no Washing to Do, However. Sitkan Indians not Great 

 Hunters. They are Unrivalled Canoe-builders. Small-pox and Measles 

 have Reduced the Indians of the Sitkan Archipelago to a Scanty Number. 

 Abandoned Settlements of these Savages Common. The Debauchery of 

 Rum among these People. The White Man to Blame for This. 



' ' Think you that yon church steeple 



Will e'er work a change in these wild people ? " 



OUR people living now in the Sitkan district are engaged either in 

 general trading with the Indians, in prospecting for "mineral," or 

 actively mining ; and, also, in a small fashion, in canning salmon 

 and rendering dog-fish and herring oil. Perhaps we can give a fair 

 idea of the traders by introducing the reader to one of them and 

 his establishment just as we find him at Sitka. In a small 

 frame one-story house, not usually touched by paint, the trader 

 shelters a general assortment of notions and groceries, but princi- 



