ABORIGINAL LIFE OF THE SITKAISTS. 53 



among the veiy old women can this monstrosity now be found in its 

 original form. Most of the middle-aged squaws still have a small 

 aperture in the lower lip, through which a little silver, beaten tube, 

 of the size of a quill, is thrust, and projects from the face, just 

 above the chin, about a quarter of an inch. The younger women 

 have not even this remnant of a most atrocious old custom. The 

 ears are often pierced, and tiny shell ornaments, backed with thin 

 sheet-silver or copper, are inserted ; and also the septum of the 

 nose is perforated, of both sexes very generally, for the insertion of 

 a silver ring, or a pendant of haliotis shell. 



Each village has its lex non scrvpta, and is a law unto itself every- 

 where within the confines of the Alexander archipelago ; or, in differ- 

 ent words, it conducts its afiairs wholly without reference to any 

 other village or savages — it is the largest unit in the Indian system 

 of government. Living as they do in these settlements, where they 

 know each other just as well and as familiarly as we know the indi- 

 vidual members of our own private home circles, no matter whether 

 the village contain a thousand souls or but half a dozen — there are 

 no strangers in it. Every little daily incident of each other's sim- 

 ple life, every move that they make, what they capture in the for- 

 est or hook out from the sea, is regularly recounted in the ranch- 

 eries over night. All engaged in precisely the same calling of 

 fishing and hunting, naturally there is no room among them for the 

 eager rivalries and passionate enterprises Avhich our living stimu- 

 lates and sustains. Therefore the routine of government is almost 

 nothing in its detail — no laws apj^ear to be necessary, and they are 

 not acknowledged ; but any action tending to the injury of another, 

 in person or property, lays the offender open to reprisals by the suf- 

 ferer — usually atoned for — -and the village feud, thus aroused, is 

 soon satisfied by a payment in blankets, or other valuable property, 

 to a full settlement. Injuries, thefts and murder, however, which, 

 inflicted by the people of one village upon another, either close at 

 hand or remote, have not always been adjusted in this amicable 

 manner ; hence, from time immemorial, the disputants have been 

 at war with each other in this region, and the result of these wars 

 has been to divide them into the existing clans as we find them 

 now. Their internecine warfare was carried on in true savage style. 

 If the cause was one which concerned the whole village, then the 

 chief of that settlement could implicitly count upon the services of 

 everv male Indian able to bear arms ; and although these savagfes 



