The Native Races (Vol. 1-5). Hubert Howe Bancroft
of the Thlinkeet lip-ornament, to the wooden vessels of their own country, they applied to this nation the name Kaluga, whence the Kolosches of the Russians.
Holmberg carries their boundaries down to the Columbia River; and Wrangell perceives a likeness, real or imaginary, to the Aztecs.137 Indeed the differences between the Thlinkeets and the inhabitants of New Caledonia, Washington, and Oregon, are so slight that the whole might without impropriety be called one people. The Thlinkeets have, however, some peculiarities not found elsewhere; they are a nation distinct from the Tinneh upon their eastern border, and I therefore treat of them separately.
The three families of nations already considered, namely, the Eskimos, the Koniagas, and the Aleuts, are all designated by most writers as Eskimos. Some even include the Thlinkeets, notwithstanding their physical and philological differences, which, as well as their traditions, are as broadly marked as those of nations that these same ethnologists separate into distinct families. Nomadic nations, occupying lands by a precarious tenure, with ever-changing boundaries, engaged in perpetual hostilities with conterminous tribes that frequently annihilate or absorb an entire community, so graduate into one another that the dividing line is often with difficulty determined. Thus the Thlinkeets, now almost universally held to be North American Indians proper, and distinct from the Eskimos, possess, perhaps, as many affinities to their neighbors on the north, as to those upon the south and east. The conclusion is obvious. The native races of America, by their geographical position and the climatic influences which govern them, are of necessity to a certain degree similar; while a separation into isolated communities which are acted upon by local causes, results in national or tribal distinctions. Thus the human race in America, like the human race throughout the world, is uniform in its variety, and varied in its unity.
The Thlinkeet family, commencing at the north, comprises the Ugalenzes,138 on the shore of the continent between Mount St. Elias and Copper River; the Yakutats, of Bering Bay; the Chilkats, at Lynn Canal; the Hoodnids, at Cross Sound; the Hoodsinoos, of Chatham Strait; and, following down the coast and islands, the Takoos, the Auks, the Kakas, the Sitkas,139 the Stikines,140 and the Tungass. The Sitkas on Baranoff Island141 are the dominant tribe.
Descending from the north into more genial climes, the physical type changes, and the form assumes more graceful proportions. With the expansion of nature and a freer play of physical powers, the mind expands, native character becomes intensified, instinct keener, savage nature more savage, the nobler qualities become more noble; cruelty is more cruel, torture is elevated into an art, stoicism is cultivated,142 human sacrifice and human slavery begin, and the oppression and degradation of woman is systematized. "If an original American race is accepted," says Holmberg, "the Thlinkeets must be classed with them." They claim to have migrated from the interior of the continent, opposite Queen Charlotte Island.
The Ugalenzes spend their winters at a small bay east from Kadiak, and their summers near the mouth of Copper River, where they take fish in great quantities. Their country also abounds in beaver. The Chilkats make two annual trading excursions into the interior. The Tacully tribes, the Sicannis and Nehannes, with whom the Chilkats exchange European goods for furs, will allow no white man to ascend their streams.
THLINKEET PECULIARITIES.
Naturally, the Thlinkeets are a fine race; the men better formed than the boatmen of the north;143 the women modest, fair, and handsome;144 but the latter have gone far out of their way to spoil the handiwork of nature. Not content with daubing the head and body with filthy coloring mixtures; with adorning the neck with copper-wire collars, and the face with grotesque wooden masks; with scarring their limbs and breast with keen-edged instruments; with piercing the nose and ears, and filling the apertures with bones, shells, sticks, pieces of copper, nails, or attaching to them heavy pendants, which drag down the organs and pull the features out of place;145 they appear to have taxed their inventive powers to the utmost, and with a success unsurpassed by any nation in the world, to produce a model of hideous beauty.
THLINKEET LIP-ORNAMENT.
This success is achieved in their wooden lip-ornament, the crowning glory of the Thlinkeet matron, described by a multitude of eye-witnesses; and the ceremony of its introduction may be not inappropriately termed, the baptism of the block. At the age of puberty—some say during infancy or childhood—in the under lip of all free-born female Thlinkeets,146 a slit is made parallel with the mouth, and about half an inch below it.147 If the incision is made during infancy, it is only a small hole, into which a needle of copper, a bone, or a stick is inserted, the size being increased as the child grows. If the baptism is deferred until the period when the maiden merges into womanhood, the operation is necessarily upon a larger scale, and consequently more painful.148 When the incision is made, a copper wire, or a piece of shell or wood, is introduced, which keeps the wound open and the aperture extended; and by enlarging the object and keeping up a continuous but painful strain, an artificial opening in the face is made of the required dimensions. On attaining the age of maturity, this wire or other incumbrance is removed and a block of wood inserted. This block is oval or elliptical in shape, concaved or hollowed dish-like on the sides, and grooved like the wheel of a pulley on the edge in order to keep it in place.149 The dimensions of the block are from two to six inches in length, from one to four inches in width, and about half an inch thick round the edge, and highly polished.150 Old age has little terror in the eyes of a Thlinkeet belle, for larger lip-blocks are introduced as years advance, and each enlargement adds to the lady's social status, if not to her facial charms. When the block is withdrawn, the lip drops down upon the chin like a piece of leather, displaying the teeth, and presenting altogether a ghastly spectacle.151 This custom is evidently associated in their minds with womanly modesty, for when La Pérouse asked them to remove their block, some refused; those who complied manifesting the same embarrassment shown by a European woman who uncovers her bosom. The Yakutats alone of all the Thlinkeet nation have never adopted this fashion.
DRESS OF THE THLINKEETS.
Their dress, which is made from wolf, deer, bear, or other skin, extends from the shoulder to the knee, and consists of a mantle, or cape, with sleeves, which reaches down to the waist, and to which the women attach a skirt, or gown, and the men a belt and apron. A white blanket is made from the wool of the wild sheep, embroidered with figures, and fringed with furs, all of native work. This garment is most highly prized by the men. They wear it thrown over the shoulder so as to cover the whole body.
Vancouver thus describes the dress of a chief at Lynn Canal. His "external robe was a very fine large garment, that reached from his neck down to his heels, made of wool from the mountain sheep, neatly variegated with several colors, and edged and otherwise decorated with little tufts or frogs of woolen yarn, dyed of various colors. His head-dress was made of wood, much resembling in its shape a crown, adorned with bright copper and brass plates, from whence hung a number of tails or streamers, composed of wool and fur, wrought together, dyed of various colors, and each terminating in a whole ermine skin. The whole exhibited a magnificent appearance, and indicated a taste for dress and ornament that we had not supposed the natives of these regions