Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1894-08-18
INDIAN SEAL HUNTERS.
with Primitive Implements They Often
 Do Better Than the White Men.


 Nearly all of the crack seal hunters of the Makah Indians are commonly known as Neah Bay Indians.
 The Indians go out upon the chase without guns and ammunition, relying on their prowess as spearsmen for their success in catching the game. The schoeners will carry the regulation sealing flag, something new in the line of bunting, at the mast head. The flag is a square yellow and black, cut diagonal, and f1oated beneath the Stars and Stripes. It is to be not less than four feet square, and is made compul- sorry under the new regulations of the modus vivendi. The Indians will sign for the voyage before the United States Indian agent at Neah Bay. They go contendedly, knowing that anything he does for them is for the best. One third of the catch of the trip goes to the schooner and two-thirds to the hunters, and each canoe will give so many skins to pay for the provisions they use.
 The Indian seal spears are curious implement of the chase. They can not be better described to those who have ever seen the salmon spear than by saying they look just like such weapon, only built much stronger and heavier Long fir sticks without any knots are trimmed down and rounded by the Indians themselves, and forms the arrow of the spear. At the lighter or feather end the Indians fasten very fattened sand curiously cut shingle- like piece of wood, which holds the spear plumb in it's swift passage through the air. The spear end of the long arrow is branched by firmly bind ing two light but hard wood sticks to the longer stick at an angle that leaves the two ends about seven or eight inches apart. One of these prongs is cut about ten inches or foot shorter than the other, and when ready to be thrown forth they are armed with the sharp steel spearhead. If in throw ing the longer one misses the mark, the next may prove better and find resting place in the flesh of the seal. The steel spears are made of a common file ground down and into shape by the Indians themselves. The barb is made by filing out piece after the file has been ground down to the sharpness of a knife blade. It gets it's proper position by inclining the process of fling so that it extends toward the sharp point.
 Fastened to the dull end of the steel spear are q couple of pieces of elk horn divided into halves and so bound to the steel that socket is left between the two, into which the end of the spear prong is stuck when it is to be thrown. The steel spear is attached to the long wooden handle by a string of elk sin ews about one and one-half yards long and carefully wrapped in small silk thread. As soon as a seal is struck by one of the spearsmen the long arrow comes out of the socket and the steel barb holds firmly like hook in sal mons mouth. The elk sinews. how ever, form q. connection with the han dle which in turn is attached to the hunting canoe by means of long cord. which is made too strong to be broken by a seal Houndering from the end of it. If pains were not taken to have the barb free from the handle the seal in it's fiounderings would snap it off instantly All the hardwood prongs of the spears brought in recent ly by the Willapa have been bitte and scared in dozens of places by luck less and frantic seals in their struggles to get away.
 One peculiarity in the construction of the seal spear is the manner of binding the two hardwood prongs into the longer stick. This is done by wrapping very light strips of bark of a species of vegetation well known to the Indians, but hard to acquire by the whites It is a very tough fiber, and the strips are so thin that they scarcely increase the visible size of the sticks around which they are bound. The white men ire quently pay the Indians big prices for this bark, which is secured about Neah Bay. The whole spear is painted dull red by the Indians in their crude way, and with mixtures they make them selves from the native extracts of the forest. When properly fixed for throwing the spear readily bal ances in the hand and Capt. Irving says the hunters will throw it with accuracy a distance of six or eight fathoms. In the main less distances are preferred by the hunters, who stand up in the bows of their light cedar ca- noes, while the oarsmen squat rigidly hN the stern and paddle along over the swells as silently as if they were tramping barefooted on the trail of an elk in the mountains.
 The hunting canoes are no less an object of interest than are the spears or the spearsmen. They look as if they would not live a moment in any kind of sea, but in the dexterous hands of the natives they are perfectly safe. The oarsman has his eyes about him as we'll as the hunter. While one Is looking for seal the other carefully scans the sea for swells, and he seldom fails to be ready for one when it comes upon his frail craft. He takes the swell In an oblique course, never meeting it stem on, nor does he ever allow his boat to be caught parallel with the swells in the trough between them. Meeting the swell obliquely, the canoe rises like gull over the crest and down on the other side, and in this way will pass over swells that would capsize an ordi- nary ships boat.-Seattle Telegraph.
 Household Economy.
 Have you taken up your carpets this