Norwegian Scenery.—Lonely Navigation.—The Marvels of Takou Inlet.—Hundreds of Icebergs.—Home of the Frost King.—More Gold Deposits.—Snowstorm among the Peaks.—Juneau the Metropolis of Alaska.—Auk and Takou Indians.—Manners and Customs.—Spartan Habits.—Disposal of Widows.—Duels.—Sacrificing Slaves.—Hideous Customs still prevail.

Before reaching Juneau we explored Takou Inlet, where there are two large glaciers, one with a moraine before its foot, the other reaching the deep water with its face, so as to discharge icebergs constantly. The bay was well filled with these, some of which were larger than our steamer (the Corona), and all were of such intense blue, mingled with dazzling white, as to recall the effect realized in the Blue Grotto of Capri. This berg-producing glacier was corrugated upon its surface in a remarkable manner, being utterly impassable to human feet. It was nearly a mile in width and its length indefinite; we doubt if it has ever been explored. A thousand ice and snow fed streams poured into the bay from the surrounding mountains, which completely walled in the broad sheet of water, so sprinkled with ice-sculpture in all manner of shapes. The ceaseless music of falling water was the only noise which broke the silence of the scene. A cavalcade of fleecy clouds, kindly forgetting to precipitate themselves in form of rain, floated over our heads, producing delicate lights and shades, with creeping shadows upon the surrounding mountains. The steamer’s abrupt whistle was echoed with mocking hoarseness from the surrounding cliffs, causing the myriads of white-winged wild fowl to rise from the icebergs until the air was filled with them like snowflakes. How wonderful it was! A broad clear flood of sunshine enveloped the whole; everything seemed so serene, so grand, the sky so blue, and the angels so near. It was all as magnificent as a gorgeous dream, to the thoughtful observer a living poem. Close in to the precipitous cliffs of the myrtle-green hills were inky shadows, which formed the requisite contrast to the crystal clearness of the surroundings. For thousands of years this glacial action has been going on, the story of the earth is so old; but its beauty is ever young, its loveliness eternal.

On our way up Gastineau Channel—the tide-waters of which have a rise and fall of sixteen feet—we have presented to us veritable Norwegian scenery, under a pale amethyst sky fringed at the horizon with orange and crimson; now gliding close to precipitous cliffs enlivened by silvery streams leaping down their sides, and now passing the mouths of inlets winding among abrupt mountains leading no one knows whither, for there are no maps or charts of these lateral channels. The Indian canoes may have occasionally penetrated them, but never the keel of the white man. On the left stand the tall peaks of Douglas Island, and on the right the jagged Alps of the mainland, both rising to a height of a thousand feet or more, on the continent side backed by elevations still more lofty. The Takou River flows into the sea and gives its name to the neighborhood. Here the Hudson Bay Fur Company established and maintained a trading-post for several years. All this region is famous for its game, such as deer, bears, caribou, wolves, foxes, martens, and minks, together with the abounding big-horn sheep. In place of wool these latter have a coat somewhat like the red deer, and except in the size of their horns they resemble our domestic sheep. We are told that this district is also rich in gold placer mines, and according to Professor Muir it must eventually yield extremely profitable results to intelligent mining enterprise. In many localities the placers have paid for years, though worked by the most simple means. The experience of California will undoubtedly be repeated in Alaska; the great aggregate of gold which was realized there will be duplicated here. After due thought and personal observation relative to the subject, we are willing to stand or fall upon the correctness of this prediction. The result may not come in the next year, or that following, but it will come in the near future. Mining north of 54° 40' is only in its infancy; its growth has been far more rapid, however, than it was at the south, both because of the richness of the mines, and because the business of mining is, and will continue to be, done more intelligently.

Just before reaching Juneau a singular phenomenon attracted our attention; it was a furious snowstorm among the mountain peaks, while all about us was quite calm and pleasant. The thick clouds of snow were driven hither and thither, from one pinnacle to another, writhing and twisting like a cyclone or water-spout at sea. It was a curious contrast, the storm raging in those far upper currents, while we enjoyed a gracious wealth of sunshine in a temperature of 65° Fah.

Juneau, located one hundred and fifty miles southeast of Sitka, and about three hundred north of Fort Wrangel, is already a considerable mining centre, with a population of about four thousand, situated not far from Takou district, and is the depot for the rich quartz and placer mines which are located in the region back of it. The site of the town is picturesque, being at the base of an abrupt mountain cliff which is decked with sparkling cascades. We were told that there is a rise and fall of twenty-four feet in the tide at the wharf of Juneau, but think perhaps eighteen feet would be nearer correct. The winter population is swelled by the influx of miners when the placers are not worked owing to snow and ice. Truth compels us to say that the residents here, of both sexes, are far from being of a desirable class. The Indians of this vicinity are of the Auk and Takou tribes; good traders and good hunters, but enemies of each other, though not given to open hostility. The native women, as if not content with the natural ugliness which has been liberally bestowed upon them by Providence, besmear their faces with a compound of seal-oil and lampblack, but for what possible reason, except that it is aboriginal Alaska fashion, one cannot divine. It is said that this is a sort of mourning for departed relations or friends; but the hilarity of those thus marked was anything but an indication of sorrow. We can well remember Yokohama wives, with blackened teeth and shaved eyebrows, who looked, if possible, a degree worse than these Alaskan women. In the latter case, however, the wives confessedly sought to make themselves hideous to prevent jealousy on the part of their husbands; but the native women here do not assign any plausible reason for smooching themselves in this offensive manner. When their faces are washed, a circumstance of rare occurrence, they are as white as the average of white people who are exposed to an out-of-door life. It is not the practice of the aborigines of either sex to wash themselves with water. They are sometimes seen to besmear their faces and hands with oil, which they carefully wipe off with a wisp of dry grass, or other substitute for the towel of civilization. The effect is to make the features shine like varnished mahogany; but as to cleanliness obtained by such a process, that does not follow.

If it were possible to discover a soap mine here there might be some hopes of introducing among the natives that condition which common acceptation places next to godliness. A traveling companion remarked that although milk and honey could not be said to flow in this neighborhood, oil does.

Many of the women, like those of the South Sea and the Malacca Straits, wear nose rings and glittering bracelets, while they go about with bare legs and feet. The author has seen all sorts of rude decorations employed by savage races, but never one which seemed quite so ridiculous or so deforming as the plug which many of these women of Alaska wear thrust through their under lips. The plug causes them to drool incessantly through the artificial aperture, though it is partially stopped by a piece of bone, ivory, or wood, formed like a large cuff-button, with a flat-spread portion inside to keep it in position. This practice is commenced in youth, the plug being increased in size as the wearer advances in age, so that when she becomes aged her lower lip is shockingly deformed. It is gratifying to be able to say that this custom is becoming less and less in use among the rising generation, and the same may be said as to tattooing the chin and cheeks. The hands and feet of the women are so small as to be noticeable in that respect.

The girls and boys endure great physical neglect in their youth, so that only the strongest are able to survive their childhood. It was surprising to see children of tender age of both sexes clothed only in a single cotton shirt, reaching to their knees, bare-legged, bare-footed, and bare-headed, yet apparently quite comfortable, while our woolen clothes and waterproofs were to us indispensable. We were told that in infancy these children are dipped every morning into the sea, without regard to the temperature, or season of the year, commencing the operation when they are four weeks old. This heroic, Spartan treatment of the bath will probably harden, if it does not kill, but undoubtedly the latter result is the more likely of the two. The adults of some of the tribes break holes in the ice in midwinter, and bathe with marvelous fortitude, not for purposes of cleanliness, but declaring that it makes them “brave and strong, able to resist the cold, and to live long.” The next hour, however, they may be found sitting on their hams as close to the fire in the middle of their unventilated cabins as they can get, closely wrapped in blankets, head and all. The prevalence among them of rheumatism and consumption shows that Nature cannot be outraged with impunity even by half-civilized Alaskans.

The natives do not seem to know anything about medicine, but when seriously ill they call in their shaman or medicine-man, and submit to his wild and senseless incantations, a process which would drive a civilized patient distracted. Fifty years ago an epidemic of small-pox swept away one third of the population of this part of the North Pacific coast, besides which, from various causes, the number in the several tribes is steadily decreasing. Vaccination having been introduced, a second visit of the dreaded disease just mentioned was accompanied with a very much smaller fatality. A scourge known as black measles is a frequent visitor among the youthful Alaskans, and is quite as fatal as small-pox.

Strong efforts are made by our government officials to keep intoxicating liquors out of the Territory, and the law makes them strictly contraband, but it is no more difficult or impossible to smuggle in Alaska than it is in New York or Boston. There are plenty of irresponsible whites ready to make money out of the aborigines. Rum is the native’s bane, its effect upon him being singularly fatal; it maddens him, even slight intoxication means to him delirium and all its consequences, wild brutality and utter demoralization. Molasses is sold freely to them, and the Indians have learned how to distill rum from it, so that they secretly produce a vile and potent intoxicant, in spite of all prohibition.

When a native husband dies his brother’s or sister’s son, according to their custom, must marry the widow, but if there is no male relative of the husband’s living, the widow may then choose for herself. If the individual who thus falls heir to a widow does not fancy the conditions, he must buy himself off, or fight the widow’s nearest male relative. Oftentimes, if the new alliance is particularly disagreeable, the victim escapes by paying so much cash or so many blankets. There seems to be no hurt to a native’s honor that pecuniary consideration will not promptly heal. Corporal punishment is considered by these aborigines to be a great disgrace, and is very seldom resorted to even with rebellious children. Theft is not looked upon as a crime; but if discovered, the thief must make ample restitution; and when his peculation is known he promptly does so without question or murmur. They have the duel as a decisive means of settling family feuds. When matters have come to the last resort, there is no secret about the matter. The two combatants fight publicly with knives, their friends looking on and singing songs while the combat lasts. But these duels, the same as with many other earlier savage practices, are now nearly obsolete. Like our Western Indians, their method of war was the ambush and surprise, and like them they scalped their prisoners and subjected them to savage cruelties. This also is more of the past than the present, as no open conflicts would now be permitted by the United States officials. The natives deck themselves with paint,—yellow ochre,—and look very much like the Sioux and Apache Indians in this respect. A century ago they were armed with flint-capped lances, bows, and arrows, but association with the whites has now supplied them with firearms. The old style of native weapons has consequently disappeared, except the lance with which they hunt the sea-otter. Firearms they do not use in this occupation, fearing to frighten away the valuable game altogether. They still manufacture bows and arrows for sale as curiosities to visiting strangers. They pride themselves upon their accomplishments in singing and dancing, but which to civilized ears and eyes are only the grossest caricatures. In these notes of the natives we refer to no one tribe, but to the aborigines of Alaska generally. The various tribes of course differ from each other. Those most in contact with the whites, having abolished many of their ancient habits, have adopted in a certain degree such customs as they see the white people follow. The holding of slaves is still practiced among them. Formerly, as we have said, one or two of these were sacrificed when their owner died, if he was a chief, in order that he might be well attended in the new sphere upon which he was entering; but this practice also has passed away in most communities, with many other cruelties which were once common. These slaves are generally descendants of parents who were taken in battle during civil wars, though they are also bought and sold for so many otter-skins, or so many blankets. Such persons are always submissive, and accept the position in which they find themselves as a matter of course. This enforced servitude will soon be entirely abolished.

Female infanticide has not been uncommon with some tribes, but it does not prevail as has been represented by late writers. It is true that there have been cases where mothers, dreading to bring up their girls to such lives of hardship as they have themselves endured, have resorted to this desperate alternative, but careful inquiry did not satisfy us that such a practice now prevails if, indeed, it has not entirely ceased. In common with nearly all semi-civilized and savage races, the native Alaskans regard their women more in the light of slaves than as help-mates, and nearly all the hard work, except hunting and fishing, falls to their share. This is not a peculiarity of savage life, after all; horses and mules are not harder worked than are women in Germany and various parts of Europe. The writer has seen women carrying hods of bricks and mortar up long ladders in Munich, while their husbands drank huge “schooners” of beer and smoked tobacco in the nearest groggery.

Here and there among the several tribes, strange, unnatural, hideous customs are still extant, relative to wives about to become mothers, and as to young girls arriving at the age of puberty. We realize, however, that is not for us to look at this people through the lens of any small circumscribed moral code, but with kindly, hopeful views, guided by a due consideration of their normal condition. The conventionalities of civilization do not apply; latitude and longitude make broad differences as to what constitutes vice and virtue, reason or unreason. Modern instances are inadequate as a criterion of comparison. One who has traveled in many lands has learned to expand his horizon of judgment to accord with his geographical experience.

Notwithstanding the light in which the Alaskan regards his women, there seems to be a universal concession made to them in all matters of trade, wherein they undoubtedly hold the veto power, and in some other respects their domestic authority is promptly acknowledged. Just where the line is drawn does not seem to be clear to a stranger. After a native had sold us some trifle, his wife in more than one instance came and demanded it back again, carefully refunding the consideration which was given for the same. To this interference the husband seemed forced to submit in silence,—forced by the arbitrary custom of his tribe. We were told that even among themselves an agreement amounted to nothing at all, as they claim the right, and exercise it, of undoing any contract at will, provided the consideration which passed is promptly refunded. Even the white traders are obliged to yield to this singular idea to a certain extent, for the sake of peace.

The story so often told about polygamous wives, that is women with husbands in the plural, cannot be absolutely denied, but is an exaggeration of facts. Such relations we were told did exist, but to no great extent, among the tribes of Alaska.