When
Attacked, The Indian Hunter, He Said, Climbed A Tree Or Stood With
His Back Against A Tree Or Rock
As a wolf never attacks face to face.
Wolves, and not bears, Indians regard as masters of the woods, for
They sometimes attack and kill bears, but the wolverine they never
attack, "for," said John, "wolves and wolverines are companions in
sin and equally wicked and cunning."
On one of the small islands we found a stockade, sixty by thirty-five
feet, built, our Indians said, by the Kake tribe during one of their
many warlike quarrels. Toyatte and Kadachan said these forts were
common throughout the canoe waters, showing that in this foodful,
kindly wilderness, as in all the world beside, man may be man's worst
enemy.
We discovered small bits of cultivation here and there, patches of
potatoes and turnips, planted mostly on the cleared sites of deserted
villages. In spring the most industrious families sailed to their
little farms of perhaps a quarter of an acre or less, and ten or
fifteen miles from their villages. After preparing the ground, and
planting it, they visited it again in summer to pull the weeds and
speculate on the size of the crop they were likely to have to eat
with their fat salmon. The Kakes were then busy digging their
potatoes, which they complained were this year injured by early
frosts.
We arrived at Klugh-Quan, one of the Kupreanof Kake villages, just as
a funeral party was breaking up.
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