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Las diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 6 6 pW!if?^P«STi(rr-T;riir- ^•06 M» m 3« T I THE SHAMAN'S GRAVE: AN ALASKAN LHGHND. ^HIC ordinary tourists who "do" Alaska, tarrying not in any plate for longer than a day, will rarry away with them, indeed, abiding memories of islanil-dotted waters, majestic mountains, serene and land-locketl Ixiys, crystal glaciers emerakl-h'ied, so vast and towering that they seem to \yi the oKUjue walls of the Kternal City, and will recall in their far-distant homes, amid the sunshine and splendour of wealth and civilisation, these (juaint pec/pIe, who from time immemorial have lived and dieil along the Alaskan coast, lK'(jueathing to their posterity the curious customs inherited from an ancestry whose origin is lost in the mists of the Northern Ocean. Hut these travellers (jver water-ways furrowed by the keels of many big ships never know how much they lose of that nameless mystery which broods |)er|)etually among the secluded and little-visited places hidden away in the estuar s of the sea, unnoted from the " inland jxissage " — whose waters are unbroken except by the gliding of a canoe and the sweep of a native paddle. In silent and lonely places. save when sea-wandering birds fly in for shelter from wild western storms, or some great white-hooded eagle sweeps down from the near mountains .* on fish intent, one gets the true aroma of Alaskan davs and comes to know •'^** * '^ « M,- -.T 1 '"Hr '^B I Vol. X. —No. 41. lul 8 102 THE PALL MALL MAGAZINE. in some intanj^ihle way true stories of the native |>copIe. This holds good even of Sitka, that much-visited, niuch-talked-«f rehc of old Russian times : ** With its ancient Castle, stained and brown, Like a yellow sea liinl, lu<ikin|; down On the dingy roofs of the (|uaint old town." After three vears of residence there, sent on olVuial dutv, I came to think of it as a (;imiliar frieml. I did not l)elieve there was a legend connected with it or its [K-'ople which had not l)een confided to me, and some of them I have carefully treasureil as one guards a secret or the key t(j the cui)lx)ard where the family skeleton is locked up. I fimdly imagined that within a radius of many miles no nook was left unexplored by me which gave promise of a story — and I was (juite sure that no legend of the elder time had esca|x.'d me. One summer day, when the ambient air and the silver sea were too seductive for denial, I employed an aged native with a lettered canoe to jxiddle me wheresoever fancy dictated. Now, my knowledge of Thlinket is very limited ; and for good comradeship, and lx.'cause of his proficiency in the native tongue, I asked my interpreter, Metinoff, to accompany us. He gladly assented. Just below the present native village, and near its north-west boundary, a Ixild l)ut not very commanding promontory runs out into the sea. It is thickly wooded from base to summit, and all overgrown with clamlx-'ring vines, clinging mosses, graceful ferns and devil's clul)s, and all those myriad growths that give the coast- line almost a tropical appearance. Something, I know not what — some intuition, maybe, in which I have abiding faith — made me greatly desire to go ashore at the foot of the promonton.* and explore its summit. I noticed that the native hesitated, and it was not until Metinoff had sharply reproved him that he Ix^ached his canoe. The native characteristics in some ways are similar to those of the Americans : when they hesitate alx)ut anything, Ix; sure it is something worthy of your curiosity ; when they are radiant and (juick and willing, evidently there is little to learn and less to see : and so I knew that somewhere on that rocky outlet was a hidden mysterj', or else some legend hallowed it in the heart of this native, whose name was Klanaut ; and we pushed our way through the tangled undergrowth. It was tiresome lalx)ur ; many trees had fallen, and year after year the fading foliage from the living had covered with a gentle tenderness the prone forms of the dead. At last we reached the top : and there, eml)owered in shade, and so overgrown with woodland greener)- as to make it difiicult to distinguish from nature's own handiwork, we found a native " Kaht Tah ah Kah ye tea,'' or, small house for the dead. It was built quite carefully of sturdy timliers, but here and there the vandal breath of the winds had blown away the rix)f and left the interior exjKJsed to the elements. IJeside the structure on the ground, and almost level with its surface, lay a large canoe, and inside of it a smaller one. Both were lichen and moss covered, and broken, and hall filled with leaves and decayed vegetation, from which innumerable ferns and wild flowers drew rich nourishment. To me there is much of pathos in a stranded lx)at, even near tide water ; but a canoe on a hill top, shattered and verdure-clad, and resting Ix-side a grave, is very like a |)oem in the saddest of minor keys. A native "dead house" is usually a chief or a "Shaman's" place of sepulture, and when Metinoff said "Some big ty/iee lies here, but I do not understand the little canoe," I was not surprised. Together we approached the enclosure, and lifting a plank from its low roof we looked in. There we saw two bundles securely wrapjK-d in kakfi, the native name for matting, and tied with the split fibres of some .^,inewy root. I bot hun larg« not rem of s was bee; com T I \ THE SHAMAN'S CRAVE: AN ALASKAN LEGEND. >o3 They lay side by side, on^' much smaller than the otiier. We knew what they both contained, — at the feet of each was a native box, and many household and hunting implements were laid beside them. We made an aperture through the roof large enough to admit of our entrance ; and, although it seemed a desecration, I did not object when MetinofT's nimble fingers untied the smaller bundle and Ix'gan to remove the matting and layers of bark which we knew enclosed all that was mortal of some human form. When the little skeleton was uncovered we saw at once it was that of a white girl. The long yellow hair was untouched by decay, and had been nicely braided. It still retained its lustre, and a glint of rare Alaskan sunshine coming in through the bioken roof touched it gently, and it seemed to rtsixjnd I04 TUF PALI. MALI. MACAZINH. \vil!i a noUU-n smile while outside the winds held their breath and sl«iw wavelets caressed the stony lieaeh with a sound as of kisses and whis|)ers. Mctinofl" and I were t'K> surprised for comnient ; and when we found inMdc the wrappings a small and well-worn Knglish 'I'estanient iK-aring on its titk-iagc the words " I5ainbridi;e iV Co., Printers, London, 17HH,' we were ver>- still and (|uiet for a long time. Surmises and fancies were many, and we determirK-tl tu know, if |)ussil>le, how and whence came this little golden-haired warulcrcr who fell asleep Ix'side the sea ix-fore the white man's advent. Very reverently and tenderly we replaced the little Testament and all ihe wrappings al)out the fragile Itones, and, re|Kiiring the roof as l)est we could, went Iwck to our canoe. Klanaut was very still and reticent when wc first came, with a s< t, dciir.nirHrl look u|x>n his stolid face ; Init when he s;iw that we were empty-handed, and had not des|N)iled the grave, as is the custom of curio collectors here as elsewhere, he was visibly pleased : Init in res|M)nse to our eager intiuines he woulil make no reply until after we had left the promontory out of sight and hail gone ashore on one of the numerous islets that nuke the Hay of Sitka on a summer day like a silver shield close set with emeralds. Here he built a little tire and delilieralely sat tlown and l(M>ked seaward f<»r a long time. Presently he .s;»id to me, " I will tell the story as it was told to me by my |K:ople long ago " ; and what follows is tlte talc he told, and which, after making all sorts of iiupiiries for corrolM>ration, 1 lielieve to l)e true. I shall tell it here not, i)erhaps, as picturesipiely ami futhetically as it came to me from my interpreter f<jr long since I found out how entirely im|)ossible it is tt> tell a native story as the natives tell them— but I shall follow as closely as 1 can. Long ago, in the far, far time, Ix'fore any big ships or white men had come to our coast, when the missionary men and women were all asleep, and there was not one Christian siwash in .\laska, there lived at Sitka not this Sitka, but old Sitka, ilown there seven miles — a shaman, a big metlicine man, who was very great and powerful, and who was feareil by every chief and triln.'. He had done many strange and wonderful things, and Ixrcause of those things, antl also Ix-Tause he was very cruel and afraid of no man, his fame had gone out all along the sca<~oast, and even up the rivers among the trilK-s of the interior, so that his worils were law and no one dareil disolx-y them. He was a very large, strong man. and could tL-11 a witch by just looking at one. He killed all the witches he could find : and hw" found many, iK-cause there were numl)ers of men, women and children whom he did not like, and there was more room for him in this world if he sent them to the other, and so he used to have a great time torturing witches until they died. He was a very ugly-looking shaman. When he was a youth he had fought and killed a large Ix-^ar single-handed in the mountains ; but the lx.'ar ha<l knocked one of his eyes out and torn out jiart of his nose and one side of his face, so that when it healetl up he looked like a worse devil than any he could tell abouL Sometimes he would go to a /VV /<//<•//— which, as you know, is a feast where the chief or head of a family who entertains gives away many presents — and if he were not satisfied with his gifts he would at once denounce some of the chiefs family, or the chief himself, as a witch, and woald compel the assembled guests to lead them out to death or torture. These tortures were fearful things— .so bad, sometimes, that the rutives would go away and leave him alone with his victims, coming back after a long time to find him mutilating their dead bodies. Tin: SHAMANS (IRAVK: AN ALASKAN LEdKND. I OS f I This evil spirit grew iijM)n him year by year, and all the trills dreaded his presence - for his coming surely meant death to some of their |)eople. Hut they l)elieved in him at the siime time, or they would have killed him. One woman, whose huslwnd and three children had Ix-en tortured to death ai different times, followed him to his house for that purpose. She waited until he slept, anil then crept close to him, raising a " sealing club " to knock out his brams ; but a big black raven Hew in at the <loor and pulled him by the long hair, so that he awoke (]uickly and seized the woman and tied her, and fed her piecemeal to his dogs. That was the story he told, and it was Ijelieveil, for the Kiooti/iimin never came back to deny it One time a great feast was held at Sitka, and i'hlinkets came to it from long distances, and there were great numl)ers of them. 'I'he (!hilkats came in great state They were very fierce and warlike, and since unremembered time had made the 'I'hlinkets, who lived in the interior, juiy tribute l)efore they would j)ermit them to come down to the sea. They came with many big war canoes, and all their family chiefs came also. With the family of the (Ireat Tyhee was a golden-haired white girl, ten years old jx-'rhaps. She was as pretty to look at as a salmon- berry blossom, and the (.'hilkats were very kind and attentive to her. They saitl she had come to them from the sea three winters before, antl she had been with them ever since. Slvj had learnt to talk Thiinket, and would tmic to T 1 06 THE I'ALL MALL MAdA/INL. her littlu fingers were very deft at making Ixiskets and in weaving the long hair uf the mountain goat into blankets. She had an iitiis, which site looked at closely, and told them stories which she s;iid the iitiis told to her. 'I'he.se stories were different from any they had ever heard l)efore, and they lx.'lieved them to be all lies and nonsense. 1 now understand that the ictus was a book the missionaries talk through when they teach us to Im; go<Ml, Well, the girl was given an honoured place at t!ie feast, and the big Shanuxn of the Sitkans sat opiMisite to her, and looked at her fiercely out of his one eye. Hut she was not afraid of him, nor of any one, and she sang some sad songs in a language that none of the Thlinkets understood. Now, after two or three days of feasting and potlatc/tinf^, the Chilkats made ready to go away, and it was the last night of the feast, when suddenly the S/tainan denounced the little white girl as a witch, and demanded that she Ix; tied up and given to him. To this the Chilkats objected, but the Shaman had on his death-mask, and was so awfid in his anger that they were frightened — brave men as they were ; and they went away, leaving the little white girl crying bitterly and lx.'seeching them to take her home. Immediately after they had gone she took her little lx)ok, which all my jK-'ople then called an ictus, and Ixjgan to look at it very carefully ; and she did that until they Iwund her hand and foot and delivered her over to the Shaman ; and he carried her to the shore, and placed her, tied as slie was, in his canoe, and jiaddled away. All this time the tenas Klootchman (little girl) had Ix-en very quiet, but her big blue eyes had a far-away, longing look in them, as if she saw a fairer land somewhere, or was watching for the coming of some one she loved. Very many of the Sitkan badly for her sake; but their intense fear of the Shaman, and their superst.. us lx;lief in his power over the unseen mysteries, prevented them making any objection or trying to interfere between the child and the awful fate that awaited her. After the canoe and its occujKints had faded out of sight, one strong-minded but tender-hearted middle-aged woman lifted her arms with an imploring gesture toward the sky and then ran away and hid in her hut. Tour nights and days passed, and just at evening time the Shaman came l>ack alone. He was very stern and ugly, and if any one ventured to mention the child he scowled so fiercely that they were all glad to keep silence alx)ut her. But he acted very queerly. He took from his own dwelling all his beautiful dancing robes and his fine blankets, and he bought from an ancestor of mine a blanket made of snow-white ermine, and he collected all the dainty things he could find and carried them away to his boat and placed them carefully in it ; and it was noticed then that he was not so rude and cruel as was his usual way, for when little children were in his pathway he did not run against and knock them about, but put them gently to one side. Then he stood in the water near his loaded canoe and said, "Good-bye, my people," a thing he had never done Ix'fore ; and all our people were amazed, and watched him wonderingly so long as they could see. And at that time he had a long talk alone with the woman who had expressed her sorrow at the going away of the child, and the woman went away with him. He had greatly changed in every way ; his clothing was clean, and his manners were ver)' tender for a Sitkan Shaman ; and our people were greatly puzzled, and would have followed him, but this he would not permit, and for many moons the Shaman and the woman were absent. Then one warm sunshiny day, when the men, the women and the children were sitting lazily watching the sea, they saw coming from out of the shadows of a distant island a wonderful canoe. It carried a tall mast, with cordage running from its top to the stem and stern of the cancw, and all the cordage was hung with flags of strange devices ; and from the very top, over all the rest, there floated a I I T TIIK SliAMANS (IRAVli: AN ALASKAN l-KdKND. 107 m;; liair okcd at L* stories them to >(H>k the us given ()|>|M)site afraid of • of the ic feast, tch, ami objected, liat they the Httic nediately called an ound her LT to the hut her lirer land many of man, and ted them iwful fate sight, one with an ut. Four ick alone. child he ; he acted rol)cs and made of nd carried then that ;n were in gently to Good-bye, e amazed, ne he had the going y changed r a Sitkan I him, but )man were le children dows of a ming from hung with ; floated a snow-white flag, with a broad ri'd cross worked on its centre ; and as tliey came nearer they saw the S/ufiimii and the native wonian. He was at the stern and the woman forward, and as they paildled there could Ik* heard tlie wail for the Sitkan dea<l. As tiuy canie mar tin- sliorc, my |K'op|e saw, resting on a s((rt bed of deer- skins, with her litlk' hands folded across her br..asi and her lithe body wrapjted in the I spotless folds of the ermine rolK', the white child whom the S/iiitnan had taken away to slay as a witch. She Icjoked very l)eautiful, and her long hair had the lustre of a sea-trout freshly caught, and it shone in the sunlight like threads of gold. W illing hands drew the canoe high on the l)each above the water-line, but the Shaimin sat as one in a dream gazing into the face of the dead child, as silent as she. io8 THK PALI. MAM. MA(;AZINE. I And my people s[)akc never one word, but waited with a kind of awe. Presently he stepiied carefully out u|)on the land, turned his scarred face towards the heavens, then swept the sea-line as one who waits, and thus he s|)ake : •' My |)eople, my kindred, I know this day that you are all my brothers and my sisters. I was born among you ; my jjcbyhood, my youth, my manhood have Ixien lived here with you by the great waters. I have lived thus fur the life of a Sitkan Shaman of the olden time. I have l)een very harsh and very cruel ; 1 have lived the life of a murderer, a liar and a thief Although you have deemed me brave, I know that I have lx.'en a wicked coward, and I have brought back to you to-day the tenas KhMtchman who has made me know these bitter things. " She is dead, but Ixifore she went away 1 promised her to tell the .story to you ; so it is not only I who talk, but it is her lips, her heart which speaks through mine. When she first came to us from the Chilkats I coveted her possession, and when I carried her away to my hut in the mountains my intentions were very cruel and wicked. I know this now ; I did not know it then. It is a day's journey to my mountain home, and soon after leaving here \ untied her, and she came trustingly and sat at my feet m the bottom of the canoe, and laid her head on my knee, and looked up into my face out of eyes like a young fawn's. I turned the disfigured side of my face away from her, so that she might not see ; but she noticed it, and put up her little hand.s, and turned it back again, and caressed it. She did not scorn it, nor put it away from her; and I felt like a hunting dog caressed by his master. No living man or woman had ever been gentle to me before in all my recollection. "Then she made me tell her about it, and when I had finished she called me ' brave ' and stroked the scarred places, saying, ' Poor face, poor face 1 ' " I don't know what it was, but I had a pain in my heart, and something came up in my throat and made me gasp. Then she said she would tell me a story, and she told me of One who was the Son of God, the Great Tyhee, who made the world and the sky, the sun, the moon and the stars ; and how, because of wicked men like me, this Son of God gave His own life and died a cruel death, so that I might not suffer for my own sins if I would lx;lieve in Him. She told me He was gentle and harmless as a child, although He possessed mighty power and could accomplish all things. After this she went to sleep, and I sat very still for fear of waking her, and watched her face, and thought about this wonderful thing she had told me. I was not in a hurry to take her to my home, and I ceased paddling and let the canoe swing lazily to the motion of the sea. Far out beyond the islands, where the sky bends to the waters, it seemed to me as if the day was breaking, for instead of growing darker it grew brighter and brighter, and I could see the glimmer of the white gulls as if the sun shone on them ; but here, where we now stand, and all along the mountain side, it was so black that I could not distinguish anything. Now I thought this was a sign and a mystery, and I wondered if the child's God was coming over the western waters to visit her, for she had told me * He was a bright and shining One,' and so I waited and watched while the child slept. Suddenly the light faded out, and a cold wind came off from the sea, and 1 heard the familiar witch voices talking, and my heart was hardened, and I awoke the child rudely and pushed her from me, and commenced paddling furiously ; but 1 had drifted whither I knew not, and before the light had faded out I had forgotten to notice where we were. I was frightened, for I had never lost m > \ ay Ijcfore, and I had never seen so black a night; and because I was cruel ai a ugly, I told the child that we were going to die, that a sea witch was pullin} us lo her home, where we v/ould lie killed and eaten. Then the child came and kne't <i »wn at my THE SHAMAN'S CRAVE: AN ALASKAN LE(;EN1). 109 towards : "My sisters, in lived Shaman : life of low that le tenas to you ; through ion, and ;ry cruel journey le came 1 on my rned the but she essed it. iting dog le to me ailed me ing came itory, and nade the if wicked so that I ! He was id could »r fear of she had paddling lyond the day was I could re, where :ould not wondered ; had told the child sea, and 1 I awoke msly ; but forgotten ay Ijcforc, 5ly, I told ler home, \s'x\ at my feet, and, putting up her little hands, said many words in a strange tongue. At last she said in 'I'hinklet, ' *' He not afraid, fur I am with you always " : this is the promise of ')ur (Jod, yours and mine, and He will save us.' And very soon after that the wings of the darkness lifted, and it flew away, and I knew where we were— not far from my landing-place ; and I beached the canoe and carried the child up the steep trail to my mountain hut, and I could not t)e cruel or harsh to her. She told me such wonderful stories of her Ciod: that I was one of His children; and about a lieautiful country where He waited for our coming ; and that by living kindly and wronging no man, and lx:lieving in Him, and doing good, we would, after our death here, Ix; welcomed there, and never have any more sorrow or pain. "And I never had Ix^en so happy in all my life. I carried her all the things that I prized most, and she made the hut in the mountains a beautiful place, and 1 loved her as a mother loves her l)aby, and I would have suffered all things for her sake. " One day she told me that ( jod was calling her, and she must olx;y, and leave me for a time. Then I wished to see Him fare to face, and fight to keep her with me ; but she told me that God was with nv every day and hour, and that He could only l)e conquered by love and resignation j and much more she told me, until my stormy heart rested in peace. And then 1 saw her fading away like a flower each day, and near the end she could not walk nor even feed herself, and I came here after Ne-that-la, whom you all know for a kindly woman. She went with me, and tended and nourished the white blossom as best she could until the time came when God touched her heart and it was still. "Just lx.-fore she left us for His Ix'autiful country she made us both promise to try and come to her, and to lead as many of our people as we could to follow us. She said she ' would wait for us on the shore ' ; and because of that promise, and lx:cause I who loved her wished to live with her for ever, I have brought her dead body here to rest among my own people, and when I die I wish to lie laid by her side on the hill which I have chosen as my last resting-place. And oh, my people, if you will listen and obey the counsels of a Sitkan Shaman who has learned to love and he tender, you will believe in one God only — the God of this little child." Then he ceased, and the women of the tribe prepared the poor little body for its long rest in the house of the dead ; and they placed her book ictus in her bosom, and the ermine robe they folded around her, and all the presents from the Shaman in a box and laid it at her feet ; and day after day the Shaman waited alone on the hill l)eside her body, and night after night, through storms and starlight, he watched to see that no harm came to it ; and one morning, after a great gale, he did not come to the village, and when a long time had passed some of the people went in search of him, and found him dead, sitting beside the hou.se, holding to it strongly as if he would not Ix: torn away. And my people laid him beside the girl, and placed his war canoe near by, with a smaller one for the child. That is all I know. Here Klanaut ceased talking. I believe there was a tremulous flutter in MetinofT's eyelids and my own, and a suspicious moisture, which perhaps was blown from ofi" the sea. But 1 have visited the place many times since, and I think of the fair child, and picture her as graceful as the fern^ which sway about her last resting-place ; and I wonder if the Shaman found her — waiting on the " other shore." Arthur hlliers.