378 TESTIMONY 



Cow seals can not give birtli to tlieir yonng in the water, or on tLe 

 kelp and have thein live. I have never seeu, nor known 

 possibil!" ^"^^ "^ ^^ ^^^y Pi^PSj along the coast, that were born in the 

 same year, and I have never known any cow seals to 

 be caught along the coast that had given birth to their young, and in 

 whose breast there was milk, and it is very seldom that we catch a 

 full-grown cow that does not have a i)up in her. 



White hunters came in here about five or sis years ago and com- 

 menced shooting the seals with guns, since which time 

 Decrease. ^^^^ havc been rapidly decreasing, and are becoming 



very wild. When we hunt seals with spears we creep upon them while 

 asleep on the water, and spear them, A few years ago my people 

 would catch from eight to ten thousand seals each year, now we get 

 only about one thousand or less. I can not tell the difference between 

 the male and female seal while in the water, excepting it be an old bull. 

 In early times none of my tribe ever went any farther out to sea than 

 from 10 to 30 miles oft' Caj)e Flattery, and close inshore a few miles up and 

 down the coast. They had no other way of hunting, except to go from 

 here in canoes. About fifteen years ago the post trader induced some 

 of them to put their canoes on board o± a small schooner and go out 

 from 50 to 75 miles offshore, and to hunt along the coast from Columbia 

 River to Barcla}^ Sound. In the last five or six yeai'S some of my tribe 

 have bought and now own four little schooners, and use them to carry 

 their canoes and provisions when they go any distance from home. 

 About seventeen of my people have been in the Bering Sea and, with 

 the possible exception of two or three, none of them were ever there be- 

 fore 1887. 

 In 1887 the British schooner Alfred Adams, fi^om Victoria, British 

 Columbia, came here and emjiloyed some of my tribe to 

 LMe'isst'^"'^"'^ ^^^ S'o to the Bering Sea liunting seals, and the schooner 

 Lottie, owned by the Indians, also went fi-om here in 

 that year. 



In 1889 and 1891 some of my i)eople went on schooners, as hunters, 

 to Bering Sea. At no other times have any of them been in those 

 A ear oif Ca e ^^^exs. The furscals appear off Capc Flattery and iu 

 piattery^about lastTf the Straits of Sau Juan de Fuca about the last of De- 

 St middteof Jun^e*! ccmbcr and go and come until about the middle of June, 

 but yearlings and 2-year olds remain considerably 

 later. Seals used to be very numerous along the coast about Cape 

 -p ^^ Flattery, and no decrease was ever noticed in their num- 



bers until soon after the white hunters came around 

 here — about seven years ago, and commenced shooting them. Since 

 tliat time they have decreased fast and have become very shy. 



I think they will all be killed oil" if they keep hunting them with guns. 

 The spears with which my people hunt seals almost 

 sary."^*"*"*" *"^*^®^' exclusivcly is similar to the harpoon used by us in 

 killing whales, only it is smaller. It has a handle 

 about 14 feet long, that will come off when the harpoon sinks into the 

 seal, and the iron head is seemed to the boat with a line about 70 feet 

 long. In throwing the spear we use both hands, and if we hit are 

 almost sui^e to get him. 



his 



Peter x Brown. 



mark. 



Witness : 



John P. McGlinn. 

 0. E. Gay. 



