The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 1, Wild Tribes. Hubert Howe Bancroft

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      Slavery is common with them; all who can afford it keeping slaves. They use them as beasts of burden, and treat them most inhumanly. The country of the Sicannis in the Rocky Mountains is sterile, yielding the occupants a scanty supply of food and clothing. They are nevertheless devotedly attached to their bleak land, and will fight for their rude homes with the most patriotic ardor.

NEHANNES AND TALKOTINS.

      The Nehannes usually pass the summer in the vicinity of the sea-coast, and scour the interior during the winter for furs, which they obtain from inland tribes by barter or plunder, and dispose of to the European traders. It is not a little remarkable that this warlike and turbulent horde was at one time governed by a woman. Fame gives her a fair complexion, with regular features, and great intelligence. Her influence over her fiery people, it is said, was perfect; while her warriors, the terror and scourge of the surrounding country, quailed before her eye. Her word was law, and was obeyed with marvelous alacrity. Through her influence the condition of the women of her tribe was greatly raised.

      Great ceremonies, cruelty, and superstition attend burning the dead, which custom obtains throughout this region,209 and, as usual in savagism, woman is the sufferer. When the father of a household dies, the entire family, or, if a chief, the tribe, are summoned to present themselves.210 Time must be given to those most distant to reach the village before the ceremony begins.211 The Talkotin wife, when all is ready, is compelled to ascend the funeral pile, throw herself upon her husband's body and there remain until nearly suffocated, when she is permitted to descend. Still she must keep her place near the burning corpse, keep it in a proper position, tend the fire, and if through pain or faintness she fails in the performance of her duties, she is held up and pressed forward by others; her cries meanwhile are drowned in wild songs, accompanied by the beating of drums.212

      When the funeral pile of a Tacully is fired, the wives of the deceased, if there are more than one, are placed at the head and foot of the body. Their duty there is to publicly demonstrate their affection for the departed; which they do by resting their head upon the dead bosom, by striking in frenzied love the body, nursing and battling the fire meanwhile. And there they remain until the hair is burned from their head, until, suffocated and almost senseless, they stagger off to a little distance; then recovering, attack the corpse with new vigor, striking it first with one hand and then with the other, until the form of the beloved is reduced to ashes. Finally these ashes are gathered up, placed in sacks, and distributed one sack to each wife, whose duty it is to carry upon her person the remains of the departed for the space of two years. During this period of mourning the women are clothed in rags, kept in a kind of slavery, and not allowed to marry. Not unfrequently these poor creatures avoid their term of servitude by suicide. At the expiration of the time, a feast is given them, and they are again free. Structures are erected as repositories for the ashes of their dead,213 in which the bag or box containing the remains is placed. These grave-houses are of split boards about one inch in thickness, six feet high, and decorated with painted representations of various heavenly and earthly objects.

      The Indians of the Rocky Mountains burn with the deceased all his effects, and even those of his nearest relatives, so that it not unfrequently happens that a family is reduced to absolute starvation in the dead of winter, when it is impossible to procure food. The motive assigned to this custom is, that there may be nothing left to bring the dead to remembrance.

      A singular custom prevails among the Nateotetain women, which is to cut off one joint of a finger upon the death of a near relative. In consequence of this practice some old women may be seen with two joints off every finger on both hands. The men bear their sorrows more stoically, being content in such cases with shaving the head and cutting their flesh with flints.214

KUTCHIN CHARACTERISTICS.

      The Kutchins are the flower of the Tinneh family. They are very numerous, numbering about twenty-two tribes. They are a more noble and manly people than either the Eskimos upon the north or the contiguous Tinneh tribes upon their own southern boundary. The finest specimens dwell on the Yukon River. The women tattoo the chin with a black pigment, and the men draw a black stripe down the forehead and nose, frequently crossing the forehead and cheeks with red lines, and streaking the chin alternately with red and black. Their features are more regular than those of their neighbors, more expressive of boldness, frankness, and candor; their foreheads higher, and their complexions lighter. The Tenan Kutchin of the Tananah River, one of the largest tribes of the Yukon Valley, are somewhat wilder and more ferocious in their appearance. The boys are precocious, and the girls marry at fifteen.215 The Kutchins of Peel River, as observed by Mr Isbister, "are an athletic and fine-looking race; considerable above the average stature, most of them being upwards of six feet in height and remarkably well proportioned."

      Their clothing is made from the skins of reindeer, dressed with the hair on; their coat cut after the fashion of the Eskimos, with skirts peaked before and behind, and elaborately trimmed with beads and dyed porcupine-quills. The Kutchins, in common with the Eskimos, are distinguished by a similarity in the costume of the sexes. Men and women wear the same description of breeches. Some of the men have a long flap attached to their deer-skin shirts, shaped like a beaver's tail, and reaching nearly to the ground.216 Of the coat, Mr Whymper says: "If the reader will imagine a man dressed in two swallow-tailed coats, one of them worn as usual, the other covering his stomach and buttoned behind, he will get some idea of this garment." Across the shoulders and breast they wear a broad band of beads, with narrower bands round the forehead and ankles, and along the seams of their leggins. They are great traders; beads are their wealth, used in the place of money, and the rich among them literally load themselves with necklaces and strings of various patterns.217 The nose and ears are adorned with shells.218 The hair is worn in a long cue, ornamented with feathers, and bound with strings of beads and shells at the head, with flowing ends, and so saturated with grease and birds' down as to swell it sometimes to the thickness of the neck. They pay considerable attention to personal cleanliness. The Kutchins construct both permanent underground dwellings and the temporary summer-hut or tent.219

FOOD OF THE KUTCHINS.

      On the Yukon, the greatest scarcity of food is in the spring. The winter's stores are exhausted, and the bright rays of the sun upon the melting snow almost blind the eyes of the deer-hunter. The most plentiful supply of game is in August, September, and October, after which the forming of ice on the rivers prevents fishing until December, when the winter traps are set. The reindeer are in good condition in August, and geese are plentiful. Salmon ascend the river in June, and are taken in great quantities until about the first of September; fish are dried or smoked without salt, for winter use. Fur-hunting begins in October; and in December, trade opens with the Eskimos, with whom furs are exchanged for oil and seal-skins.

      The Kutchin of the Yukon are unacquainted with nets, but catch their fish by means of weirs or stakes planted across rivers and narrow lakes, having openings for wicker baskets, by which they intercept the fish. They hunt reindeer in the mountains and take moose-deer in snares.220

      Both Kutchins and Eskimos are very jealous regarding their boundaries; but the incessant warfare which is maintained between the littoral and interior people of the northern coast near the Mackenzie river, is not maintained by the north-western tribes. One of either people, however, if found hunting out of his own territory, is very liable to be shot. Some Kutchin tribes permit the Eskimos to take the meat of the game which they kill, provided they leave the СКАЧАТЬ