r,
some of them large enough to carry sixty men at the paddles. Each spring
more than a thousand men gathered together in Sitka Bay, coming from the
different villages, to fish for herring at the spawning time, when those
fish run in countless myriads in those waters. Hemlock boughs were
placed in the water, and on them the herring roe collected until they
were encrusted with the eggs which were then stripped off and dried for
future use.

[Illustration: The "Ranche"--Looking north from the top of the Baranof
Castle. The Steamer at the left is the "Coquitlam," noted for her
participation in pelagic sealing and she was under seizure by the U. S.
Government.]

In 1807 there were over 2,000 hostile natives gathered in the harbor at
the herring season and they threatened an attack on the settlement.
Kuskof, the most trusted and able lieutenant of Baranof, was in charge,
and it put his wisdom and watchfulness to the test to avert disaster.
The strictest discipline was maintained. The tribesmen waited outside
day after day, hoping for news of some relaxation of the precautions of
the defenders to be brought to them by the women of the tribe who were
married to the Russian promishleniki (hunters). Day and night the
sentinels paced the beats on the stockade and along the waterfront,
till, weary of waiting, the Kolosh finally dispersed to their homes.

In the great tribal houses several families lived, sometimes as many as
fifty or sixty persons. Over the door of the house was painted the
family totem, for the Sitkas did not raise the house totem in a pole in
front as did many of the kwans of the Thlingits, and as the Hydahs do.
In these houses were held the potlatches, or gift parties, which were
made by the wealthy chiefs.

The potlatches were of different kinds, although all partook of the
nature of a feasting or merrymaking and were distinguished by the giving
of gifts. In the ordinary visiting potlatches, or in the berry
potlatches, the visitors came in their canoes with which they formed a
line off shore opposite the houses, put planks from one canoe to another
and on these planks danced the tribal dance. Those on shore danced the
welcome dance and invited the guests ashore. Then the visitors
disembarked and each family became the guest of their kinsmen of their
totem or they went to the guesthouse of the kwan. All the people of the
same totem are supposed to be blood relations, so all those of the wolf
totem go to th