_Thursday, the 16th._—Grey and cloudy, with a south-east wind which ought to bring the ‘Alpha’ now. De Groff came over to lunch and took a photograph of us ‘in camp,’ and also of the Swedish Mission. The Indians were potlatching again to-day; one woman gave away twenty-one blankets and a lot of calico. Occasionally great swells, like the chief or the doctor, got a whole blanket. These doctors or medicine-men used to have tremendous power in the tribe, but this has much diminished before the advance of civilisation. Their initiation into their full M.D. degree used to consist in a prolonged solitary fast in the forests, till, overtaken by a sort of frenzy, they rushed back to the village, where such people as desired to show a fine religious fervour would offer their arms for the doctor to take bites out of. Other Indians when dead are cremated, but the doctors are buried in a little wooden hut in some isolated spot, or on a point of rock overlooking the sea; and of late years these huts have been ruthlessly ravaged for curios, since the doctor’s charms and other implements are always buried with him; but if the sacrilegious prowler was caught it would be very awkward for him in a wild place like Yakutat. The common American term for these medicine-men is _shaman_, apparently a corruption of the Russian _shawaan_, but the Tlinkits themselves use the word _icht_. The doctor at Yakutat was a filthy old scoundrel, with hair about six feet long; he had been half-blind for years, having at one time headed an attack against a French storekeeper (named, I believe, Belœil, but the men always spoke of him as Bellew), who had checked the onslaught with a well-aimed dose of sulphuric acid.
During the potlatch sundry relics of the deceased made their appearance, and were wept over with much emotion, genuine tears being produced in abundance. Some of the old men, who had nothing else, gave tobacco, a small pinch being put in the fire each time for the spirits of the departed.
_Friday, the 17th._—Dull and grey, and threatening rain. Yesterday and to-day the flies were something fearful, and we had even to walk up and down when feeding, while any liquid, such as soup or tea, was thick with them. As the baking-powder was all but finished, Finn, who was supposed to be rather good at the art, was deputed to make sour-dough bread, but it was not much of a success, resembling plain heavy buns. The leaven was presumably too new, for afterwards it worked admirably.