Part 20 (2/2)
Yet there they are, waiting!
Sometimes, at night, they appear simultaneously, fluttering down into their places, swiftly and noiselessly, like a flock of birds settling down to rest for a moment in their flight.
Some of these women are dressed in skirts and waists, but the majority are wrapped in the everlasting gay blankets. No lip or nose ornaments are seen, even in the most aged. Two or three men are scattered down the line, to guard the women from being cheated.
These tall and lordly creatures strut noiselessly and superciliously about, clucking out guttural advice to the squaws, as well as, to all appearances, the frankest criticism of the persons examining their wares with a view to purchasing.
The women are very droll, and apparently have a keen sense of humor; and one is sure to have considerable fun poked at one, going down the line.
Mild-tempered people do not take umbrage at this ridicule; in fact, they rather enjoy it. Being one of them, I lost my temper only once. A young squaw offered me a wooden dish, explaining in broken English that it was an old eating dish.
It had a flat handle with a hole in it; and as cooking and eating utensils are never washed, it had the horrors of ages encrusted within it to the depth of an inch or more.
This, of course, only added to its value. I paid her a dollar for it, and had just taken it up gingerly and shudderingly with the tips of my fingers, when, to my amazement and confusion, the girl who had sold it to me, two older women who were squatting near, and a tall man leaning against the wall, all burst simultaneously into jeering and uncontrollable laughter.
As I gazed at them suspiciously and with reddening face, the young woman pointed a brown and unclean finger at me; while, as for the chorus of chuckles and duckings that a.s.sailed my ears--I hope I may never hear their like again.
To add to my embarra.s.sment, some pa.s.sengers at that moment approached.
”h.e.l.lo, Sally,” said one; ”what's the matter?”
Laughing too heartily to reply, she pointed at the wooden dish, which I was vainly trying to hide. They all looked, saw, and laughed with the Indians.
For a week afterward they smiled every time they looked at me; and I do believe that every man, woman, and child on the steamer came, smiling, to my cabin to see my ”buy.” But the ridicule of my kind was as nothing compared to that of the Indians themselves. To be ”taken in” by the descendant of a Kolos.h.i.+an, and then jeered at to one's very face!
The only possession of an Alaskan Indian that may not be purchased is a rosary. An attempt to buy one is met with glances of aversion.
”It has been _blessed_!” one woman said, almost in a whisper.
But they have most beautiful long strings of big, evenly cut, sapphire-blue beads. They call them Russian beads, and point out certain ones which were once used as money among the Indians.
Their wares consist chiefly of baskets; but there are also immense spoons carved artistically out of the horns of mountain sheep; richly beaded moccasins of many different materials; carved and gayly painted canoes and paddles of the fragrant Alaska cedar or Sitka pine; totem-poles carved out of dark gray slate stone; lamps, carved out of wood and inlaid with a fine pearl-like sh.e.l.l. These are formed like animals, with the backs hollowed to hold oil. There are silver spoons, rings, bracelets, and chains, all delicately traced with totemic designs; knives, virgin charms, Chilkaht blankets, and now and then a genuine old spear, or bow and arrow, that proves the dearest treasure of all.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by Dobbs, Nome
ESKIMO LAD IN PARKA AND MUKLUKS]
Old wooden, or bone, gambling sticks, finely carved, polished to a satin finish, and sometimes inlaid with fragments of sh.e.l.l, or burnt with totemic designs, are also greatly to be desired.
The main features of interest in Sitka are the Greek-Russian church and the walk along the beach to Indian River Park.
A small admission fee is charged at the church door. This goes to the poor-fund of the parish. It is the only church in Alaska that charges a regular fee, but in all the others there are contribution boxes. When one has, with burning cheeks, seen his fellow-Americans drop dimes and nickels into the boxes of these churches, which have been specially opened at much inconvenience for their accommodation, he is glad to see the fifty-cent fee at the door charged.
There are no seats in the church. The congregation stands or kneels during the entire service. There are three sanctuaries and as many altars. The chief sanctuary is the one in the middle, and it is dedicated to the Archi-Strategos Michael.
The sanctuary is separated from the body of the church by a screen--which has a ”shaky” look, by the way--adorned with twelve ikons, or images, in costly silver and gold casings, artistically chased.
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