ABORIGINAL LIFE OF THE SITKANS. 65 



and attend only to the accessory duties of it ; thus it becomes an 

 increased tax upon the dull energies of the savage whenever 

 he adds an extra woman to his household. The squaws are all well 

 treated everywhere up here ; they have just as much to say as their 

 lords and masters whenever the occasion of buying, selling, or hir- 

 ing arises ; as to the children (we will not see many of them to- 

 day), they are always kindly cared for by both parents, and the 

 whole tribe is as indulgent, since they are constantly roaming about 

 the village, after the custom of youngsters universally. 



A candid verdict will result, in view of the surroundings of the 

 Koloshian, that the only vice which can be legitimately charged up 

 against him, or his kind, is the sin of gambling. To this dissipa- 

 tion the Alaskan savage is desperately prone ; the monotonous chant 

 of the stick-shuffling players is ever on the air in the villages. These 

 worthies sit on the ground, in-a circle usually, in the centre of which 

 a mat is spread ; six or seven small wooden pins about as large as 

 the little finger of your hand, upon which various values are 

 marked or carved, are taken into the hands of the first gambler, 

 who thrusts them into a ball of soft teased cedar bark, or holds 

 them under his blanket, then shuffles them rapidly, meanwhile 

 shouting a deep guttural hah-hah-ee-nah-hah ! the others watch 

 him with lynx-like eyes for a few moments, when one of the 

 players suddenly orders the shuffler to show his hands, in which the 

 sticks are firmly clinched, and at the same time endeavors to guess 

 the value of these sticks in either one hand or the other, which 

 have been held up he pauses a moment, then makes his decision, 

 the clinched hand designated is opened, the little sticks fall to the 

 mat, and the caller wins or loses just as he happens to hit the value 

 expressed by the markings on these pins : if he guesses correctly 

 he wins everything in the pot or pool, and takes up the wooden 

 dice in turn, to shuffle, shout, and repeat for the rest of the circle. 

 This game is usually sustained night and day, until some one of 

 the party remains the winner of everything that the others started 

 in with. 



That wretched debauchery which an introduction of rum into 

 the rancheries of these natives has caused, cannot be justly laid at 

 the Indian's door ; this intense morbid craving for liquor among 

 the Alaskan savages of this region is most likely due to the climate 

 it is not near so strong in the appetite of the natives who live 

 east of the coast range. Although Congress has legislated, and 

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