After Stripping Off The Lard-Like Oil, It Was Cut Into Small
Pieces And Passed Round.
It seemed white and wholesome, but I was
unable to taste it even for manner's sake.
This disgust, however, was
not noticed, as the rest of the company did full justice to the
precious tallow and smacked their lips over it as a great delicacy. A
lot of potatoes about the size of walnuts, boiled and peeled and
added to a potful of salmon, made a savory stew that all seemed to
relish. An old, cross-looking, wrinkled crone presided at the
steaming chowder-pot, and as she peeled the potatoes with her fingers
she, at short intervals, quickly thrust one of the best into the
mouth of a little wild-eyed girl that crouched beside her, a spark of
natural love which charmed her withered face and made all the big
gloomy house shine. In honor of our visit, our host put on a genuine
white shirt. His wife also dressed in her best and put a pair of
dainty trousers on her two-year-old boy, who seemed to be the pet and
favorite of the large family and indeed of the whole village. Toward
evening messengers were sent through the village to call everybody to
a meeting. Mr. Young delivered the usual missionary sermon and I also
was called on to say something. Then the chief arose and made an
eloquent reply, thanking us for our good words and for the hopes we
had inspired of obtaining a teacher for their children. In
particular, he said, he wanted to hear all we could tell him about
God.
This village was an offshoot of a larger one, ten miles to the north,
called Killisnoo. Under the prevailing patriarchal form of government
each tribe is divided into comparatively few families; and because of
quarrels, the chief of this branch moved his people to this little
bay, where the beach offered a good landing for canoes. A stream
which enters it yields abundance of salmon, while in the adjacent
woods and mountains berries, deer, and wild goats abound.
"Here," he said, "we enjoy peace and plenty; all we lack is a church
and a school, particularly a school for the children." His dwelling
so much with benevolent aspect on the children of the tribe showed, I
think, that he truly loved them and had a right intelligent insight
concerning their welfare. We spent the night under his roof, the
first we had ever spent with Indians, and I never felt more at home.
The loving kindness bestowed on the little ones made the house glow.
Next morning, with the hearty good wishes of our Hootsenoo friends,
and encouraged by the gentle weather, we sailed gladly up the coast,
hoping soon to see the Chilcat glaciers in their glory. The rock
hereabouts is mostly a beautiful blue marble, waveworn into a
multitude of small coves and ledges. Fine sections were thus revealed
along the shore, which with their colors, brightened with showers and
late-blooming leaves and flowers, beguiled the weariness of the way.
The shingle in front of these marble cliffs is also mostly marble,
well polished and rounded and mixed with a small percentage of
glacier-borne slate and granite erratics.
We arrived at the upper village about half-past one o'clock. Here we
saw Hootsenoo Indians in a very different light from that which
illumined the lower village. While we were yet half a mile or more
away, we heard sounds I had never before heard - a storm of strange
howls, yells, and screams rising from a base of gasping, bellowing
grunts and groans. Had I been alone, I should have fled as from a
pack of fiends, but our Indians quietly recognized this awful sound,
if such stuff could be called sound, simply as the "whiskey howl" and
pushed quietly on. As we approached the landing, the demoniac howling
so greatly increased I tried to dissuade Mr. Young from attempting to
say a single word in the village, and as for preaching one might as
well try to preach in Tophet. The whole village was afire with bad
whiskey. This was the first time in my life that I learned the
meaning of the phrase "a howling drunk." Even our Indians hesitated
to venture ashore, notwithstanding whiskey storms were far from novel
to them. Mr. Young, however, hoped that in this Indian Sodom at least
one man might be found so righteous as to be in his right mind and
able to give trustworthy information. Therefore I was at length
prevailed on to yield consent to land. Our canoe was drawn up on the
beach and one of the crew left to guard it. Cautiously we strolled up
the hill to the main row of houses, now a chain of alcoholic
volcanoes. The largest house, just opposite the landing, was about
forty feet square, built of immense planks, each hewn from a whole
log, and, as usual, the only opening was a mere hole about two and a
half feet in diameter, closed by a massive hinged plug like the
breach of a cannon. At the dark door-hole a few black faces appeared
and were suddenly withdrawn. Not a single person was to be seen on
the street. At length a couple of old, crouching men, hideously
blackened, ventured out and stared at us, then, calling to their
companions, other black and burning heads appeared, and we began to
fear that like the Alloway Kirk witches the whole legion was about to
sally forth. But, instead, those outside suddenly crawled and tumbled
in again. We were thus allowed to take a general view of the place
and return to our canoe unmolested. But ere we could get away, three
old women came swaggering and grinning down to the beach, and Toyatte
was discovered by a man with whom he had once had a business
misunderstanding, who, burning for revenge, was now jumping and
howling and threatening as only a drunken Indian may, while our
heroic old captain, in severe icy majesty, stood erect and
motionless, uttering never a word.
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