Native employees of sealing ships

[Duane Pasco]

Terry........
	You don't know me. I usually don't reply to these things, but I  
couldn't let this one go sans comment.
	I believe the canoe mentioned is one that was actually carved at Clo- 
oose, an abandoned Nitinat village just south of the entrance to  
Nitinat lake [actually a fourteen mile long fjord.]
	There are a couple of photos of it that appear in various  
publications. The captions usually say something like " Canoe carved  
by the Natives from Nitinat and that the waters in the area were too  
turbulant for the crew to handle it and it was discarded".
	The canoe which was about sixty feet long with an approximate beam  
of eight feet was commissioned by some Non-Natives with the idea of  
starting a freight business from Victoria and up the west coast of  
vancouver Island. A couple of carvers from Nitinat village carved  
every day on it, camping at the site and returning home for the week- 
end. I'm not sure wether the white guys worked on it, or not. When it  
was completed and turned over to the clients, they couldn't handle it  
and so they discarded it as a loss. There are some White men in the  
photos and one might assume that they were the ones who commissioned  
it and may have helped in it's construction. At any rate the Nitinat  
tribe were able to handle it just fine and I was told by people at  
Nitinat that it was used for years and made many trips to Neah Bay  
for potlatches.
	There is a "Tashtai", or dinner song sung by members of Nitinat that  
pokes fun at the carvers of the village that worked on the canoe.  
Part of the words translate as something like "What are you doing?  
What are you making? and "What's with the White guys?"
	One of the photos has been used by other tribes such as Suquamish's   
museum, claiming it to be one of their ancient vessels.
	I've made a lot of canoes and would truly loved to have seen that on  
in the flesh.
	Duane Pasco

On Apr 24, 2007, at 7:30 PM, Terry Glavin wrote:

> Hi Scott.
>
> Great to talk to someone else who remembers the great Charles  
> Queesto Jones.
>
> I have a photograph of what must be that "monster canoe" around  
> someplace. And indeed it was a monster. It was the size of the hull  
> of a small schooner; the photo I've seen depicts some men standing  
> in it while it's on it's side and they look like dwarfs. I'll see  
> if I can fine it - I expect it is in the on-line photo archives of  
> the B.C. Archives and Records Service but it might take a while to  
> find. As I recall, the caption had the word "Nitinat Lake" in it.
>
> ". . . 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."
>
> This is almost certainly a recollection of the Fur Seal Treaty of  
> 1911. It scuppered the Victoria fleet, and as I recall, on this  
> side of the line, aboriginal and non-aboriginal skippers were  
> compensated. I seem to recall having come across the record of Fred  
> Carpenter's schooner in his compensation claim.
>
> 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: "Scott Tyler"  
> <s.tylermd at COMCAST.NET>
> To: <CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 6:42 PM
> Subject: Re: Native employees of sealing ships
>
>
>> 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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