ALASKA, 27 



(and would have done so bad the missionaries succeeded,) but 

 the result was most unsatisfactory. A thin varnish of decency, 

 honesty, morality, &c., was put on, but the subject had to be 

 revarnished every day or his evil nature would continue to 

 shine out. 



From what we are led to plainly understand by the history 

 of well-directed and persistent efforts in the past, we can only 

 consider the present condition of the Indians of Alaska as 

 that of savages, and beyond the power of the Government or 

 of the church to change for the better. If they were a ]>eople 

 living in a country favorable to exertion and were merely lazy 

 and ignorant, then there would be hope with some assurance of 

 success in effecting a change for the better, but the case is 

 worse, for the obstacles are insuperable. 



They are living in the manner customary with all Indians 

 who have an abundance of fish and game, and when they suffer 

 in any section of the Territory, as they frequently do, for want 

 of food, it is on account of the indolence and improvidence 

 during the seasons of plenty, for all of these people on the main- 

 land who, at regular periods of the year, have access to a most 

 lavish profusion of fish and the flesh of deer, are never caught 

 by a severe winter with a full supply of provisions on hand, 

 and exist through the long, cold spring-months most miserably, 

 often living upon their skin-garments, offal, &c. As an instance 

 of this improvidence, Captain Hennig, an old trader, cites the 

 following case: At the mouth of the Koishak Eiver, which 

 empties into Bristol Bay between the Peninsula and the main- 

 land, the reindeer pass by swimming in large herds across in 

 September as they go in feeding to and from the peninsula; the 

 natives at this season run along the bank as the deer rise from 

 the water and spear them with great ease and in any number 

 that fancy or want may dictate. At one time Captain Hennig 

 counted here seven hundred deer carcasses as they lay rotting 

 and uutouched save by the removal of the hides j not a pound 

 of meat of the thousands putrefying had been saved by the 

 natives, who would be living perhaps in less than five mouths 

 in a state of starvation. 



These Indians are not steady, persistent hunters like the 

 Aleuts ; they are fickle, and have far less to gain by trade in 

 their estimation than the Aleutians, who, on the contrary, arc 

 not satisfied with a small amount of tobacco and a few beads, 

 which are the staple commodities with the Indians, together 



