INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 181 



That the big deer owners of the interior were radictilly opposed to 

 selling deer to the white men we soon had to learn. Their queer cus- 

 toms and usages make it an impossibility for a white man to deal with 

 them directly. The coast owners with l)iit few" exceptions held them- 

 selves aloof, too, at first. Of course, from the man who owned only 

 one to the man who had already l)ecome the proud possessor of a hun- 

 dred deer or more their ambition was to l)ecome big deer men. Influ- 

 enced by our rich stock of trade goods, which appealed to their com- 

 mercial instinct, we had them soon in line, and they sold to us quite a 

 number of deer. No other arrangement being possible, we made 

 arrangements with two herdsmen of communal herds, Peter and Tow- 

 aragg, to herd our deer along with the herd in their charge, and, 

 experimenting, we fitted out these and other natives with trade goods 

 for the purchase of more deer for us. P^verything seemed to ])e going 

 along nicely, and all would have l)een well if w^e could have retained 

 control. 



The first serious setback we received was caused by a local deprecia- 

 tion of our trade goods. In the fall of the year these will work back 

 into the interior, and this, together with the visible supply in the 

 house, all known to be for the purchase of reindeer, naturally tended 

 to raise the local value of these animals. In fact, some of the natives 

 were not able to buy back from the herds in the interior with the 

 goods received from us as many deer as they had given us. This was 

 the cause of a lot of dissatisfaction, and it made our situation very 

 unpleasant for a while among this vindictive people; in time it naturall}'^ 

 adjusted itself. 



More serious was the objection of the big deer owners against letting 

 the white man own deer in their country. I will cite as a typical case 

 a deer man who was introduced to me by the name of Ritturow. He 

 generally kept his big deer herds in the neighborhood of 8t. Lawrence 

 Bay, winter and summer, and on him the south and north head natives 

 had often depended for their supplies of deer meat. He had therefore 

 some influence with these. He early proclaimed that the ])est way to 

 stop the white men from meddling with the internal afl'airs of Chow- 

 chuen land was to assassinate them, and it was not for lack of efforts 

 that he did not succeed. Baffled time and time again by the friendly 

 disposition of some coast natives and our watchfulness, he l)ecame 

 enraged and drove his deer herds to the distant mountain ranges 

 between Mechigmc and Koliuchin, thereby forcing the coast natives to 

 some extent to fall ])ack on their own deer and our flour for subsist- 

 ence. Later, to make matters worse, misfortune overtook Rittarow. 

 He got himself and his herds into a region where the snowfall that 

 winter was excessive and the spring l)lizzards unusually severe; con- 

 sequently he lost nearly half of his herds by starvation. With some 

 show of right he ])lamed us for his misfortunes, and threats from him 



