ABOKIGINAL LIFE OF THE SITKAISTS. 55 



and furthermore, woe to the disreputable trespassing Siwash Avho 

 steps over these boundaries and appropriates anything of value, 

 such, for instance, as a stranded whale, shark, seal, or otter — ber- 

 ries, wreckage, or shell-fish. 



The woods and the waters are teeming with animal life ; the lofty 

 semi-naked peaks harbor mountain goats in large flocks ; the beau- 

 tiful grouse of Sabine hides in the forest thickets ; the land otter 

 and the mule-eared deer haunt the countless ravines, valleys, and 

 rivulet bottoms ; salmon in fabulous numbers run up those streams, 

 and big, brown and glossy black bears come down to fatten uj)on 

 these spawning fish. But the Sitkan savage is indolent, and, though 

 all this dietary abundance and variety is before him, he lives quite 

 exclusively upon halibut and salmon, the former mostly fi'esh and 

 the latter air-dried and smoked in the soot of his rancherie. Hali- 

 bvit he finds all the year round ; salmon briefly run only at widely 

 separated periods. 



The halibut fishery is the one systematic regular occupation of the 

 natives. These fish may be taken in all waters of the archipelago 

 at almost any season, thovigh on cei'tain banks, well known to the 

 Indians, they are more numerous at times. When the halibut are 

 most active and abundant, the Koloshians take them in large quan- 

 tities, fishing with a hook and line from their canoes, which are an- 

 chored over the favored spots by stones attached to cedar-bark 

 ropes or cables. They still employ their own jirimitive, clumsy-look- 

 ing hook in decided preference to using our own make. When the 

 canoe is loaded to the gunwale by an alert fisherman, these halibut 

 are brought in to some convenient adjacent point on the shore, 

 where they are handed over to the women, who are there to take 

 care of them, usually living in a temporary rancherie. They squat 

 around the pile, rapidly clean the fish, removing the larger bones, 

 head, fins, and tail, and cut it into broad, thin flakes. These are 

 then hung on the poles of a wooden fi'ame trellis, whei*e, without 

 salt, and by the wind and sun alone, sometimes aided by a slow fire 

 underneath the suspended fish-meat, the flakes are sufiiciently 

 cured and dried ; then they are j^acked away in those characteristic 

 cedar boxes for future use. 



A group of old and young squaws, half-nude, flecked with shining 

 scales and splashed with blood, as they alwa^'s are when at work 

 upon a fine run of halibut or salmon — such a group is to be vividly 

 remembered ever afterward, if you see it even but once. The lit- 



