Native employees of sealing ships

[Terry Glavin]

Hi Duane.

That is the very photo indeed!

And thanks for the great story behind it. I didn't know that. Hilarious, 
too.

Cheers,

T

NOTE MY NEW E-ADDRESS: terry.glavin at gmail.com
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-----------------------------------------------
Terry Glavin

 transmontanus.blogspot.com
-----------------------------------------------
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Duane Pasco" <dpasco at EARTHLINK.NET>
To: <CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 8:43 PM
Subject: Re: Native employees of sealing ships


> 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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>>>>>
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>>>>
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>>>
>>> To respond to the CHINOOK list, click 'REPLY ALL'.  To respond 
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>>
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>
> To respond to the CHINOOK list, click 'REPLY ALL'.  To respond privately 
> to the sender of a message, click 'REPLY'.  Hayu masi! 

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