YAKUTAT SEALING VILLAGE 1 65 



When the village is reached women help unload the 

 canoe and carry the seals up the beach, while the men 

 take the boat up above high-water mark. 



It would be difficult to form a close estimate as to the 

 number of seals killed by these Indians, but more than 

 500 skins were counted in the camp where we spent most 

 of our time, and it would seem that a thousand seals 

 would not be too large a number to be credited to the 

 three camps that were located near the head of the bay. 



For many generations this has been a sealing ground 

 for the Indians, and in some places the beach is white 

 with weathered bones and fragments of bones that repre- 

 sent the seal catches of many years. The surroundings 

 are not attractive, for the place resembles a slaughter- 

 house. The stones of the beach are shiny with grease; 

 seal carcasses and fragments of carcasses are spread along 

 the shore, and there is an all-pervading odor of seal and 

 seal oil. The place is a busy one. Back of the beach is 

 a lagoon of fresh water, from which the Indians get their 

 drinking water, in which the children wade about, sailing 

 their canoes, and in which the mothers bathe their babies. 



North of Yakutat Bay no Indians were met with, all 

 the natives seen from that point onward being Aleuts or 

 Eskimo. 



death's head carvings. 



