328 
TLINKIT 
The Tlinkit (“People”) occupied all the coast-line of south- 
eastern Alaska from mount St. Elias to the Portland canal, with the 
exception of paid of Prince of Wales island which had been colonized 
by the Haida Indians shortly liefore their discovery by Euroi^ean 
voyaj>;ers. In this rugged fiord region communication was entirely 
by sea, and the Indians made long voyages in their dug-out canoes 
to trade sea-otter skins, native copper from the Copper river, and 
Chilkat blankets manufactured from cedar bark and the wool of the 
wild mountain goat, for slaves and shell ornaments that came up to 
them from the south. About one-third of the population consisted 
of slaves, some of them members of neighbouring tribes kidnapped 
or taken ]>risoners by the Tlinkit themselves, the majority captive 
Salish Indians (or their slave descendants) from the south of British 
Columbia, who had passed in barter from one tribe to another. How- 
ever exalted had been the rank of these slaves in their own land their 
lot among the Tlinkit was generally wretched in the extreme. They 
hunted and fished for their masters, manned (with some commoners) 
the war^ and travelling canoes, and performed nearly all the drudgery 
around the villages. The erection of a new house, the launching of a 
new canoe, the funeral of a nobleman, or an insult offered to a chief 
might at any time demand their lirutal sacrifice, for in the eyes of 
their masters they were only a form of property that could be 
destroyed like other property at a mere whim. The w'ealth of a 
nobleman, in fact, was largely reckoned by the number of slaves he 
could command, although it included also his hunting and fishing 
grounds, his houses and canoes, and the trade goods he possessed, 
especially the number of sea-otter skins. 
The staple food of the Tlinkit, as of all the tribes along the north 
Pacific coast, was fish, principally halibut, salmon, and oolakan ; but 
the flesh of seals, porpoises, and sea-otters, and abundant berries, 
roots, and seaweed, gave their diet a considerable measure of variety. 
The Indians normally laid by a sufficient store of foofl during the 
summer months to last them throughout the winter, but if their 
supplies became exhausted from any cause there were numberless 
clam beds that could tide them over a season of scarcity. Their dwell- 
1 An old woman of hiyh rank usually stcf-red ttio war canoe. Niblack, A. P. : “The Coast Indians 
of iSoiittiPin .■\laska anrl Xorthern Britilsli Coluiiibiii’’ ; Ann. Hcpi., U.S. Xa(. Mils,, 1888, t). 253 
(Washington, 18W). 
