Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin

⃠Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin

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by Mary F. Nixon-Roulet This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin
Author: Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
Release Date: November 24, 2003 [EBook #10224]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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KALITAN
Our Little Alaskan Cousin
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
_Author of "Our Little Spanish Cousin", "With a pessimist in Spain," "God, the King, My Brother," etc._
1907

Illustrated
TO MY LITTLE SON John Nixon de Roulet

Preface
Away up toward the frozen north lies the great peninsula, which the United States bought from the Russians, and thus became responsible for the native peoples from whom the Russians had taken the land.
There are many kinds of people there, from Indians to Esquimos, and they are under the American Government, yet they have no votes and are not called American citizens.
It is about this country and its people that this little story is written, and in the hope of interesting American girls and boys in these very strange people, their Little Alaskan Cousins.

Contents
I. KALITAN TENAS
II. AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE
III. TO THE GLACIER
IV. TED MEETS MR. BRUIN
V. A MONSTER OF THE DEEP
VI. THE ISLAND HOME OF KALITAN
VII. TWILIGHT TALES AND TOTEMS
VIII. THE BERRY DANCE IX. ON THE WAY TO NOME
X. IN THE GOLD COUNTRY
XI. AFTERNOON TEA IN AN EGLU
XII. THE SPLENDOUR OF SAGHALIE TYEE

List of Illustrations
"KALITAN FISHED DILIGENTLY BUT CAUGHT LITTLE"
"AWAY WENT ANOTHER STINGING LANCE"
"A GROUP OF PEOPLE AWAITING THE CANOES"
"MOUNT SHISHALDIN"
"'LET'S WATCH THOSE TWO MEN. THEY HAVE EVIDENTLY STAKED A CLAIM TOGETHER'"
"TWO FUNNY LITTLE LAPP BABIES HE TOOK TO RIDE ON A LARGE REINDEER"

KALITAN
Our Little Alaskan Cousin

CHAPTER I
KALITAN TENAS
It was bitterly cold. Kalitan Tenas felt it more than he had in the long winter, for then it was still and calm as night, and now the wind was blowing straight in from the sea, and the river was frozen tight. A month before, the ice had begun to break and he had thought the cold was over, and that the all too short Alaskan summer was at hand. Now it was the first of May, and just as he had begun to think of summer pleasures, lo! a storm had come which seemed to freeze the very marrow of his bones. However, our little Alaskan cousin was used to cold and trained to it, and would not dream of fussing over a little snow-storm.
Kalitan started out to fish for his dinner, and though the snow came down heavily and he had to break through the ice to make a fishing-hole, and soon the ice was a wind-swept plain where even his own tracks were covered with a white pall, he fished steadily on. He never dreamed of stopping until he had fish enough for dinner, for, like most of his tribe, he was persevering and industrious.
Kalitan was a Thlinkit, though, if you asked him, he would say he was "Klinkit." This is a tribe which has puzzled wise people for a long time, for the Thlinkits are not Esquimos, not Indians, not coloured people, nor whites. They are the tribes living in Southeastern Alaska and along the coast. Many think that a long, long time ago, they came from Japan or some far Eastern country, for they look something like the Japanese, and their language has many words similar to Japanese in it.
Perhaps, long years ago, some shipwrecked Japanese were cast upon the coast of Alaska, and, finding their boats destroyed and the land good to live in, settled there, and thus began the Thlinkit tribes.
The Chilcats, Haidahs, and Tsimsheans are all Thlinkits, and are by far the best of the brown people of the Northland. They are honest, simple, and kind, and more intelligent than the Indians living farther north, in the colder regions. The Thlinkit coast is washed by the warm current from the Japan Sea, and it is not much colder than Chicago or Boston, though the winter is a little longer.
Kalitan fished diligently but caught little. He was warmly clad in sealskin; around his neck was a white bearskin ruff, as warm as toast, and very pretty, too, as soft and fluffy as a lady's boa. On his feet were moccasins of walrus hide. He had been perhaps an hour watching the hole in the ice, and knelt there so still that he looked almost as though he were frozen. Indeed, that was what those thought who saw him there, for suddenly a dog-sledge came round the corner of the hill and a loud halloo greeted