THE INDIANS OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. 341 



slain Russians and Aleuts were displayed by the Indians, borne aloft 

 on spears. Subsequently they were compelled by the Russians to 

 abandon their fort, which they did secretly at night, first killing* their 

 dogs and young children to prevent their noise giving notice of their 

 flight.* 



Vancouver (1794) mentions an encounter between some Kaigani In- 

 dians, who were on board ship trading with him, and some Stikine 

 who suddenly appeared, coming around a point of land. The former 

 rushed into their canoes, which were alongside, put on their war gar- 

 ments, and rested their spears on the gunwale. Thus prepared, they 

 advanced slowly to meet the new-comers, meanwhile making the most 

 violent and passionate speeches, which were answered in a similar tone 

 by some persons who stood up in the Stikine canoe. After a parley, 

 lasting some moments, an amicable understanding was reached, and 

 both parties returned to the ship, though on their guard towards each 

 other. At the head of the Stikines was the great chief 0-non nis toy, 

 who, with all his party, for safety, slept on board the Discovery, while 

 the Kaigani went to their camp on shore. In the morning the Stikine 

 went on shore with great ceremony and arranged with the Kaigani a 

 combined entertainment for the benefit of Vancouver, which they gave 

 alongside in their canoes. "It consisted in singing and a display of 

 the most rude and extravagant gestures that can be imagined. The 

 principal parts were performed by the chiefs, each in succession becom- 

 ing the leader or hero of the song; at several pauses of which I [Van- 

 couver] was presented by the exhibiting chief with a sea-otter skin." t 



SCALPING AND OTHER WAR CUSTOMS. 



The scalps of the slain were usually removed by the medicine men, 

 or shamans, who accompanied the war party. Poole (1864) says that he 

 saw " at least a hundred scalps in Chief Klue's lodge, on a pole." J Dall 

 states that, amongst the Tlingit, the scalps were woven into a kind of 

 garter by the victor. § On the death of a chief of great prowess, the 

 scalps which he had taken were sometimes used to decorate his tomb. || 



"Once I saw a party of Kaiganys of about two hundred men returning from war. 

 The paddles of the warriors killed in the fight were lashed upright in their various 

 seats, so that from a long distance the number of the fallen could be ascertained; 

 and on each mast of the canoes — and some had three — was stuck the head of a slain 

 foe." 11 



Simpson thus describes a feud at Sitka (1841), growing out of a 

 drunken quarrel between a chief and a man of rank, in which the 

 former stabbed the latter to death : 



The party of the deceased, to the number of about a thousand men, immediately 

 turned out, with horrib le yells, to revenge his death, painted in the most hideous 



*Li8iansky, Voyage, pp. 1.58 and 162. || Whymper, Alaska, p. 79. 



t Vancouver, Voyage, Vol. ii, p. 393-4. H Beudel's Aleutian Archipelago, p. 30, 

 t Queen Charlotte Islands, p. 116. quoted by Bancroft, Vol. i, p. 164. 



$ Dall, Alaska, p. 417. 



