Though all the Thlinkit tribes believe in witchcraft, they are less
superstitious in some respects than many of the lower classes of
whites. Chief Yana Taowk seemed to take pleasure in kicking the Sitka
bones that lay in his way, and neither old nor young showed the
slightest trace of superstitious fear of the dead at any time.
It was at the northmost of the Kupreanof Kake villages that Mr. Young
held his first missionary meeting, singing hymns, praying, and
preaching, and trying to learn the number of the inhabitants and
their readiness to receive instruction. Neither here nor in any of
the other villages of the different tribes that we visited was there
anything like a distinct refusal to receive school-teachers or
ministers. On the contrary, with but one or two exceptions, all with
apparent good faith declared their willingness to receive them, and
many seemed heartily delighted at the prospect of gaining light on
subjects so important and so dark to them. All had heard ere this of
the wonderful work of the Reverend Mr. Duncan at Metlakatla, and even
those chiefs who were not at all inclined to anything like piety were
yet anxious to procure schools and churches that their people should
not miss the temporal advantages of knowledge, which with their
natural shrewdness they were not slow to recognize. "We are all
children," they said, "groping in the dark. Give us this light and we
will do as you bid us."
The chief of the first Kupreanof Kake village we came to was a
venerable-looking man, perhaps seventy years old, with massive head
and strongly marked features, a bold Roman nose, deep, tranquil eyes,
shaggy eyebrows, a strong face set in a halo of long gray hair. He
seemed delighted at the prospect of receiving a teacher for his
people. "This is just what I want," he said. "I am ready to bid him
welcome."
"This," said Yana Taowk, chief of the larger north village, "is a
good word you bring us. We will be glad to come out of our darkness
into your light. You Boston men must be favorites of the Great
Father. You know all about God, and ships and guns and the growing of
things to eat. We will sit quiet and listen to the words of any
teacher you send us."
While Mr. Young was preaching, some of the congregation smoked,
talked to each other, and answered the shouts of their companions
outside, greatly to the disgust of Toyatte and Kadachan, who regarded
the Kakes as mannerless barbarians. A little girl, frightened at the
strange exercises, began to cry and was turned out of doors. She
cried in a strange, low, wild tone, quite unlike the screech crying
of the children of civilization.
The following morning we crossed Prince Frederick Sound to the west
coast of Admiralty Island.
