RELATING TO ST. PAUL ISLAND. 131 



Deposition of Jacob Kotcliootcn, nailve sealer on St. Paul Island. 

 HABITS — PELAGIC SE ALI NG— MANAGEMENT, 



Alaska, U. S. A., 



/St. Faul Island, Pribilof Group, ss : 



Jacob Kotcliooteii, beinj? duly sworn, deposes and says: I am a na- 

 tive of St. Paul Island, Alaska, and I am 40 years of a<;e. I am a 

 native sealer, and have worked among seals on St. Paul 

 Island all my life, and I remember when I was first Experience. 

 rated a man, some twenty-three years ago; it was when Kerrick Buterin 

 was chief, and he used to follow us up when we went to drive seals, and 



• ^ 

 worry them in any way. 



When Ave used to kill 85,000 seals in two months we 

 had to work hard, and we had to go out at night to (iif\^eu.^"^ "°* "^^'' 

 drive, so that the seals should not be hurried, nor 

 driven in the daytime when it was warm. In those days seals were 

 driven from Halfway Point to the village, when the ground was wet, 

 a distance of about miles, and we used to start the drive at G o'clock 

 at night, and get into the village between 6 and 7 o'clock next morning. 



In 1879 the Alaska Commercial Company built a salt 

 hoase about 2 miles from Halfway Point, and after that ^"'^ '^'>'^''^^'^- 

 the seals were never driven more than 2 miles. Drives used tobebrought 

 from Zapadnie to the village, a distance of about 5 miles, until, in 1879, 

 the Alaska Commercial Company made a killing ground within a mile 

 of the rookery, and had the skins taken across the bay in boats to the 

 village salt house. 



For the past thirteen years no seals have been driven a greater dis- 

 tance than about 2 miles, and most of the drives are not over 1 mile. 

 The drives are always made by our own people, under ^ . 



,1 T ,• i- ii 1 • J.' -VT f. 1 Drives made by na- 



the direction ot tlie cliiets. iSone of our people ever tivea. 



knew of any sickness among the seals and pnj)s, and No sickness among 



their flesh has always been our meat food. ""* ''*''''^'- 



But very few dead pups were ever seen on the rookeries until the seal- 

 ing schooners began to come in the Avater around the 

 island, and they have increased more and more since ""'* '^"^''' 

 1888, In 1891 there was a great many that were thin and poor, ami 

 they would crawl down to the watei' and make a noise for their moth- 

 ers until they died, and when some of them Avere cut open they had no 

 milk in their stomachs. 



When the cows first come to the islands they go on the breeding 

 rookeries and remain there through June and July, 

 excepting Avhile they go out to sea to feed, and this is ,u.™''*'* °' ^'"^ ^"' 

 Avhy very fcAv cows are ever found in the drives made 

 in those two months while Ave are killing for skins. In August the fam- 

 ilies are broken up on the rookeries and the cows scatter and mix up 

 with the young males, andAvhen Ave drive for food there 

 are a few cows in every drive, but as it is uidaAvful to „„^i^\,„','-J""^''''' ^'^^"""^ 

 kill a cow seal on the islands Ave are careful that none 

 is killed. 



Our people are very careful about that, and if one is killed by acci- 

 dent they do not like it, and the chiefs report us to the Government 

 officer. The most of the bulls leaAT-! the ishiiid in Sep- .^ 



teraber, and the cows in the last of October, and early ' >gi'>*»™- 

 iu November, and the pups leave in November; sometimes wheu the 



