Part 6 (2/2)
Great ceremonies, cruelty, and superst.i.tion 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 s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.signed 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]
[Sidenote: KUTCHIN CHARACTERISTICS.]
The Kutchins are the flower of the Tinneh family. They are very numerous, numbering about twenty-two tribes. They are a more n.o.ble 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 s.e.xes. Men and women wear the same description of breeches. Some of the men have a long flap attached to their deer-skin s.h.i.+rts, 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 b.u.t.toned 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 sh.e.l.ls.[218] The hair is worn in a long cue, ornamented with feathers, and bound with strings of beads and sh.e.l.ls 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]
[Sidenote: 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 fis.h.i.+ng 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 quant.i.ties 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 subst.i.tute 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 acc.u.mulate 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 ash.o.r.e 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 amus.e.m.e.nts are wrestling, leaping, dancing, and singing. They are great talkers, and etiquette forbids any interruption to the narrative of a new comer.[225]
[Sidenote: 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 ma.s.s which falls down the neck, by a band of dentalium sh.e.l.ls, 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. Chast.i.ty 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 subst.i.tutes 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]
[Sidenote: 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 sh.e.l.ls 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.
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