FUR-SEAL PISHERfES OF ALASKA. 91 



forearm where they are grasped by the hands. Each native also has 

 his stabbing knife, his skinning knife, and his whetstone. These are 

 laid u])on the grass convenient when the work of braining or knocking 

 the seals down is in progress. This is all the apparatus which they 

 have for killing and skinning. 



THE KILLING GANG AT WORK. 



When the men gather for this work, they are under the control of their 

 chosen foremen or chiefs — usually on St. Paul divided into two working 

 parties at the village, and a snbparty at Northeast Point, where another 

 salt house and slaughtering held is established. At the signal of the 

 chief the work of the day begins by two of the men stepping into the 

 drove corraled on the flats, and driving out from it 50 or 100 seals at a 

 time, making what they call a " pod," which they surround in a circle, 

 huddling the seals one on another as they narrow it down, until they are 

 directly within reach and under their clubs. Then the chief, after he 

 has cast his experienced eye ov^er the struggling, writhing "kautickie" 

 in the center, passes the word that such and such a seal is bitten, that 

 such and such a seal is too young, that such and such a seal is too old. 

 The attention of his men being called to these i)oints, he gives the word 

 " strike !" and instantly the heavy clubs come down all around, and every 

 one that is eligible, is stretched out stunned and motionless, in less time 

 really than I take to tell it. Those seals spared by the order of the 

 chief now struggle from under and over the bodies of their insensible 

 companions and pass, hustled oft by the natives, back to the sea.' 



Tlie clubs are dropped, the men seize the prostrate seals by the hind 

 flippers and drag them out, so they are spread on the ground without 

 toucliing each other. Then every sealer takes his knife and drives it 

 into the heart at a i)()int between the fore flippers of each stunned form. 

 The blood gushes forth, and the quivering of the animal presently 

 ceases. A single stroke of a heavy oak bludgeon, well and fairly 

 delivered, will crush in at once the slight, thin bones oi^ a fur seal's skull, 

 and lay the creature out almost lifeless. These blows are, however, 

 usually repeated two or three times with each animal, but they are very 

 quickh' done. The bleeding, which is immediately effected, is so speed- 

 ily undertaken in order that the strange reaction, which the sealers 

 call "heating," shall be delayed for half an hour or so, or until the seals 

 can all be drawn out, and laid in some disjiosition for skinning. 



I have noticed that within less than thirty minutes from the time a 

 ])erfectly sound seal was knocked down, it had so "heated," owing to 

 the day being warmer and drier than usual, that when touching it with 

 my foot great patches of hair and fur scaled off. This is a rather excep- 



'Tlie aim and force with which the native directs his blow determines the death 

 of the seal. If struck direct and violently, a single stroke is enough. The seals' 

 lu:ads are stricken so hard, sometimes, that those crystaline lenses to their eyes Hy 

 out from the orbital sockets like hail stones or little pebbles, and have frequently 

 struck me sharply in the face or elsewhere, while I stood near by, watching the killing 

 gang at work. 



A singuhir, lurid green light suddenly suffuses the eye of the fur seal at intervals 

 when it is very much excited, as the "podding" for the clubbers is in progress; and 

 at the moment, when, last raising its head, it sees the uplifted bludgeons on every hand 

 above, fear seems then for the tirst time to ])ossess it and to instantly gild its eye in 

 this strange manner. When the seal is brained in this state of optical coloration I 

 have noticed that the oijalesceut tinting reimiiued well defined for many hours, or a 

 whole day after death. These r('markal)le Hashes are very characteristic to the eyes 

 of the old males during their hurly-burly on the rookeries: but, never appear in the 

 younger classes unless as just described, as far as I could observe. 



