CHAPTEE III. 



ABORIGIXAL LIFE OF THE SITKAXS. 



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 

 Fiitile 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 

 " Ranoherie.'"— 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 disti'ict 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- 



