TAKEN AMONG THE MAKAH INDIANS. 383 



Subscribed and sworn to before me on this 27tli day of April, A. D. 

 1892. 

 [SEAL.] Clarence P. Brown, 



Notary Puhlic in and for the State of ^Vasliimjton. 



Deposition of Franlc Dains, MalcaJi Indian, scaler. 



PELAGIC sealing. 



State of Washington, 



County of Clallam, ss : 

 Frank Davis, being- duly sworn, deposes and says: I am about G6 

 years old, a native Indian of the Makali tribe, reside on the Neah Bay 

 itcservation, in the County of Clallam, State of Washington, and my 

 occupation is that of a hunter and fisherman. 1 have 

 been engaged in seal-hunting for about seventeen years. Experience 

 I have always hunted in canoes and with spears, and 

 years ago would kill a great many seals. 1 was up in iggg. ^^^''°s Sea m 

 the Bering Sea sealing in 1889 and have not been there 

 since. All the other years I have been seal-hunting along the coast, 

 between Grays Harbor and Barclay Sound. A few years ago seals were 

 very plentiful in the Straits of San Juan de Fuca. It is not now so. 

 They are so scarce in the straits that we do not hunt for ^ 

 them there any more. In all of my experience in seal- 

 ing on this coast I have killed but one cow seal that had milk in her 

 breast and that had given birth to her pup. I do not know what be- 

 came of the pup. I have killed a very few barren cows, along the coast. 

 Kearly all of the full-growii cows along the coast have pups in them, 

 but the seals I caught in Bering Sea were most all -^ ^, .,, . 



•n mi j_ T J' j^t Mostly milking 



COWS in milk. The cows seem to disappear irom the cows. 

 coast sooner than tlie young seals do. 



The seals first appear oft' the cape about Christmas, and I have 

 caught young seals as late as July. Seals do not haul AppearoircapcFiit- 

 out upon the land along the coast and breed; nor do tery about cinistnuis. 

 they give birth to their young in the water nor on the coasl and kreLr* °° 

 kelp. One time, when hunting along the coast with a ^^ pelagic birth, 

 spear, our canoe took 100 seals in five days, but we can not catch as 

 many now. They are very shy and wild, so that if we get two or three 

 now in five days we would be doing very well I have caught only eight 

 seals this year. Before the white man came here to ^^^^ ^^^ 

 hunt seals with the shotgun and rifle, five or six years ^'^^^ ^^' 

 ago, they were not so wild as they are now, and by this time in a year 

 I would have had a hundred or more seals. When I get seals now a 

 great many have shot in them, a thing I never saw before until about 

 six or seven years ago. 



bis 



Frank x Davis. 



mark. 



Witness: 



John P. McGlinn. 

 C. E. Gat. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me on this 27th day of April, A. D 

 1892. 

 [SEAL.J Clarence P. Brown, 



i^otary ruhlic in and for the State of Washington. 



