Page images
PDF
EPUB

Her husband had decamped before her babe was born, and the babe died shortly after. She has one daughter still at Attu,

An Attu Cigar Case

woman at the conclusion of the paper.

and plans on getting the child and moving to Unalaska, a much better place, and where the rest of her family had previously moved.

The people on the island of Attu make the finest baskets and woven work of the natives of Alaska. I shall show you some of the work of this

[graphic]

While speaking of the long trip which this patient took to reach her home, it may be mentioned that the trip between Unalaska and Juneau would be much shortened by coming, as Nome traffic usually does, direct to Seattle by the outside passage, then from Seattle re-shipping back to Juneau, Seattle being the nearest to a central point for travel for all of Alaska.

The 30,000 Indians and Eskimo, it is well enough to remember, are scattered over a water front, and in small settlements or villages, covering more than 6,000 miles in extent, and it is no small matter to provide for them.

The governmental medical care of the native in Alaska is under the charge of the United States Bureau of Education, a division under the Department of the Interior, which Secretary Lane, who is well qualified from personal experience as to Alaska, is administering with much better results than has been done in the past.

The Bureau of Education has recently provided a somewhat complete hospital at Juneau, which is in charge of Dr. Douglas Brown, a former associate of Dr. Gorgas at Panama, where the villages in the nearby region can send their sick. Two other hospitals are also under the same department in other regions of Alaska.

A recent departure instituted by Secretary Lane, is an endeavor to have as teachers for the natives persons who have had some training as nurses, who are provided with a book of instructions and a small stock of medicine, all for uses in emergencies when no doctor is at hand. In all, seven physi

cians are attached to the bureau, and as soon as funds can be secured, doubtless other centers will be established, to be in charge of medical graduates.

The natives are being taught as to the contagiousness of tuberculosis, and the disasters from syphilis.

At Haines the government has in contemplation the immediate erection of a special hospital for the care of the native tubercular cases, a much needed adjunct to the present service. There is talk, also, of a hospital at one of the numerous springs in Alaska, where a colony headquarters for the treatment of syphilitic natives will be maintained.

The government has detention hospitals for the insane at both Fairbanks and Nome, but as yet these institutions have not proven very successful, due to the prohibitive cost in these regions for maintenance. All native insane, in the end, are sent to Morningside Hospital, Portland, where, if not tubercular, under milder climate and care, they show a large per cent of recoveries. The tubercular insane are cared for at Morningside in a separate cottage.

The Moravians and the Greek churches, the Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists and, possibly, some other denominations, maintain churches, schools and a few hospitals, but these are not discussed here. These religious bodies have been doing good work, but the government must provide the larger medical service for the native Alaskans.

In January of last year, as arranged upon suggestion of the Interior Department, it was my privilege to be the guest of the Illinois Society

[graphic]

for Mental Hygiene at a luncheon tendered at the University Club Chicago, where I discussed certain characteristics of the Eskimo, and the climatic and vocational treatment for his mental troubles.

This event came out of a meeting

just preceeding at Native Alaskans Among Strawberries at Morningside Washington, D. C.,

where a like discourse was given before the District of Colum

bia Society for Mental Hygiene, of which Surgeon-General Rupert Blue is president and Jane Keller is secretary, which meeting was held under the auspices of Hon. Stephen T. Mather, assistant to the Secretary of the Interior.

As is known to most of you, these societies for mental hygiene named, with a few others, are seeking to find a place of usefulness in life for the mental defective.

The Illinois society, of which Mr. Mather is a patron saint and for which he is a heavy contributor, maintains a home and other work in conjunction therewith, which is doing a remarkably successful and beneficent service to humanity.

Many of the dependents or incorrigibles coming before the various charitable and judicial bodies of Chicago are referred to the society for careful study along the line suggested. A workshop is maintained and the otherwise ill-spent energies of many of these people are turned into healthful lines of activity through scientific knowledge of their ability and needs. Patient and skillful study of the direction of least resistance toward commendable action in the individual is closely maintained and the natural bent of activity possessed by him is encouraged along useful lines.

As an instance of this work, it might be mentioned that a woman at the time of my visit was in the house, who had been for twenty years maintained by charity. Although she was over sixty years of age and mentally defective, it was noted that she had certain tendencies and desires along the line of ornamental needle work. She was encouraged to take up a form of coarse but somewhat ornamental quilting, a work not hard upon her eyes, and which she has much pleasure. And now, after twenty years of dependency, and at her advanced age, she has been removed from the helpless class to that of a producing member of society, in which she is a happy person, proud of her attainments and the ability to maintain herself.

A young man who had caused his mother no end of sorrow and disappointment, as she had sought to make him enter a useful existence in some avenue of life, finally was turned over to the authorities as incorrigible, after a somewhat serious experience as a chauffeur.

The Home found that he liked best of all to while away his time whittling objects out of wood or making pictures with his knife on pieces of board. The superintendent encouraged him in this work. Proper tools were put into his hands and his natural bent of action was encouraged. Today he is a well satisfied engraver, making a good livelihood, much better than a chauffeur could do, and at which he failed. He is now

a useful member of society, and a source of joy and help to his widowed mother. The Illinois Society, in the house and outside, is today working on hundreds of these cases, and bringing usefulness and comfort to lives otherwise full of trouble to themselves and those near to them. Along the same road does the government seek the welfare of its native defectives among the native Alaskans.

The result of the visit at Chicago, the inspection of the methods employed there for the mentally subnormal, the review of the work being done at the house of the Illinois Society for Mental Hygiene, and discussions which followed up addresses certainly afforded much new and important light for the work at Morningside, which is already bearing fruit, and is still to be of greater service to the insane of Alaska.

To find employment for the native women of the North is not difficult. They are nearly all basket makers, and in this line of occupation and fancy work we have at Morningside found a ready avenue for the exercise desirable in the vocational treatment of the insane. These baskets are of varying forms and colors, specimens of which will be shown here.

With the men, however, there is greater difficulty in devising measures for occupation. We have some sixty acres in garden, and here we employ such of these people as we can, but the Alaskan native is not an agriculturist.

In a trip last summer to Alaska, a dozen totem poles, replica in miniature of totem poles still extant in Alaska were secured.

The male Eskimo and the Indian of Alaska are carvers. The Eskimo carves largely on stone or walrus tusk or whale tusk. Some of these are presented for inspection tonight. The Indian is a wood carver. Some of these, however, also carve on ivory. There is among the specimens exhibited with this paper, a totem pole in miniature carved upon slate, a perfect piece of art.

It is the present plan now at Morningside to take up carving as a part of the work of our male native patients, among whom we already have an artist or two along this line. This will include work on ivory, of which we have several fine pieces already made by such patients; miniature totem poles, and one or more large totem poles for the embellishment of the institution. In addition to the miniature totem poles brought from Alaska, the institution has, as a result of the recent trip through Alaska, colored photos of many other well-known totems.

Nearly all these poles shown tonight are replicas of poles now standing in some of the old burial grounds in and about

the old Chilkat village of Kluk-wan, on the Chilkat River about twenty-five miles north of the old Presbyterian mission at Haines. The Chilkats were the first Americans to use refrigeration for the preservation of fish out of season. This they did by encasing them in holes cut in the so-called dead or nonmoving glacier, where they become frozen and remain fresh almost indefinitely.

The field force of the Bureau of Education, acting under the Department of the Interior, embraces seven physicians and eight nurses, but its more than a hundred teachers have been given nursing and first aid instruction along medical lines, and are proving of much service in ministering to the medical needs of the natives.

Superintendent Wm. T. Lopp is planning on increasing the number of physicians in the service as Congress shall provide the funds. Alaska has no central point, easy of access from all sections of the territory, and much of the cross travel goes to Seattle and from there re-ships to the port of ultimate intention. For this reason, largely ,the headquarters of the Bu

[graphic][merged small]

reau of Education is located at Seattle, and operations are directed from there for the whole territory, out of the office of Superintendent Lopp. We might also say that the Bishop of Alaska and some other ecclesiastics, who during certain seasons travel thousands of miles through the territory to their somewhat solitary missions, make Seattle their home and the base of their operations. In fact, the statement so often made that Seattle is the central point of Alaska, is for practical purposes quite true.

[ocr errors]
« PreviousContinue »