S. Hall Young [ca. 1919], "Adventures in Alaska"

[Scott Tyler]

This makes for some interesting and fun reading.
I like the mixture of English and WaWa
Scott
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Robertson" <ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU>
To: <CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 2:26 PM
Subject: S. Hall Young [ca. 1919], "Adventures in Alaska"


> [Here is a long excerpt--sorry--from a book I found online at
>
> <http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?intldl/mtftext:@field(DOCID+@lit
> (mtfgc08998_111)):>
>
> This is supposedly based on actual travels in Alaska with John Muir.  ---
> Dave R]
>
>
> Adventures in Alaska,
> Chapter 5: Louie Paul and the Hootz
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> Go to: Next Section || Previous Section || Table of Contents
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> Page 100
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> V
> LOUIE PAUL AND THE HOOTZ
> " 0 H, 'e's bad feller, dat hootz," ex-
> claimed Louie Paul, our half-
> breed Stickeen young man, the blood of his French father sparkling in his
> eyes and gesturing in his hands and shoulders. "'F's devil, 'im. Dat's no
> sweardat's truf. Bad spirit got him, sure. Quonsum sallix (Always mad). 'E
> no savvy scare, no savvy love, no savvy die. 'E's devil, dat's all."
> Louie's handsome face and coal-black eyes were alive with excitement, as 
> he
> danced about his big bundle of tseek (black bear) skins, which he had just
> brought into Stevens' store at Fort Wrangell, and was unwrapping,
> preparatory to bartering. His outburst of language was called out by a
> question of mine. I had been noticing with surprise that among the great
> numbers of black bear skins that were being brought into the Wrangell
> stores daily by the In-
> zoo
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> {page image}
> Fort Wrangell, Alaska, on Etolin Harbor
> To the left may be seen the first Protestant Church in Alaska, built by 
> Dr.
> Young, 1879
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> Page 101
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> LOUIE PAUL AND THE HOOTZ 101
> dians, were none of the big brown bear the hootz. I knew these brown bears
> to be very plentiful up the Stickeen and Iskoot Rivers where Louie had 
> been
> hunting. At this season (it was in early May) both species of bears, 
> having
> wakened from their long winter's sleep, were roaming the banks of the
> streams restlessly day and night, making up in their fierce activity for
> their six months of torpor. Their coats were at their best long, silky,
> glistening, thick and soft. The skins of the black bear Louie had brought
> were prime. They were more than black. Their ebony surfaces shone and
> sparkled, beneath our handling, like black diamonds.
> I knew that the skins of the hootz would be equally beautiful and twice as
> large as those of the tseek. They would not be tawny at this season, but a
> rich, velvety brown, the color of the Irish setter's coat. In my canoe
> trips and steamboat voyages up the Stickeen I had seen more brown bears
> than black, standing boldly out on the bank to watch the sputtering
> steamboat, or grubbing for roots and worms in the green patches up the
> mountain slopes.
> " Why don't you shoot the big bears? " I
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> 102 ADVENTURES IN ALASKA
> asked-Louie. " I saw four in a bunch the other day. Don't you see any in
> your hunting trips? "
> " Oh, yes," he confessed, " me plenty see hootz. All time me see heem.
> Yestaday me see tree big fellers; stand up, all same man."
> " What's the matter, then? " I pressed him. "Are you afraid of them?"
> " Yes, you bet you boots, I scare of heem. I no shame scare about hootz.
> S'pose I big fool, I no scare; I shoot heem. You never see me again no
> mo'."
> Louie Paul had two claims to special distinction. First, he was a very
> expert and successful bear hunter; and, second, he was the husband of the
> star pupil of Mrs. Mc-Farland's Home for Girls, Tilly, the handsomest and
> brightest of the girls whom we had rescued from the vileness, squalor and
> sin of heathen life, and were training to be examples and teachers of
> Christian civilization to their tribe.
> I had taken Louie and Tilly the preceding fall and established them at
> Tongas, one hundred miles south of Wrangell, outfitting Tilly with school
> books, Biblest Sunday-school supplies, etc., and paying her a salary
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> LOUIE PAUL AND THE HOOTZ 103
> as teacher to that wild tribe. Louie's task was to keep up the fires for
> the school, and to cook for his wife and supply her needs. He had stayed 
> at
> home faithfully during the winter, procuring the venison, ducks, geese,
> fish, clams, crabs, and other articles of food they needed, and making
> himself useful around the branch mission, even occasionally leading in
> prayer, and exhorting the people. But the trapper's " call of the wild "
> sounded in the early spring a call he could not resist. So here he was,
> having left Tilly to cook her own meals and make her own fires, while he
> explored the streams, bayous and lakes in his small canoe, pursuing the
> elusive plantigrades.
> The natives of Alaska at that time were handicapped in their hunting by an
> order of the Government which forbade the Indians to own or use breech-
> loading guns. This order was enforced among our peaceful Alaska natives,
> who had never had a serious trouble with the whites, while the Sioux,
> Apaches and Nez Perces, who were often on the war-path, had all the
> Winchester, Henry and Enfield rifles they wanted.
> The natives of Alaska at that time the early eighties had only breech-
> loading,
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> 104 ADVENTURES IN ALASKA
> smooth-bore Hudson Bay muskets; and their round bullets had not much
> penetrating power. They were all right for deer, but you might fill a 
> hootz
> full of those big, round balls and he would still have strength to tear 
> you
> to pieces.
> " The more you pester them big bear with them old-fashioned smooth-bores,"
> said one of the old white hunters at Fort Wrangell, " the madder he gits."
> Louie Paul looked so much more like a white man than like an Indian, and
> talked English so fluently, that I had persuaded the collector of customs
> the only civil officer we had in that region to permit me to lend Louie my
> new 45 75 Winchester repeating rifle. The repeater was a hard-shooting,
> accurate gun, chambering twelve cartridges in the magazine the most
> efficient rifle made at that time. Louie was a fine shot, and the
> possession of this rifle gave him a great superiority over all the other
> Indian bear-hunters. He made more money in his three or four weeks of
> hunting in the spring than Tilly earned by her winter's teaching.
> " I should think you would not be afraid of a brown bear when you have my
> Winchester," I urged. " You could put half a
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> LOUIE PAUL AND THE HOOTZ 105
> dozen balls clean through him before he could get to you."
> Louie shook his curly head doubtfully. "Mebby so; mebby not."
> Then his face lit up with a broad grin. " Mebby so I be lak Buck. You hear
> about Buck an' Kokaekish? "
> " No," I replied, scenting a story. " What about them? "
> I knew both these men. Kokaekish was a fine old Indian, the father of one
> of our best boys, whose Christian name was Louis Kellogg, but whose Indian
> name was Kokaek. The name, Kokaekish, means " Kokaek's Father,"
> illustrating the curious custom of the Thlingets of naming parents after
> their children.
> "Buck " was a French Canadian, Alex Choquette a white man who had married 
> a
> Stickeen woman and had been adopted into the tribe. He had seemingly 
> become
> in heart and life an Indian, talking the language of his tribe, thinking
> their thoughts and pursuing their customs. How thoroughly he had become
> Indianized was evidenced by the language of Shustaak the old heathen chief
> who had adopted Buck. " Wuck," he said, delate siwash. Yacka
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> 106 ADVENTURES IN ALASKA
> tolo konaway nesika kopa klemenhoot." (Buck is a genuine Indian. He can
> beat all the rest of us lying.)
> True to this definition of him, Buck had built his log house a combined
> dwelling-house, hotel and store thirty miles up the Stickeen River,
> opposite the Great Glacier, right on the boundary line between Alaska and
> British Columbia. Here he sold blankets, guns, groceries and whiskey to 
> the
> white miners and to the Indians. When the Canadian authorities attempted 
> to
> arrest him for his illicit traffic he claimed to be on the American side.
> When the Alaska custom officers went after him, he was a Canadian. Thus 
> for
> years he had carried on his crooked business and escaped punishment.
> " You know Buck," Louie began, " he worse siwash dan anybody; but he 
> ailtam
> make fun odder Injun. One day Kokaekish come Buck store, buy powder.
> " ` Where you come? ' Buck say.
> Iskoot,' say Kokaekish, ` make dry dog salmon. Now too many hootz, me come
> back.'
> "Buck laugh. `Eehya-a-ah ! You shawattoo (woman-heart) ; you coward ! What
> for
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> LOUIE PAUL AND THE HOOTZ 107
> you 'fraid hootz? S'pose me, I shootem all.' Buck much laugh.
> "Kokaekish, he shame. He head hang down, so. Buck more laugh. Bimeby
> Kokaekish say, ` Buck, you strong heart. You want killem hootz?'
> " Buck big bluff. ` Sure,' he say. ` You show me hootz, me shootem quick.'
> " `All light, come along. Me showem you hootz now.' Kokaekish go he canoe.
> " Buck shame for back out. He get Winchester, all same you rifle. ` Where
> you go?'
> " ` No far. Ict tintin, nesika clap.' (One hour, we find.)
> " Dey go up Iskoot, mebby tree mile. Fin' leetle stream. Plenty humpback
> an' dog salmon dere. Flap, flap, splash in shallow place. All roun' de
> grass all flat plenty tail, fin, bone. Buck look. He scare, but shame go
> back. Leetle hill dere by de creek. Plenty bush. Kokaekish an' Buck go up;
> sit down ; wait. Pitty soon sitkum polakly (half night twilight), 
> Kokaekish
> ketch Buck arm. Whisper, ` Hootz come.'
> "Buck look. Bear all same house delate hya-a-as! (very big), come down
> creek. Swing slow an' lazy. Go in water;
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> 108 ADVENTURES IN ALASKA
> slap out big salmon on bank pitty near two man; go an' eatem.
> "Kokaekish whisper, ` Why you no shootem, Buck? You brave man! You much
> want killem hootz. Shootem quick ! '
> " Buck scare stiff. ` Sh-sh-sh ! you of fool!' he say. He toof clap all
> same medicine-man rattle; water come out on he face; he shake like
> cottonwood leaf.
> " Kokaekish laugh. ` More hootz come,' he say. Nodder big bear come; 
> growl,
> gr-r-r! go fishin'. Den she-bear an' two leetle feller come. Mamma ketch
> salmon; leetle bear play; run up-hill mos' on top man. Nodder bear come.
> Six Hootz; ketch salmon; scrap; one chase nodder; play.
> "Buck not quite die. He lie flat down. He's finger count he's bead; he 
> play
> Maly; he shake.
> " Kokaekish much laugh. He rub it in. ` You brave man, Buck. You white man
> no scare nuttin'. You want see hootz. Me fin' heem. Why you no shootem?'
> " Bimeby delate polakly (quite dark). All hootz go leetle way up creek.
> Kokaekish shake Buck. ` Mebby so, you no want more hootz, we go now.' Dey
> walk han' an' foot all same dog. Buck fo'get he's
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> LOUIE PAUL AND THE HOOTZ 109
> rifle. Dey fin' canoe ; paddle quick Buck house.
> " Now all Injun put shame on Buck face. ` Hey, Buck, you want shootem
> hootz? You white man; you brave; no scare nuttin'. How many hootz you
> kill?' Buck delate shame. Mos' keel hese'f. Mebby so, I lak dat."
> " No, Louie," I replied when we had done laughing, "you are not like Buck.
> You would keep your nerve, and at least account for some of the brown
> bears."
> " Well," he ventured doubtfully, " dis Winshesser mighty fine gun. I t'ink
> I try hootz nex' tam."
> A week afterwards Louie came to my house in great excitement. He knocked
> repeatedly before I could get to the door.
> " Mista Yuy," he almost shouted, " you come see my hootz skin. My firs'; 
> my
> las' too."
> I went with him to the store where several fine black bear skins were
> displayed to an admiring group of whites and natives. With them was an
> enormous brown bear skin, the largest I had ever seen. The fur was
> beautiful rich in color, thick and glossy; but it was bloody and badly
> mussed.
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> 110 ADVENTURES IN ALASKA
> Turning it over I saw that the skin was full of holes fairly riddled. I
> counted seventeen perforations. The larger and more ragged of the holes
> marked the exit of the balls that had ranged clear through the bear.
> " Why, Louie," I exclaimed, "what did you mean by spoiling this fine skin?
> It is like a sieve. You have taken away more than half its value by
> shooting it up like that."
> Louie danced about like a monkey head, hands, feet, his whole body
> gesturing, his voice rising higher and louder as he went on with his 
> story.
> "You lissen me! I see dis big feller Stan' up all same man. Open place; no
> big tree. Maybe hunner ya'd. I say me, ` Louie, you betta draw good bead
> dis tam. You shoot heem straight troo de heart, keel heem dead fust shot.'
> " I shoot; he fall down. Klosh tumtum (good heart), me. I put de gun on
> shoul'er. Den I look. I 'stonish. De hootz, he git up queek; he come
> straight fo' me. I shoot queek; he fall down; he git up; he come for me. I
> shoot; I shoot; I shoot; he fall down; he fall down; he git up; he came 
> for
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> LOUIE PAUL AND THE HOOTZ 111
> me. You betcha boots I hit heem ev'y tam. I scare to miss. I forgit how
> many catridge. I shoot; I shoot; I say, ` Dat's de las'; now he git me;
> dat's de las'; now he git me.'
> " I git awful scare. I t'ink, ` Tilly widow now fo' sure. Nobody git wood
> fo' her no mo'.' Dat bear git close right here! He jus' goin' grab me. I
> mos' fall down; I so scare. I try once mo'. I put my gun agains' he's 
> head.
> I shoot; he fall down; he don' git up no mo'. My las' catridge. I put ten
> ball t'rough heem. No-mo'-hootz-
> f o'-me! "
>
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