The National tribune., 1894-04-05

| flies are so thick that it is almost impossible
to put the fish up in good shape, and the In
| dians take no great pains to do so. The pelts
| are used for bedding and clothing and many
of the moose-skins find their way down by the
| Simpsean Indians to Victoria, where they are
manufactured into mOccasins.
While the men are bringing down the larger
| game, the women at the camp and the old men
at the villages are snaring squirrels and ground
hogs, catching trout, and drying roots. The
vegetable diet of these Indians is more varied
and abundant than one unacQuainted with the
country would expect to find in Alaska. Wild
onions of good quality are plentiful. and among
carrot. kind of wild rhubarb is abundant
and the bark from the young black birch and
that from kind of hemlock are also used.
These supplies are cached in the same man.
ner as the fish if the Indians are in timber
country; if not, they build a cache from poles
set in circle, and their tops drawn together
and firmly bound with rope of twisted will
low. More poles are laid on until there are
several layers of them, then the earth is thrown
up around them on the outside, and the meat
IS safe until the hunter comes for it in Winter.
A family may have several of these catches
of meat as they build them wherever they
find any quantity of game. There are great
numbers of rabbits, which can be caught at
all seasons. There is very little suffering from
comfortable clothing of furs and skins.
When Winter comes and the hunting season
begins the Indian hunters busy themselves
hunting the valuable fur-bearing animals. The
flesh of these, with the supply of dried meats
and roots, keep them in food until the Winter
is over and they go to their trading and fishing
grounds again.
The return of the hunters to the villages is
season of rejoicing, and their coming is sig-
nailed when many miles away. The method
of signaling is my fires built on prominent
hills. AS soon az party of returning hunters
halt for the night two or three of the young
bucks start to climb the nearest hill. There is
abundant dead timber still standing, and they
select the tall hackmatsek tree, place bunch
of lighted moss or twigs at its base and it takes
fire almost instantly, and huge column of
flame shoots up to the heavens announcing
their coming. Fire answers fire, aud for many
miles up and down these great valleys hunters
signal to hunters. and, guided by these, one
party joins another on the return until they
enter the village together.
Some of these valleys contain acres upon
acres covered with thick growths of grease
wood, which grows to the hight of seven or
eight feet, while in Arizona it is rarely found
four feet tall. Everywhere throughout the
timber sections of the Stick country are to be
found traces of forest fires, huge blackened
stumps alone marking where heavy growths
of timber have stood.
They have many curious customs, one of
which is leaving the bodies of those dying
when upon the hunt or on the march just
where they fall, never much as changing
the clothing or wrapping them up, while those
dying in the villages are always burned. The
bodies of those dying in the woods are some-
times burned after they have been picked clean
by the wild animals and bleached by the ee-
ments.
These Indian villages never contain much
property, neither food, clothing nor blankets;
bat the people have them all cached in various
places for better security.