Native employees of sealing ships

[John Lutz]

Thanks Duane for the story behind that much-reproduced picture. I think 
it is on the cover of one of the Sound Heritage volumes produced by the 
BC Archives many years ago.

Many of you will know this: Franz Boas recorded Chinook Jargon songs in 
Victoria in the late 1880s and published some of them. One of them was a 
song composed by Nuu cha nulth sealer left behind by a sealing schooner 
in Alaska, as recorded by Boas:

Haiias lēlē naika sick tumtum
A long time I felt unhappy

Pe okok sun elip haias k’al
But today is the hardest day,

Kada Entelplaize yaqka leave naika.
For the [ship] Enterprise has left me.

Franz Boas, “Chinook Songs”,
Journal of American Folklore, 1 (April 1888) 220-6.

I have been working on a book on aboriginal wage labour and these are 
two paragraphs from that manuscript which summarize the involvement of 
native people in the sealing industry (and mention Terry's friend 
Charles Jones):

"The first of the pelagic vessels took on an Aboriginal crew in 1866 and 
by 1891 the industry was well underway when 286 Indians were listed by 
the Fisheries Department as crew on sealing boats and the federal census 
(conducted by the Indian agent) showed 40 percent of Nuu-chah-nulth men 
claimed sealing as their main occupation. At its peak, in 1896, 889 
Aboriginal People participated in the sealing fleet, the majority drawn 
from the Nuu-chah-nulth population of the West Coast Indian Agency, 
whose population, men, women and children, was estimated that year at 
2,800. From 1860s to the mid 1883 aboriginal hunters were the only 
sealing labour. Non-aboriginal sealers began to be taken on in 1884 and 
for a short interval, 1890-94 they comprised the majority. From the 
mid-1890s onward a ban on shooting seals meant that aboriginal hunters 
using spears, again comprised the majority of the seal hunters, their 
percentage, fluctuating between 51 and 73 percent of the total sealing 
work force.

Charley Nowell and Charles Jones were among the Aboriginal People who 
worked on the sealing schooners and who left a record of their 
experience. Sealing was a lucrative occupation while it lasted, though 
the level of income for any one hunter was highly variable from year to 
year. Charley Jones recalls sealers earning $1,000 in a good year and 
Alex Amos' father used to come home with $700; and in 1892, one of the 
best years, sealers from Ahousat earned an average of $1,200 each. Other 
sealers made between $200 and $600 that year, while those who were on 
schooners seized by American authorities only took home $40 to $60 for 
the season. The routine statistics generated by the Department of 
Fisheries give a better indication of the average sealing income. These 
suggest an 1892 average income for all hunters, white and Aboriginal, 
was closer to $94. However, after 1900, when comparable figures from the 
Department of Indian Affairs become available, they show that aboriginal 
hunters earned twice the income of all seal hunters taken together."

Another source for the sealing industry records the use of CJ:

“[Captain Cox} hunted out ‘Old Jim’, who had been the headman or tyee of 
the crew the previous cruise. Jim was pleased to see him and, of course, 
to receive the cultus potlatch, or gift, that he gave him. But when it 
came to the matter of hunters for the year, the old man shook his head, 
and in Chinook told the captain there would be no hunters.... ‘The 
people are afraid of the Bostonman’s skookum-house. Some of those who 
were put in the skookum-house from other villages did not return.”’

[Ahousat sealers refusing to work owing to threat of seizures in the 
Bering Sea by American patrol vessels.]

Bruce Mckelvie, Add Mss 115 Box 3 file 2
“Saga of Sealing” Written by B.A. McKelvie
from the Recollections of Captain Ernst F. Jordan.

John


Duane Pasco wrote:
> 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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-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

John Lutz
History Department
University of Victoria
PO 3045 Victoria, B.C
Canada
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