St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-03-09
THE INDIANS OF ALASKA.
Their Temporal and Spiritual Needs Graphic
aIly Described

Their Temporal and Spiritual Needs Graphic
ally Described.
At the close of mass in the morning SER
vice at the cathedral, Bishop Seaver of Van
couver island and Alaska, the largest and
poorest Catholic diocese of the United States,
made an appeal for contributions to aid him
in establishing missions, building churches,
and creating pastorates in that far off land,in
which he was the pioneer priest and has been
for years an earnest Catholic apostle.
Since 1879 this toiing missionary has
been the archbishop of Oregon and being
lately summoned to Rome, and considerable
anxiety being manifest there for the estab-
lishment of the religion of the churchin Van
couver and Alaska he resigned his position in
Oregon for that he now fills, to go about be-
fore returning thither to obtain necessary
means for carrying on the work from con-
tributions of the church at home and abroad.
The means needed were principally to aid in
the conversion of the Indians in his diocese,
the other missions in Vancouver being
mostly composed of Irish citizens,
which are self-supporting. In this eonnec-
ton his grace paid high tribute to the Irish
race, whose enterprise has taken them as
pioneers to every cline, and OF whom it is
said ''Go where you will ard you will find
Pacific he found the only white inhabitant to
be of this nationality; he met several OF
them at Sitka in Alaska on his first visit in
1873, and when he penetrated 800 miles
inland to the River Youcan the first whites
he met there were two sons of Erin.
The speaker gave most thrilling account
of the establishment of
THE FIRST MISSIONARY POST
on Vancouver island Providence having
opened the way by the murder of the crew of
a shipwrecked bark by the Pagan natives,
the murderers having been apprehended
and hung, but of whom in their imprisonl
ment he learned the language, so that he at
tended the execution and ministered the rites
of the church to them. After their death he
proclaimed to this tribe of 1000 in number
that there was but one God. There were
now 81 villages of this tribe in which
were churches and many COMMITMENTS,
900 children having been baptised at one
time into the Catholic faith.
At length the speaker recounted the OBJ
stacles which had to be overcome in this mis-
sonary work. There were many distinct
Pacific tribes of Indians, and each one hav-
ing perfect language as dissimilar from the
others as the English is from the Hebrew.
In Alaska there were $50, 900 square miles
equal to one-fifth of the United States, hav
ing an Indian population of 10000. He es-
tablished the first mission in the southern
portion in 1879 but it was afterwards aban
doned, yet there were Indians there yet who
held to the faith and prayed for its re-estab.
lishment.
Another obstacle was the
TEMPTATION TO INToXIoATIoN.
The pledge was administered to the convert
as well as the covenant of faith, and great
care had to be taken to guard him from
strong drink. The most horrid sight he ever
saw was whole village of these Indians
mace drunken by the wiles Of a trader who
brought canoe load of liquor to their island
and sold it to them.
Another obstacle met with was the super
stition of the pagan Indians who have an
idea of Supreme Being but invoke aid
from the sun, the moon and even the fishes
of the ocean and rivers, and in case of sick
ness make moR ridiculous and extravagant
yells and conditions, led on by their doctors
in incantations of the widest description.
These orgies the converted indian promised
to refrain from, but it was most difficult for
him to keep the promise so strong was the
superstition of gaining relief from pain
thereby.
The hardships Of the Catholic missionary
work were graphically delineated, where life
had to be trusted to frail canoes riding huge
waves of an ocean with sweep of 6,000
miles, sleeping in camps and often without
food or having to subsist on uncooked fish,
which is the main food in those lands.
Inland 500 miles in Alaska the missionary
was within twenty-five miles Of the Arctic
line, the ice of the rivers was eight feet
thick, and often times the thermometer 600
below zero.
THE METHOD OF TEACHING
the Indian by the Catholic ladder, illustrated
with engravings Of the tenets of the faith
and the songs or canticles Of the church, was
very succinctly narrated, the bishop closing
with a fervid plea for the despised, ignored
and prosecuted Indian, despoiled of his lands
by the white race, who owed him at least
portion Of the spiritual blessings they en-
joyed. 1t was to such people, race now
the ''least one of these" in the words Of our
Savior, we owed the charity of generous aims
If we would be remem bered by Jesus as hay
ing bestowed such ''even unto Him.
STREET SAYINGS.
nroninent vouuV society man of St