Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1882-03-16
WITCHCRAFT IN ALASKA.
Old Women and Children Burned and
Cut to Pieces.
TSt T,OuiS Repuhlican


Those who attended the meeting of the
Women's Board of Missions at the Presbyte
ian rooms, on Eighth and Oliver streets, yes
terday afternoon were shocked, grieved and
astonishhed, all at one and the same time,
when they listened to the reading of very
sensational letter from Miss Maggie J. Dun
bar, Presbyterian missionary stationed at
present at Fort Wrangel, Alaska. Through
the letter its author described the terrible
sufferng5 Of several families, old men and
young children, recently tortured to death
for the alleged crime of witchcraft. The
Victims including persons of various ages,
from to 70 years. were tried by the heath
en- tribunals of the place and sentenced to
DEATH At Look, a portion Of Alaska where
the ancient population of the place predom-
mate, and enforce their unwritten law, which
consists of all the superstitions their ances-
tors found leisure to devise and hand down
to their posterity, a family found guilty of
being spiritual jugglers, of type supposed
to be in league with the devil, were taken
and tied to trees The grandmother of the
family was tied to a large forest tree and
left there to starye. After giving her salt
water whenever she asked, that her thirst
might be quenched, the demons about the
tree finally hacked her to death with knives.
The balance of the family succeeded in
breaking away from their captors and escap-
ed by plunging into dark and, to all ap-
pearances, impenetrable forest filled with
wild beasts. These prosecuted people wan
dered about through the dark recesses Of
this wilderness, cold and hungry until they
could stand their sutterings no longer, when
they concluded to cross the enemys country
under cover of darkness and reach, If possl-
BILE, Fort Wrangel, where they kneV they
would be safe in the presence of United
States man of war. They reached the ocean
and took canoe. In this frail bark they
pursued their journey, hugging the coast as
closely as possible, until they finally arrived
at the fort, almost dead, and scarcely able to
talk, so great was their exhaustion. The
missionary who, was walking on the beach
on the evening Of their arrival, saw the canoe
land. The craft contained an old man and
two children who related their frightful adj
ventures and asked for protection. The chill
dren were taken into the missionary home of
the fort The two girls, the letter states,
looked rather odd, walking to the home
along the beach, robed in blankets tattered
and torn. .....
A little girl, whom the missionary calls
Georgia, only five years of age, and an orphan,
one day, when the child was accused of be-
witching her and making her bad medi-
cine" As soon as this accusation was made
the unfortunate little creature was locked
up in room, where she was kept for three
days without food or water and whipped un-
mercifully, until her body was literally
covered with discolored marks. The chief
of one of the Christianized communities
heard of the outrage, and reported the mat
ter to the military authorities of the fort,
who visited the place where the child was
confined one night, rescued her, and took
her to the missionary home. Both the cases
described have been reported to the captain
of the man of war stationed at the fort, and
the savages it is thought, will ultimately be
punished.
This week, says the writer, Mrs. McFar-
land took in two interesting young girls who
had fled from Cape Fox village, where some
of their friends had been killed for witch
craft. The people of Alaska have believed
in witchcraft as far back into the past as
their traditions carry them. If native doc
tor is called upon to administer medicine to
patient, and the patient fails to recover
with great suddenness he accuses the nurse,
or some other defenceless person, of being a
witch and tampering with his herbs and
roots. The person so accused is promptly
taken out and tied to tree. He is starved
for some time, fed on salt water, and then
roasted to death or hacked into pieces with
knives. When an epidemic or any other ca
lamity prevails all the old women and chill
dren that can be caught before they have
time to take to the woods are murdered ac-
cording to the regular forms approved by the
traditionary lez non scripta of the God torsa-
ken country. The witchcraft outrages in
Alaska, it is strange fact, are spasmodic,
and occur only at periods. When one person
is accused. the chances are that alleged
witches will be discovered in great numbers
all over the country.