The Coconino weekly sun., 1894-01-25
INDIANS WHO GO WHALING.
The Makahs, of Washington, Make a Good
 Living Ont of the Sea.

The Makahs, of Washington, Make a Good l Living Ont of the Sea.
 The Makah tribe of Indians of Neah
 bay have been accustomed for years to
 cruise on the ocean twenty or thirty
 miles from Cape Flattery, boldly at
 tacking whales, fur seals and sea lions, catching halibut, the several varieties of cod, salmon and rock fish, all of
 which abound in great numbers about
 the cape. It was in 1862 that the gov ! ernment established reservation and agency at Neah bay under charge of Henry Webster. The Makahs are not an agricultural tribe They are en- tirely self-supporting, receiving only about four hundred dollars year from
 the government for educational pur-
 poses entirely. They derive all of their | subsistence from the ocean. They have been encouraged to procure larger class of vessels than the canoes of their ancestors, and they have been allowed to own and command vessels capable
 of making voyages to distant seas in
 pursuit of their vocation of sealing,
 whaling and fishing.
 In 1869 sealing schooners first com.
 menced to take these Indians with their
 canoes to the sealing grounds, and they thus acquired knowledge of the su- perior facility afforded by schooner for safety and comfort. It was not be- fore 1880 that any Indian had confi- i dence enough to purchase and sail a vessel of his own larger than ca noe. Gradually the Mallahs have , increased their business, and hav- ing been successful in their seal ing, they now own a fleet of ten fine schooners, varying in size from twenty-five to fifty tons each They
 start out in January, as soon as the seals begin to appear in the vicinity of
 Cape Flattery, and cruise south, follow ing the herds along the coast to the Columbia river, and returning with the seals as they slowly wend their way north to the Aleutian rookeries. From the Columbia river to Alaska the Makah natives know the coast ,and can navi- , gate their own schooners, but when i they go to Behring sea or to the Japan . coast they are compelled to take with them Caucasian navigator. The young men of the tribe are exceedingly
 bright. Most of them attend the even ing school, where they learn to read and write English. Recently some of
 them have been studying navigation, and it will not be long before they will be able to navigate their own vessels
 even in foreign waters. The earnings nf l,ar nF f-;I I,a l;,,fr aggregate over forty thousand dollars
 year.
 Under the present law, as laid down
 by the Behring sea tribunal in Paris
 recently, the Indians have considerable
 advantage over the white hunters Firearms are strictly prohibited in hunting seals, and this causes the h.
 dians to adopt their old custom of
 hunting with spears at which large
 number of tribe arc adopts Practical
 sealers claim that the Indians will fare
 much better than either the English or
 American sealers- Chicago Herald. Prof. Tyndall was one of the most
 charitable men in the world. So far as
 his rather small means allowed, he never let a case of distress go unre-
 lieved in whatever station of life; but
 he had horror of appearing in sub
 scription lists As he accompanied
 every gift with the anxious message,
 Don't say who it is" his generosity
 always passed unaclknowledged.
 James Gordon Bennett, of the New
 York Herald, has a yacht on the stocks
 which is expected to beat everything
 ahoat. He still clings to aquatic sports,