Alaska Part 39

"In this he fled to Akhiok. My father's name was Penashigak. The time of the arrival of this ship was August, as the whales were coming into the bays, and the berries were ripe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photo by J. Doody, Dawson

A HOME IN THE YUKON]

"The Russians remained for the winter, but could not find sufficient food in Kaniat Bay. They were compelled to leave the ship in charge of a few watchmen and moved into a bay opposite Aiakhtalik Island. Here was a lake full of herrings and a kind of smelt. They lived in tents through the winter. The brave Ishinik, who first dared to visit the ship, was liked by the Russians, and acted as mediator. When the fish decreased in the lake during the winter, the Russians moved about from place to place. Whenever we saw a boat coming, at a distance, we fled to the hills, and when we returned, no dried fish could be found in the houses.

"In the lake near the Russian camp there was a poisonous kind of starfish. We knew it very well, but said nothing about it to the Russians. We never ate them, and even the gulls would not touch them.

Many Russians died from eating them. We injured them, also, in other ways. They put up fox-traps, and we removed them for the sake of obtaining the iron material. The Russians left during the following year."

This native's name was a.r.s.enti Aminak. There are several slight discrepancies between his narrative and Glottoff's account, especially as to time. He does not mention the hostile attacks of his people upon the Russians; and these differences puzzle Bancroft and make him sceptical concerning the veracity of the native's account.

It is barely possible, however, that Glottoff imagined these attacks, as an excuse for his own merciless slaughter of the Kadiaks.

As to the discrepancy in time, it must be remembered that a.r.s.enti Aminak was an old man when he related the events which had occurred when he was a young lad of nine or ten. White lads of that age are not possessed of vivid memories; and possibly the little brown lad, just "set to paddle a bidarka," was not more brilliant than his white brothers.

It is wiser to trust the word of the early native than that of the early navigator--with a few ill.u.s.trious exceptions.

Kadiak is the second in size of Alaskan islands,--Prince of Wales Island in southeastern Alaska being slightly larger,--and no island, unless it be Baranoff, is of more historic interest and charm. It was from this island that Gregory Shelikoff and his capable wife directed the vast and profitable enterprises of the Shelikoff Company, having finally succeeded, in 1784, in making the first permanent Russian settlement in America at Three Saints Bay, on the southeastern coast of this island.

Barracks, offices, counting-houses, storehouses, and shops of various kinds were built, and the settlement was guarded against native attack by two armed vessels.

It was here that the first missionary establishment and school of the Northwest Coast of America were located; and here was built the first great warehouse of logs.

Shelikoff's welcome from the fierce Kadiaks, in 1784, was not more cordial than Glottoff's had been. His ships were repeatedly attacked, and it was not until he had fired upon them, causing great loss of life and general consternation among them, that he obtained possession of the harbor.

Shelikoff lost no time in preparing for permanent occupancy of the island. Dwellings and fortifications were erected. His own residence was furnished with all the comforts and luxuries of civilization, which he collected from his ships, for the purpose of inspiring the natives with respect for a superior mode of living. They watched the construction of buildings with great curiosity, and at last volunteered their own services in the work.

Shelikoff personally conducted a school, endeavoring to teach both children and adults the Russian language and arithmetic, as well as religion.

In 1796 Father Juvenal, a young Russian priest who had been sent to the colonies as a missionary, wrote as follows concerning his work:--

"With the help of G.o.d, a school was opened to-day at this place, the first since the attempt of the late Mr. Shelikoff to instruct the natives of this neighborhood. Eleven boys and several grown men were in attendance. When I read prayers they seemed very attentive, and were evidently deeply impressed, although they did not understand the language.... When school was closed, I went to the river with my boys, _and with the help of G.o.d_" (the italics are mine) "we caught one hundred and three salmon of large size."

The school prospered and was giving entire satisfaction when Baranoff transferred Father Juvenal to Iliamna, on Cook Inlet.

We now come to what has long appealed to me as the most tragic and heart-breaking story of all Alaska--the story of Father Juvenal's betrayal and death at Iliamna.

Of his last Sabbath's work at Three Saints, Father Juvenal wrote:--

"We had a very solemn and impressive service this morning. Mr. Baranoff and officers and sailors from the ship attended, and also a large number of natives. We had fine singing, and a congregation with great outward appearance of devotion. I could not help but marvel at Alexander Alexandreievitch (Baranoff), who stood there and listened, crossing himself and giving the responses at the proper time, and joined in the singing with the same hoa.r.s.e voice with which he was shouting obscene songs the night before, when I saw him in the midst of a drunken carousal with a woman seated on his lap. I dispensed with services in the afternoon, because the traders were drunk again, and might have disturbed us and disgusted the natives."

Father Juvenal's pupils were removed to Pavlovsk and placed under the care of Father German, who had recently opened a school there.

The priestly missionaries were treated with scant courtesy by Baranoff, and ceaseless and bitter were the complaints they made against him. On the voyage to Iliamna, Father Juvenal complains that he was compelled to sleep in the hold of the brigantine _Catherine_, between bales of goods and piles of dried fish, because the cabin was occupied by Baranoff and his party.

In his foul quarters, by the light of a dismal lantern, he wrote a portion of his famous journal, which has become a most precious human doc.u.ment, unable to sleep on account of the ribald songs and drunken revelry of the cabin.

He claims to have been constantly insulted and humiliated by Baranoff during the brief voyage; and finally, at Pavlovsk, he was told that he must depend upon bidarkas for the remainder of the voyage to the Gulf of Kenai; and after that to the robbers and murderers of the Lebedef Company.

The vicissitudes, insults, and actual suffering of the voyage are vividly set forth in his journal. It was the 16th of July when he left Kadiak and the 3d of September when he finally reached Iliamna--having journeyed by barkentine to Pavlovsk, by bidarka from island to island and to Cook Inlet, and over the mountains on foot.

He was hospitably received by Shakmut, the chief, who took him into his own house and promised to build one especially for him. A boy named Nikita, who had been a hostage with the Russians, acted as interpreter, and was later presented to Father Juvenal.

This young missionary seems to have been more zealous than diplomatic.

Immediately upon discovering that the boy had never been baptized, he performed that ceremony, to the astonishment of the natives, who considered it some dark practice of witchcraft.

Juvenal relates with great navete that a pretty young woman asked to have the same ceremony performed upon her, that she, too, might live in the same house with the young priest.

The most powerful shock that he received, however, before the one that led to his death, he relates in the following simple language, under date of September 5, two days after his arrival:--

"It will be a relief to get away from the crowded house of the chief, where persons of all ages and s.e.xes mingle without any regard to decency or morals. To my utter astonishment, Shakmut asked me last night to share the couch of one of his wives. He has three or four. I suppose such abomination is the custom of the country, and he intended no insult. G.o.d gave me grace to overcome my indignation, and to decline the offer in a friendly and dignified manner. My first duty, when I have somewhat mastered the language, shall be to preach against such wicked practices, but I could not touch upon such subjects through a boy interpreter."

The severe young priest carried out his intentions so zealously that the chief and his friends were offended. He commanded them to put away all their wives but one.

They had marvelled at his celibacy; but they felt, with the rigid justice of the savage, that, if absolutely sincere, he was ent.i.tled to their respect.

However, they doubted his sincerity, and plotted to satisfy their curiosity upon this point. A young Iliamna girl was bribed to conceal herself in his room. Awaking in the middle of the night and finding himself in her arms, the young priest was unable to overcome temptation.

In the morning he was overwhelmed with remorse and a sense of his disgrace. He remembered how haughtily he had spurned Shakmut's offer of peculiar hospitality, and how mercilessly he had criticised Baranoff for his immoral carousals. Remembering these things, as well as the ease with which his own downfall had been accomplished, he was overcome with shame.

"What a terrible blow this is to all my recent hopes!" he wrote, in his pathetic account of the affair in his journal. "As soon as I regained my senses, I drove the woman out, but I felt too guilty to be very harsh with her. How can I hold up my head among the people, who, of course, will hear of this affair?... G.o.d is my witness that I have set down the truth here in the face of anything that may be said about it hereafter.

I have kept myself secluded to-day from everybody. I have not yet the strength to face the world."

When Juvenal did face the small world of Iliamna, it was to be openly ridiculed and insulted by all. Young girls t.i.ttered when he went by; his own boys, whom he had taught and baptized, mocked him; a girl put her head into his room when he was engaged in fastening a heavy bar upon his door, and laughed in his face. Shakmut came and insisted that Juvenal should baptize his several wives the following Sunday. This he had been steadily refusing to do, so long as they lived in daily sin; but now, disgraced, broken in spirit, and no longer able to say, "I am holier than thou," he wearily consented.

"I shall not shrink from my duty to make him relinquish all but one wife, however," he wrote, with a last flash of his old spirit, "when the proper time arrives. If I wink at polygamy now, I shall be forever unable to combat it. Perhaps it is only my imagination, but I think I can discover a lack of respect in Nikita's behavior toward me since yesterday.... My disgrace has become public already, and I am laughed at wherever I go, especially by the women. Of course, they do not understand the sin, but rather look upon it as a good joke. It will require great firmness on my part to regain the respect I have lost for myself, as well as on behalf of the Church. I have vowed to burn no fuel in my bedroom during the entire winter, in order to chastise my body--a mild punishment, indeed, compared to the blackness of my sin."

The following day was the Sabbath. It was with a heavy heart that he baptized Katlewah, the brother of the chief, and his family, the three wives of the chief, seven children, and one aged couple.

The same evening he called on the chief and surprised him in a wild carousal with his wives, in which he was jeeringly invited to join.

Forgetting his disgrace and his loss of the right to condemn for sins not so black as his own, the enraged young priest vigorously denounced them, and told the chief that he must marry one of the women according to the rites of the Church and put away the others, or be forever d.a.m.ned. The chief, equally enraged, ordered him out of the house. On his way home he met Katlewah, who reproached him because his religious teachings had not benefited Shakmut, who was as immoral as ever.

The end was now rapidly approaching. On September 29, less than a month after his arrival, he wrote: "The chief and his brother have both been here this morning and abused me shamefully. Their language I could not understand, but they spat in my face and, what was worse, upon the sacred images on the walls. Katlewah seized my vestments and carried them off, and I was left bleeding from a blow struck by an ivory club.

Nikita has washed and bandaged my wounds; but from his anxious manner I can see that I am still in danger. The other boys have run away. My wound pains me so that I can scarcely--"

The rest is silence. Nikita, who escaped with Juvenal's journal and papers and delivered them to the revered and beloved Veniaminoff, relates that the young priest was here fallen upon and stabbed to death by his enemies.

Many different versions of this pathetic tragedy are given. I have chosen Bancroft's because he seems to have gone more deeply and painstakingly into the small details that add the touch of human interest than any other historian.

The vital interest of the story, however, lies in what no one has told, and what, therefore, no one but the romancer can ever tell.

It lies between the written lines; it lies in the imagination of this austere young priest's remorseful suffering for his sin. There is no sign that he realized--too late, as usual--his first sin of intolerant criticism and condemnation of the sins of others. But neither did he spare himself, nor shrink from the terrible results of his downfall, so unexpected in his lofty and almost flaunting virtue. He was ready, and eager, to chastise his flesh to atone for his sin; and probably only one who has spent a winter in Alaska could comprehend fully the hourly suffering that would result from a total renouncement of fuel for the long, dark period of winter.

Veniaminoff was of the opinion that the a.s.sa.s.sination was caused not so much by his preaching against polygamy as by the fact that the chiefs, having given him their children to educate at Kadiak, repented of their action, and being unable to recover them, turned against him and slew him as a deceiver, in their ignorance. During the fatal attack upon him, it is said, Juvenal never thought of flight or self-defence, but surrendered himself into their hands without resistance, asking only for mercy for his companions.