Native employees of sealing ships

[Scott Tyler]

Hi Terry,
My grand mother Cecelia Frank from Ehaitesat & Newchatlet (married name 
Smith and Sternbeck) said she had worked on sealing schooners.  According to 
my mother Cecelia had gone to the Bering Straights.  I am interested whether 
her name might have appeared on a schooner log as a worker.
I never did know if these schooners were owned by Americans or Canadians or 
if they were Native owned.

Neah Bay elders did talk of owning a number of schooners.  I was not aware 
of documentation about the number of Neah Bay owned schooners.  Tribal 
elders told me, the Indian owners of schooners were forced to give up their 
schooners in Neah Bay by the Indian Agent or a Washington State Agent who 
cited laws that, "Indians were not allowed to be skippers of these ships"
Makahs being a generally civil tribe accepted this situation and got rid of 
their schooners.  I have not seen documentation off these forced events. 
Makah were compliant
in giving up these ships, stopping whale hunting and put gabled rooves on 
their long house rafters or tore the long houses down and learned to raise 
carrots and potatoes which do grown in Neah Bay as directed by the federal 
government Indian agents.

Now a days, armed with good lawyers the tribes put up better struggles, 
created paper trails, and are less apt to do as told.

I do know many of the pictures taken by Curtis did use props, some wigs, and 
traditional clothing.

I did meet Charlie Jones of Pacheenaht, and met his wife, and step son John 
Thomas who worked with the Makah Language program.
Charlie did talk of a giant canoe that was made by Natives which was taken 
out on the sea and found difficult to control and was hauled ashore and
not used again.  He described it as a 'monster canoe'. He said there were 
pictures taken of this huge Nootkan style canoe.

Greetings Scott/ooshtaqi







----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Terry Glavin" <glavin at INTERCHANGE.UBC.CA>
To: <CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2007 2:28 PM
Subject: Re: Native employees of sealing ships


> Just a note to say native people were certainly not just employees on 
> sealing schooners.
>
> While aboriginal people appear to have made up the bulk of the labour 
> force in the Victoria-based fur-seal schooner fleet, the community of 
> Ditidaht, on Vancouver Island's southwest coast, owned three sealing 
> schooners. Specifically, they were owned by Charlie Chipps, Jimmie Nyetom 
> and Jim Nawassum. Up the central coast, Heiltsuk fisherman Fred Carpenter 
> built a sealing schooner at Bella Bella, costing him $4000, which was an 
> absolute fortunate in those days (sometime around 1900).
>
> The Makah people owned a fleet of 12 sealing schooners, three of which 
> were owned by Maquinna Jongie Claplanhoo, and Chestoqua Peterson owned the 
> 42-ton brig Columbia as well as his own trading post.
>
> About 20 years ago I was fortunate to have interviewed the sealer Charles 
> Queesto Jones of Pacheenaht, shortly before he died. He was 112. He had 
> great stories of the high-seas fur-seal industry. I've always thought it 
> astonishing how our views of west coast native life were coloured by such 
> images as those beautiful sepia-toned photographs Edward Curtis took of 
> Nuu-chah-nulth people barefoot in cedar capes weilding spears - years 
> after Nuu-chah-nulth people were already sailing their own high-seas 
> schooners in the Sea of Okhotsk, and wintering in Yokohama.
>
> Cheers,
>
> TG
>
>
>
>
> NOTE MY NEW E-ADDRESS: terry.glavin at gmail.com
> ALL UBC MAIL SEND TO: glavin at interchange.ubc.ca
> -----------------------------------------------
> Terry Glavin
>
> transmontanus.blogspot.com
> -----------------------------------------------
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "David Lewis" <coyotez at uoregon.edu>
> To: <CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
> Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2007 9:47 AM
> Subject: Re: Native employees of sealing ships
>
>
>> Thanks Dave. I will look up the source. I have family that were whalers 
>> and sealers in the BC-Alaska region.
>> David G Lewis, MA PhD ABD
>> Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon
>> Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde
>>
>> On Fri, 6 Apr 2007 18:50:19 -0400, Dave Robertson <ddr11 at UVIC.CA> wrote:
>>> Only slightly off topic, but definitely of interest to some of the list
>>> members: One interesting source of information on Native people's work
>>> aboard sealing ships is "Reminiscences of the West Coast of Vancouver
>>> Island" by Rev. Chas. Moser, OSB (Kakawis, BC, 1926).
>>>
>>> Page 112, for example, tells about Nuuchahnulth men's work on Be(h)ring 
>>> Sea
>>> sealers circa 1884.
>>>
>>> There's also information in the book about Mr. Guillod, the Indian agent
>>> who we know recorded a vocabulary of Chinook.  Also sociolinguistic 
>>> hints,
>>> like people talking broken English, interactions with Chinese 
>>> immigrants,
>>> and so on.  I also notice at least one Chinook Jargon name, "Tom-Sik
>>> Lepieds" [sic] (Tom Lame), on page 69.
>>>
>>> --Dave R
>>>
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>>
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>
> To respond to the CHINOOK list, click 'REPLY ALL'.  To respond privately 
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> 

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