More examples from the literary genre "Skookum papers"

[David D Robertson]

In my understanding, "skookum papers" were 19th-century letters attesting to
the friendliness to Whites of a given Native person, apparently usually a
male Tlingit of high stature who in many cases had a collection of quite a
lot of these documents.  

The following book seems to suggest that this genre extended to house plaques:

Alaska: Its Southern Coast and the Sitkan Archipelago
By Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore
Published by D. Lothrop and Company, 1885
Original from the University of Virginia
Digitized Mar 31, 2008
333 pages

Pages 58-59 say:

"In the summer season Fort Wrangell is a peaceful,
quiet place ... The Indians begin to scatter
on their annual fishing trips in June, and come back
with their winter supplies of salmon in the early fall.
Many of the houses were locked or boarded up ... One absentee left this
notice on his front door : —

[page break]

LET NO ONE OPEN OR SHUT THIS
HOUSE DURING MY ABSENCE.
Over another locked door was this name and legend,
which combines a well-witnessed and legal testament,
together with the conventional door-plate of the
white man : —
ANATLASH.
Let all that read know that I
Am a friend to the whites. Let no
One molest this house. In case of my
Death it belongs to my wife.
Thus wrote Anatlash, a man of tall totems and
many blankets ; and stanzas in blank verse after the
same manner decorated the doorway of many Thlin-
ket abodes."

--Dave R.

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