TAKEN AMONG THE MAKAH INDIANS. 391 



we capt.nrod abont 4,700 seals, most all of wliicli were catdi mostly preg 



COW seals ji^iviiifi' milk. The majority ot the seals we 



eauaht in the Berin;.;' Sea were cows that had given birth to their young. 



We captured these at a distance ot about 100 miles away from the 



Pribylov Islands. We used the spear more than 



nearly all of them that we hit with it, but lost a great 



many seals that we shot; we prefer to use the si)ear, "■"' • 



because in so doing we do not lose so many nor frighten them away. 



About four years ago I went to Bering- Sea as a hunter in the seal- 

 ing schooner C/m//<?5?//er, Williams, master. She carried ,„ „ ,„„„ 

 boats and one canoe. There were three white men in 

 each boat and two Indians in the canoe. We caught 

 about 2,000 seals, most of which were cows in milk, . Catch mostly niira- 

 The white hunters who used guns in the Bering Sea "'s''"''''- 

 were banging away at the seals sometimes all day long, and they would 

 lose a great many of those that they had shot. I do not think that 

 they brought to the schooner one-half of those that they 

 killed, to say nothing- of those that they wounded and 

 got away. I am unable to tell the sex of the seal while it is in the water, 

 unless it be an old bull with a long wig. 



In 1889 I again went to the sea, in the schooner James G. Swan. Seals 

 were not so thick in the sea that year as they were 

 about four years previous to that tinie. Seals are like- •^'""'* ^- ^^•"'^■issg 

 wise rapidly decreasing all along the coast. I have Decrease. 

 never killed an old bull or barren cow along the coast, 

 neither have I killed a cow in milk along the coast, or anywhere else 

 than in the Bering Sea. Small black jm-ps are not seen in the water along 

 the coast. Seals tirst appear oft' Cape Flatterv about 

 the 1st of January, and pass on up the coast and begin eoait^^'^''^'''^ 

 to disappear in June, the old cows leaving* first, and 

 about the last of June they are all gone. 



OsLY (his X mark). 



Witness : 



C. P. Beown. 

 John P. McGlinn, 



Subscribetl and sworn before me on this 27th day of April, A. D. 1892 

 [L. s.] Claeence p. Beown, 



Notary Public in and for the State of Washington, 



residing at Port Angdes, Wash. 



Deposition of Wilson Parlier, Indian sealer. 



habits pelagic sealing. 



State of Washington, 



County of Clallam, ss: 

 Wilson Parker, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am a native 

 Makah Indian and live on the reservation at ISeah Bay, State of Wash- 

 ington. United States of America, and am by occupa- 

 tion a hunter and fisherman. I have been engaged in ^^^^t^^^^'''' Indian 

 seal hunting for about eighteen years; the first eight 

 or ten years I used to go as a steerer-man in large canoes, three men in 



