. Wonderland; or, Alaska and the inland passage . pied the site for generations past ; and here were immense 68 THROUGH WONDERLAND. wooden houses that might have been standing a century ago, judging from thecondition of the wooden buildings which I had examined on the Atlanticcoast, and which are known to have been erected before the Revolutionary buildings were frail; these, built of massive timbers and posts of fromtwo to three feet in diameter, some round, and others squared. The planks forthe floors were several inches thick. The mortise and tenon work in the framesjoined with ac
. Wonderland; or, Alaska and the inland passage . pied the site for generations past ; and here were immense 68 THROUGH WONDERLAND. wooden houses that might have been standing a century ago, judging from thecondition of the wooden buildings which I had examined on the Atlanticcoast, and which are known to have been erected before the Revolutionary buildings were frail; these, built of massive timbers and posts of fromtwo to three feet in diameter, some round, and others squared. The planks forthe floors were several inches thick. The mortise and tenon work in the framesjoined with accuracy, and other mechanical contrivances appeared in thesestructures. All were large, and some immense. I measured one house sixtyby eighty feet. The domestic life is patriarchal, several families being gathered under oneroof. Genealogies were kept for ages, and honors and distinctions madehereditary. To mark these, insignia, like a coat-of-arms, were adopted, and inrude carvings they strove to represent them. I could decipher, also, the paint-. TLINKET BASKET WORK.(Made by the Indians of the Inland Passage.) ings that once figured these upon the posts and sides of houses. The eagle,the whale, the bear and the otter, and other animals of sea and land, were thefavorites, ofttimes coupled with a warrior in the attitude of triumph. Giganticrepresentations of these family emblems were erected near the house, on posts,twenty to thirty feet high, covered with carvings of animals, and the devicesstained with permanent pigments of black, red and blue. [See illustration onpage dd, which is the front of a chiefs house at Kaigan village.] Imaginarycreatures resembling griffins or dragons, and reminding you of the mammothanimals that flourished in a distant geological period, were carved on the postsor pictured on the walls. Raised figures resembling hieroglyphics and Asiaticalphabets were carved on the inside wall. Some of the posts containing thefamily coat-of-a,rms, thus highly carved
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