Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-08-26
WITH THE ESKIM0S
The Overland Expedition to Relieve
Ice-Bound Whalers.
CUSTOMS OF ALASKAN NATIVES
interesting Information Cleaned by
Revenue Marine Officers.
MAKING MOONSHINE WHISKY


Lieuts. Jarvis and Bertholf of the reve-
nue. cutter Bear, who nearly two years
ago conducted the overland expedition for
| the relief of ice-bound whalers at Point
Barrow, give many stories of Eskimo peo-
pie and their habits in the official account
rendered to the Treasury Department and
recently published.
Natives Making MoOnshfne whisky.
While stationed at Point Hope Lieut..
Bertholf did all he could to break up Illicit
distillfng among the natives. They had
learned to make and love liquor from white
traders. The whisky Is made from flour
and molasses. The general practice is to
mix together one part each of -four and mo-
lasses with four parts Of water, and then
let the mixture stand for several days in q
warm atmosphere until it is fermented.
The distilling apparatus consists of a five
gallon coal Oil tin, an old gun barrel and
wooden tub The fermented mash is put
in the coal oil tin. and the gun barrel which
serves as the coil, leads from this tin
through the tub. which is kept filed with
cracked ice. A fire is then built under the
tin, and as the vapor rises from the heated
mash 1t Is condensed in the gun barrel by
the Ice in the tub, and the liquor comes out
at the end of the gun barrel drop by drop
and Is caught in tin cup wooden bowl,
While the distillation is in process the-na-
tlves who have an interest in it, by virtue
of having furnished the flour or molasses
or the still, sit around and patiently wait
Tor a sufficient quantity of spirits to drop
from the gun barrel to allow them a drink
The process is necessarily slow, and it takes
long time to obtain half pint of the
liquor, but the whisky makes IN in
strength what it lacks in quantity and if
does not take much of it to make drunk
come 10 several natives. which being the
op1ect FOR which the stuff was brewed the
result is highly satisfactory from native
standpoint.
An Eskimo Debauch.
In these debauches there is no discrimin-
alton made on account of sex, the women
being entitled to and obtaining their share
as Well as the men. The natives being as
rule good natured, the liquor generally
has the effect of making them hilarious and
voluble, and they make a great deal of
noise shouting and singing but they are
not usually vicious when intoxicated. OF
course, when a bad-tempered native gets
drunk he becomes very bad, and there is
likely to be a cutting or shooting ARRAY
but this Is not often the case, and the bad
result of whisky making and drinking
comes from the fact that the life of the
average Eskimo family is one continual
struggle for enough to eat and enough to
wear. and when the elder members OF a
family keep on Il drunken debauch for sew
eral days the children sicken for lack of
rourishment and die. often in the fall
whole villages have been known TO engage
in a drunken carouSal for weeks at a time
and as they thus neglect to lay in enough
fish and game for the winters supply
many of them perish from starvation before
the game again becomes plentiful in the
spring.
The interior natives 90 not suffer so seri-
ously from the whisky habit as their broth
ers of the coast, probably from the fact that
Hour and molasses are harder for them to
get, and when they come to the coast in
the summer to trade with the ships If they
do brew the liquor, they use up their flour
while on the coast that when they re-
turn to their villages they have nothing
with which to make the liquor, and are thus
not rendered Incapable of hun. sing the deer
during the winter months.
Lieut.. Berthof says: "Although 7 de-
stroyed in all about twenty stills during the
winter, there remain. believe many other
stills in this vicinity which l have been
unable to discover, but even if they were
all destroyed the natives could easily make
more and L am convinced that this Illicit
distflling cannot be stopped unless the
whites are prevented from trading mo-
lasSes and sugar to the natives or these
articles are diluted with something that
will prevent fermentation While at Point
Hope mixed up two masheS after the ma
tive formula, putting in each little yeast
to aid fermentation, and in one of the mix
lures l put about teasponful of seal OIL
After allowing the mixtures to remain in
a warm place for several days, / found the
one having the seal oil in it had not fer
mented at all, while the other was fully
fermented, and as a result of this expert
ment l recommended to the white traders
at Point Hope to dilute their molasses with
a little seal oil before trading it to the
natives. but whether or not they will do so
is hard to say.
Some of the older natives, having seen
the effect of whisky. and realizing it is
rapidly reducing the numbers of their peo-
n ctr tic for
younger and more thoughtless ones but
with poor success"
The Eskimo's Religion
big medicine men, practice their arts
among the natives and own them body and
soul. AS to the Eskmos belief in fu-
ture state there is little known. Their
customs sometimes lead one to think they
expect to return to earth after death, as
the following incident will ILLUSTRATED A
Point Hope woman died before giving birth
to her child. Three days afterward three
or four old women, armed with their flint
knives, repaired to the place of burial re-
moved the body of the child and buried it.
Being asked why they did this they an
swered that if woman died under the
above circumstances she could not return
to the earth again after death. They have
no conception of the Deity, their one fear
being the devils power and the one great
thought and desire Is to appease the wrath
of his satanic majesty If this fails then
they resort to means to brighten him.
The Eskimo has no marriage ceremony.
The childrens future is arranged by the
parents, and there is usually much happi-
ness. The girl joins her husband at four
teen or fifteen years of age. Sometimes, If
the wife is sulky and disobedient, the hus-
band administers to her a sound thrashing
which often. instead of improving matters,
causes her to run away, never to return.
This seldom occurs, however, for the
man is too valuable part of the Eskimos
household to receive any other than the
best Of treatment. She has a voice in all
the home councils, and no trading or dis
position of goods takes place without her
wishes having been consulted.
Polygamy is not common, though If
man is influential and well to do he may
take an extra wife, who is subject to the
whims and control of his first choice,
which latter always remains the ruling
queen of the establishment and the mother
of his children. The Eskimo is quite gem
erous in his domestic relations. For IN
stance If his brothers wife dies he will
ingly consents to division of his own
household, and presents his brother with
one of his wives. Again, II a man wishes