The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 1, Wild Tribes

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 skin at the nearest village.221

The Kutchins of the Yukon River manufacture cups and pots from clay, and ornament them with crosses, dots, and lines; moulding them by hand after various patterns, first drying them in the sun and then baking them. The Eskimo lamp is also sometimes made of clay. The Tinneh make paint of pulverized colored stones or of earth, mixed with glue. The glue is made from buffalo feet and applied by a moose-hair brush.

In the manufacture of their boats the Kutchins of the Yukon use bark as a substitute for the seal-skins of the coast. They first make a light frame of willow or birch, from eight to sixteen feet in length. Then with fine spruce-fir roots they sew together strips of birch bark, cover the frame, and calk the seams with spruce gum. They are propelled by single paddles or poles. Those of the Mackenzie River are after the same pattern.222

In absence of law, murder and all other crimes are compounded for.223 A man to be well married must be either rich or strong. A good hunter, who can accumulate beads, and a good wrestler, who can win brides by force, may have from two to five wives. The women perform all domestic duties, and eat after the husband is satisfied, but the men paddle the boats, and have even been known to carry their wives ashore so that they might not wet their feet. The women carry their infants in a sort of bark saddle, fastened to their back; they bandage their feet in order to keep them small.224 Kutchin amusements are wrestling, leaping, dancing, and singing. They are great talkers, and etiquette forbids any interruption to the narrative of a new comer.225

THE TENAN KUTCHIN.

The Tenan Kutchin, 'people of the mountains,' inhabiting the country south of Fort Yukon which is drained by the river Tananah, are a wild, ungovernable horde, their territory never yet having been invaded by white people. The river upon which they dwell is supposed to take its rise near the upper Yukon. They allow no women in their deer-hunting expeditions. They smear their leggins and hair with red ochre and grease. The men part their hair in the middle and separate it into locks, which, when properly dressed, look like rolls of red mud about the size of a finger; one bunch of locks is secured in a mass which falls down the neck, by a band of dentalium shells, and two smaller rolls hang down either side of the face. After being soaked in grease and tied, the head is powdered with finely cut swan's down, which adheres to the greasy hair. The women wear few ornaments, perform more than the ordinary amount of drudgery, and are treated more like dogs than human beings. Chastity is scarcely known among them. The Kutcha Kutchin, 'people of the lowland,' are cleaner and better mannered.

The Kutchins have a singular system of totems. The whole nation is divided into three castes, called respectively Chitcheah, Tengratsey, and Natsahi, each occupying a distinct territory. Two persons of the same caste are not allowed to marry; but a man of one caste must marry a woman of another. The mother gives caste to the children, so that as the fathers die off the caste of the country constantly changes. This system operates strongly against war between tribes; as in war, it is caste against caste, and not tribe against tribe. As the father is never of the same caste as the son, who receives caste from his mother, there can never be intertribal war without ranging fathers and sons against each other. When a child is named, the father drops his former name and substitutes that of the child, so that the father receives his name from the child, and not the child from the father.

They have scarcely any government; their chiefs are elected on account of wealth or ability, and their authority is very limited.226 Their custom is to burn the dead, and enclose the ashes in a box placed upon posts; some tribes enclose the body in an elevated box without burning.227

THE KENAI.

The Kenai are a fine, manly race, in which Baer distinguishes characteristics decidedly American, and clearly distinct from the Asiatic Eskimos. One of the most powerful Kenai tribes is the Unakatanas, who dwell upon the Koyukuk River, and plant their villages along the banks of the lower Yukon for a distance of one hundred and fifty miles. They are bold and ferocious, dominative even to the giving of fashion in dress.

That part of the Yukon which runs through their territory abounds with moose, which during the summer frequent the water in order to avoid the mosquitos, and as the animals are clumsy swimmers, the Indians easily capture them. Their women occupy a very inferior position, being obliged to do more drudgery and embellish their dress with fewer ornaments than those of the upper tribes. The men wear a heavy fringe of beads or shells upon their dress, equal sometimes to two hundred marten-skins in value.

At Nuklukahyet, where the Tananah River joins the Yukon, is a neutral trading-ground to which all the surrounding tribes resort in the spring for traffic. Skins are their moneyed currency, the beaver-skin being the standard; one 'made' beaver-skin represents two marten-skins.

The Ingaliks inhabiting the Yukon near its mouth call themselves Kaeyah Khatana. Their dialect is totally distinct from the Malemutes, their neighbors on the west, but shows an affinity with that of the Unakatanas to their east. Tobacco they both smoke and snuff. The smoke they swallow; snuff is drawn into the nostrils through a wooden tube. They manufacture snuff from leaf tobacco by means of a wooden mortar and pestle, and carry bone or wooden snuff-boxes. They are described by travelers as a timid, sensitive people, and remarkably honest. Ingalik women are delivered kneeling, and without pain, being seldom detained from their household duties for more than an hour. The infant is washed, greased, and fed, and is seldom weaned under two or three years. The women live longer than the men; some of them reaching sixty, while the men rarely attain more than forty-five years.

The Koltschanes, whose name in the dialect of the Kenai signifies 'guest,' and in that of the Atnas of Copper River, 'stranger,' have been charged with great cruelty, and even cannibalism, but without special foundation. Wrangell believes the Koltschanes, Atnas, and Kolosches to be one people.

The Kenai, of the Kenaian peninsula, upon recovery from dangerous illness, give a feast to those who expressed sympathy during the affliction. If a bounteous provision is made upon these occasions, a chieftainship may be obtained thereby; and although the power thus acquired does not descend to one's heir, he may be conditionally recognized as chief. Injuries are avenged by the nearest relative, but if a murder is committed by a member of another clan, all the allied families rise to avenge the wrong. When a person dies, the whole community assemble and mourn. The nearest kinsman, arrayed in his best apparel, with blackened face, his nose and head decked with eagle's feathers, leads the ceremony. All sit round a fire and howl, while the master of the lamentation recounts the notable deeds of the departed, amidst the ringing of bells, and violent stampings, and contortions of his body. The clothing is then distributed to the relatives, the body is burned, the bones collected and interred, and at the expiration of a year a feast is held to the memory of the deceased, after which it is not lawful for a relative to mention his name.

The lover, if his suit is accepted, must perform a year's service for his bride. The wooing is in this wise: early some morning he enters the abode of the fair one's father, and without speaking a word proceeds to bring water, prepare food, and to heat the bath-room. In reply to the question why he performs these services, he answers that he desires the daughter for a wife. At the expiration of the year, without further ceremony, he takes her home, with a gift; but if she is not well treated by her husband, she may return to her father, and take with her the dowry. The wealthy may have several wives, but the property of each wife is distinct. They are nomadic in their inclinations and traverse the interior to a considerable distance in pursuit of game.

The Atnas are a small tribe inhabiting the Atna or Copper River. They understand the art of working copper, and have commercial relations with surrounding tribes. In the spring, before the breaking up of ice upon the lakes and rivers, they hunt reindeer, driving them into angle-shaped wicker-work corrals, where they are killed. In the autumn another general hunt takes place, when deer are driven into lakes, and pursued and killed in boats. Their food and clothing depend entirely upon their success in these forays, as they are unable to obtain fish in sufficient quantities for their sustenance; and when unsuccessful in the chase, whole families die of starvation. Those who can afford it, keep slaves, buying them from the Koltschanes. They burn their dead, then carefully collect the ashes in a new reindeer-skin, enclose the skin in a box, and place the box on posts or in a tree. Every year they celebrate a feast in commemoration of their dead. Baer asserts that the Atnas divide the year into fifteen months, which are designated only by their numbers; ten of them belong to autumn and winter, and five to spring and summer.

TINNEH CHARACTER.

The Tinneh character, if we may accept the assertions of various travelers, visiting different parts under widely different circumstances, presents a multitude of phases. Thus it is said of the Chepewyans by Mackenzie, that they are "sober, timorous, and vagrant, with a selfish disposition which has sometimes created suspicions of their integrity. They are also of a quarrelous disposition, and are continually making complaints which they express by a constant repetition of the word edmy, 'it is hard,' in a whiny and plaintive tone of voice. So indolent that numbers perish every year from famine. Suicide is not uncommon among them." Hearne asserts that they are morose and covetous; that they have no gratitude; are great beggars; are insolent, if any respect is shown them; that they cheat on all opportunities; yet they are mild, rarely get drunk; and "never proceed to violence beyond bad language;" that they steal on every opportunity from the whites, but very rarely from each other; and although regarding all property, including wives, as belonging to the strongest, yet they only wrestle, and rarely murder. Of the same people Sir John Franklin says, that they are naturally indolent, selfish, and great beggars. "I never saw men," he writes, "who either received or bestowed a gift with such bad grace." The Dog-ribs are "of a mild, hospitable, but rather indolent disposition," fond of dancing and singing. According to the same traveler the Copper Indians are superior, in personal character, to any other Chepewyans. "Their delicate and humane attentions to us," he remarks, "in a period of great distress, are indelibly engraven on our memories." Simpson says that it is a general rule among the traders not to believe the first story of an Indian. Although sometimes bearing suffering with fortitude, the least sickness makes them say, "I am going to die," and the improvidence of the Indian character is greatly aggravated by the custom of destroying all the property of deceased relatives. Sir John Richardson accuses the Hare Indians of timidity, standing in great fear of the Eskimos, and being always in want of food. They are practical socialists, 'great liars,' but 'strictly honest.' Hospitality is not a virtue with them. According to Richardson, neither the Eskimos, Dog-ribs, nor Hare Indians, feel the least shame in being detected in falsehood, and invariably practice it if they think that they can thereby gain any of their petty ends. Even in their familiar intercourse with each other, the Indians seldom tell the truth in the first instance, and if they succeed in exciting admiration or astonishment, their invention runs on without check. From the manner of the speaker, rather than by his words, is his truth or falsehood inferred, and often a very long interrogation is necessary to elicit the real fact. The comfort, and not unfrequently even the lives of parties of the timid Hare Indians are sacrificed by this miserable propensity. The Hare and Dog-rib women are certainly at the bottom of the scale of humanity in North America. Ross thinks that they are "tolerably honest; not bloodthirsty, nor cruel;" "confirmed liars, far from being chaste."

According to Harmon, one of the earliest and most observing travelers among them, the Tacullies "are a quiet, inoffensive people," and "perhaps the most honest on the face of the earth." They "are unusually talkative," and "take great delight in singing or humming or whistling a dull air." "Murder is not considered as a crime of great magnitude." He considers the Sicannis the bravest of the Tacully tribes.

But the Kutchins bear off the palm for honesty. Says Whymper: "Finding the loads too great for our dogs, we raised an erection of poles, and deposited some bags thereon. I may here say, once for all, that our men often left goods, consisting of tea, flour, molasses, bacon, and all kinds of miscellaneous articles, scattered in this way over the country, and that they remained untouched by the Indians, who frequently traveled past them." Simpson testifies of the Loucheux that "a bloody intent with them lurks not under a smile." Murray reports the Kutchins treacherous; Richardson did not find them so. Jones declares that "they differ entirely from the Tinneh tribes of the Mackenzie, being generous, honest, hospitable, proud, high-spirited, and quick to revenge an injury."

TRIBAL BOUNDARIES

Accurately to draw partition lines between primitive nations is impossible. Migrating with the seasons, constantly at war, driving and being driven far past the limits of hereditary boundaries, extirpating and being extirpated, overwhelming, intermingling; like a human sea, swelling and surging in its wild struggle with the winds of fate, they come and go, here to-day, yonder to-morrow. A traveler passing over the country finds it inhabited by certain tribes; another coming after finds all changed. One writer gives certain names to certain nations; another changes the name, or gives to the nation a totally different locality. An approximation, however, can be made sufficiently correct for practical purposes; and to arrive at this, I will give at the end of each chapter all the authorities at my command; that from the statements of all, whether conflicting or otherwise, the truth may be very nearly arrived at. All nations, north of the fifty-fifth parallel, as before mentioned, I call Hyperboreans.

To the Eskimos, I give the Arctic sea-board from the Coppermine River to Kotzebue Sound. Late travelers make a distinction between the Malemutes and Kaveaks of Norton Sound and the Eskimos. Whymper calls the former 'a race of tall and stout people, but in other respect, much resembling the Esquimaux.' Alaska, p. 159. Sir John Richardson, in his Journal, vol. i., p. 341, places them on the 'western coast, by Cook's Sound and Tchugatz Bay, nearly to Mount St. Elias;' but in his Polar Regions, p. 299, he terminates them at Kotzebue Sound. Early writers give them the widest scope. 'Die südlichsten sind in Amerika, auf der Küste Labrador, wo nach Charlevoix dieser Völkerstamm den Namen Esquimaux bey den in der Nähe wohnenden Abenaki führte, und auch an der benachbarten Ostseite von Neu-Fundland, ferner westlich noch unter der Halbinsel Alaska.' Vater, Mithridates, vol. iii., pt. iii., p. 425. Dr Latham, in his Varieties of Man, treats the inhabitants of the Aleutian Islands as Eskimos, and in Native Races of the Russian Empire, p. 289, he gives them 'the whole of the coast of the Arctic Ocean, and the coast from Behring Strait to Cook Inlet.' Prichard, Researches, vol. v., p. 371, requires more complete evidence before he can conclude that the Aleuts are not Eskimos. Being entirely unacquainted with the great Kutchin family in the Yukon Valley, he makes the Carriers of New Caledonia conterminous with the Eskimos. The boundary lines between the Eskimos and the interior Indian tribes 'are generally formed by the summit of the watershed between the small rivers which empty into the sea and those which fall into the Yukon.' Dall's Alaska, p. 144. Malte-Brun, Précis de la Géographie, vol. v., p. 317, goes to the other extreme. 'Les Esquimaux,' he declares, 'habitent depuis le golfe Welcome jusqu'au fleuve Mackenzie, et probablement jusqu'au détroit de Bering; ils s'étendent au sud jusqu'au lac de l'Esclave.' Ludewig, Aboriginal Languages, p. 69, divides them into 'Eskimo proper, on the shores of Labrador, and the Western Eskimos.' Gallatin sweepingly asserts that 'they are the sole native inhabitants of the shores of all the seas, bays, inlets, and islands of America, north of the sixtieth degree of north latitude.' Am. Antiq. Soc. Transact., vol. ii., p. 9. The Western Eskimos, says Beechey, 'inhabit the north-west coast of America, from 60° 34´ N. to 71° 24´ N.' Voy., vol. ii., p. 299. 'Along the entire coast of America.' Armstrong's Nar., p. 191.

ESKIMOS AND KONIAGAS.

The tribal subdivisions of the Eskimos are as follows: – At Coppermine River they are known by the name of Naggeuktoomutes, 'deer-horns.' At the eastern outlet of the Mackenzie they are called Kittear. Between the Mackenzie River and Barter Reef they call themselves Kangmali-Innuin. The tribal name at Point Barrow is Nuwangmeun. 'The Nuna-tangmë-un inhabit the country traversed by the Nunatok, a river which falls into Kotzebue Sound.' Richardson's Pol. Reg., p. 300. From Cape Lisburn to Icy Cape the tribal appellation is Kitegues. 'Deutsche Karten zeigen uns noch im Nord-west-Ende des russischen Nordamerika's, in dieser so anders gewandten Küstenlinie, nördlich vom Kotzebue-Sund: im westlichen Theile des Küstenlandes, dass sie West-Georgien nennen, vom Cap Lisburn bis über das Eiscap; hinlaufend das Volk der Kiteguen.' Buschmann, Spuren der Aztek. Sprache, p. 713. 'The tribes appear to be separated from each other by a neutral ground, across which small parties venture in the summer for barter.' The Tuski, Tschuktschi, or Tchutski, of the easternmost point of Asia, have also been referred to the opposite coast of America for their habitation. The Tschuktchi 'occupy the north-western coast of Russian Asia, and the opposite shores of north-western America.' Ludewig, Ab. Lang., p. 191.

The Koniagan nation occupies the shores of Bering Sea, from Kotzebue Sound to the Island of Kadiak, including a part of the Alaskan Peninsula, and the Koniagan and Chugatschen Islands. The Koniagas proper inhabit Kadiak, and the contiguous islands. Buschmann, Spuren der Aztek. Sprache, p. 676. 'The Konægi are inhabitants of the Isle of Kodiak.' Prichard's Researches, vol. v., p. 371. 'Die eigentlichen Konjagen oder Bewohner der Insel Kadjak.' Holmberg, Ethn. Skiz., p. 4. 'Zu den letztern rechnet man die Aleuten von Kadjack, deren Sprache von allen Küstenbewohnern von der Tschugatschen-Bay, bis an die Berings-Strasse und selbst weiter noch die herrschende ist.' Baer, Stat. u. Ethn., p. 58. 'From Iliamna Lake to the 159th degree of west longitude.' Dall's Alaska, p. 401. 'La côte qui s'étend depuis le golfe Kamischezkaja jusqu'au Nouveau-Cornouaille, est habitée par cinq peuplades qui forment autant de grandes divisions territoriales dans les colonies de la Russie Américaine. Leurs noms sont: Koniagi, Kenayzi, Tschugatschi, Ugalachmiuti et Koliugi.' Humboldt, Pol., tom. i., p. 347.

The Chugatsches inhabit the islands and shores of Prince William Sound. 'Die Tchugatschen bewohnen die grössten Inseln der Bai Tschugatsk, wie Zukli, Chtagaluk u. a. und ziehen sich an der Südküste der Halbinsel Kenai nach Westen bis zur Einfahrt in den Kenaischen Meerbusen.' Holmberg, Ethn. Skiz., p. 4. 'Die Tschugatschen sind Ankömmlinge von der Insel Kadjack, die während innerer Zwistigkeiten von dort vertrieben, sich zu ihren jetzigen Wohnsitzen an den Ufern von Prince William's Sound und gegen Westen bis zum Eingange von Cook's Inlet hingewendet haben.' Baer, Stat. u. Ethn., p. 116. 'Les Tschugatschi occupent le pays qui s'étend depuis l'extrémité septentrionale de l'entrée de Cook jusqu'à l'est de la baie du prince Guillaume (golfe Tschugatskaja.)' Humboldt, Pol., tom. i., p. 348. According to Latham, Native Races, p. 290, they are the most southern members of the family. The Tschugazzi 'live between the Ugalyachmutzi and the Kenaizi.' Prichard's Researches, vol. v., p. 371. 'Occupy the shores and islands of Chugach Gulf, and the southwest coasts of the peninsula of Kenai.' Dall's Alaska, p. 401. Tschugatschi, 'Prince William Sound, and Cook's Inlet.' Ludewig, Ab. Lang., p. 191. Tchugatchih, 'claim as their hereditary possessions the coast lying between Bristol Bay and Beering's Straits.' Richardson's Jour., vol. i., p. 364.