A marvelous story of redeeming grace has been sent to us, which we feel sure will interest in no small degree the readers of Echoes of Mercy.
There now lies in the Federal Prison of M’Neil’s Island in America, an Alaskan Indian, Kebeth by name, undergoing a life sentence for the murder of a young Englishman and his wife under the most extraordinary circumstances.
We are told that when “the sentence of death was pronounced, and Kebeth was led away to await execution, every one in the court-room, including the honorable judge on the bench, was affected to compassion. Seamed and grizzled miners, who had held unflinching roles in barroom fights, where pistol-shots punctuated profanity, hurried away to hide feelings they would not willingly betray.... Even the stoic Indians and Eskimos were, in some instances, moved to tears.”
After the trial a great expression of public opinion was made in his favor. A petition was presented to the late President M’Kinley, one of the last public acts of whose life was to sanction, by the signature of his name, the commutation of the sentence to imprisonment for life. This took place on 16th November 1900.
The Attorney-General when he presented the petition to the President for his signature, stated that when Kebeth planned and committed his awful crime, he was “only an unenlightened, unchristianised savage,” and that “as soon as his conscience had been enlightened by the moral teachings” of Christianity, “he made immediate disclosure and confession of his crime, and submitted himself to the hands of the law, to abide its judgment.”
Kebeth, we are told, was a famous hunter, and roamed all over the mountains, seas, and ice-fields of the northern and Arctic regions. Fearless to the last degree, no dangers daunted him. Neither snows, nor blizzards, nor Arctic bears, nor human wild beasts in the shape of godless gold-diggers, could intimidate him. In fact, so much was he himself an object of terror, that even the most reckless of the white men, or Kablonas as they are called, treated him with “discreet civility.”
Of recent years, Skaguay, with its drinking dens and dancing halls, had monopolized much of his time. It was there he spent the money obtained in his hunting expeditions. It was there, too, that in the riches of God’s grace, he learned the story of redeeming love which brought him as a captive to the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Early in the autumn of 1899, Artikoor the Silent, a kinsman of Kebeth’s, met with his death while on a hunting trip up the coast. As skillful a hunter, and equally fearless as his friend, Artikoor at the same time exercised a wholesome and restraining influence upon Kebeth. It was he that would urge him to retire to his Indian camp, before the vicious life at Skaguay had involved his leader in too serious crimes.
However, on this occasion, Artikoor’s advice was unheeded. The attractions of the godless city were too strong for Kebeth, and one day, without further word, Artikoor sailed away in his small canoe without his friend. He was never more seen.
No softer did Kebeth become aware of his friend’s departure, than, according to the evidence of all, he became restless, and sometimes almost dazed. One day an Indian brought the tidings that Artikoor had perished. Pieces of his canoe had been picked up on the beach of Lynn Canal. Kebeth was moved to frenzy. That he had been wrecked was an idea too foolish to entertain. Was he not master of the storm? Did not the Kablonas know that Artikoor had gold? There could be no doubt Artikoor was murdered. And according to all the laws and traditions of the savage tribe, Kebeth must be the avenger of his death.
Before undertaking what he considered his bounden duty, he repaired to his native village, there to consult the “shaman,” or priest of his tribe’s heathen rites. “Within thirty sleeps,” the prophet replied, “the murderer will return.” Consequently, Kebeth, with a band of chosen followers, repaired to the spot where the last remains of Artikoor had been found. They had not long remained there hidden, when a young Englishman and his wife, residing at Skaguay, were seen approaching in a little boat. No sooner had they landed, than with savage yells the Indians were upon them. There and then both were murdered, and their bodies buried in the sand.
Well satisfied with his achievement, Kebeth returned to his native camp, and related the details of the awful murder. “Go back,” said the shaman, “to the city of the Kablonas, for greater things yet shall Kebeth do.”
Back to Sagkuay accordingly Kebeth went, not to do greater things, but to learn how great things the Lord, Jesus Christ had done for him. The following extracts from an American journalist relate the marvelous change from savage and heathen darkness to the light of Christianity: ―
“One night, as the lights of the saloons of Skaguay began to gleam, to lure wayward feet, Kebeth and his hunters were attracted by the sounds of singing and the beating of tambourines....
“As the Indians gazed, the strange company paused, knelt on the unpaved streets, and prayed. Then Adjutant M’Gill, of the Salvation Army, began to address the crowds that had gathered....
“His text was Barabbas, and he told the story in language that a wayfaring man, though an Indian, might not err therein....
“‘Who would not rather die with Christ than live with Barabbas? Men of Skaguay, what master do you serve?’ ...
“Kebeth was visibly affected, but whether by the exhortation or by the music, he could not tell. The music, however, was not strange to him, for the ‘kelyau,’ the one musical instrument of his people, is, in truth, a tambourine. Even the tunes were not new, though the words of course were novel....
“‘God’s mercy,’ he heard the leader say, ‘is wider than the sea. Come, men of Skaguay, renounce your sins and follies.’
“You get some gold, dug from the mud,
Some silver ground and crushed from stones;
Your gold is red with dead men’s blood,
Your silver black with oaths and groans.”
‘But know that, though your hands are crimson with crime, they may be white as snow.’
Several responded to an invitation to step forward, Kebeth among them A policeman of Skaguay, believing the Brown Bear full of strong drink, thought to avert a race riot by putting him out. ‘Let him come,’ cried the preacher, extending both hands. ‘What is your name?’
‘Barabbas,’ replied the hunter.
‘Glory be to God who saveth even to the uttermost,’ exclaimed the preacher. They prayed together, and together they mingled their tears.
“That night Kebeth went home rejoicing. The defiant joy he had felt as a savage, glorying in a murder commanded by the customs of his people, had been supplanted by an ecstasy such as he had not felt since the first years of his budding manhood.”
“His men, fearing their leader had become possessed, had returned home and were holding a council when Kebeth returned. He glanced at them benignantly, knowing what was in their minds. As he knelt to adjust his blankets of deerskins and furs, he said something which sounded very much like ‘Hallelujah’”....
“His followers, disturbed and mystified, held a secret session, to which the leader was not invited — a revolutionary performance, without precedent in the record of their nomadic association. Kebeth’s conversion to Christianity was costing him his dominion over savage flesh and blood.”
“Then Kak Klanat spoke addressing the leader. ‘You know,’ said he, that we are your friends, your slaves. In my home on the Island of the Four Mountains, they say Kebeth has bewitched his hunters. Where you go, we follow. But now you adopt the white man’s mysteries; you turn priest. Kebeth, the Swift, we worship, but must I remind our brother that it is unlawful for an Aleut to kneel at the shrine of two shamans?”
“‘Your shaman is my shaman no more,’ said Kebeth. In his lips he wears labrets of bone and porphyry. My lips shall speak glad tidings.’”
“The news that the Brown Bear had turned lamb and entered the Christian fold astounded Skaguay, and, in consequence, the Army’s audience the next night congested the streets.
With sudden inspiration, Kebeth addressed the crowd. In short sentences, picturesque with imagery, he told his story.
“The Skaguay crowd will not forget the ‘testimony’ and exhortations of the Indian, but, unfortunately, no faithful record was kept of its rugged eloquence. Only the memory of its power remains. Some nights he would tell them, as no man had told it before, the story of St Paul’s experience, and would add, ‘I, Kebeth, called the Brown Bear, an Indian known to you, a man of sin, have seen that Light, and heard that Voice.’”
Knowing his former reputation as a bad and reckless Indian, no man dared tell him he was insincere, nor was there such belief....
With that wild Aleut converted, one miner was heard to say, Skaguay may be represented in heaven yet.’
But Kebeth, though he was making a great hit, was sorely troubled. His crime haunted him, and finally he broke down and confessed the whole horrible story to Adjutant M’Gill, who indeed had feared that some such revelation was impending, and was not unprepared. The night that Kebeth had come forward, saying his name was Barabbas, had not been forgotten, but he had hoped that it was the metaphoric trend of the native’s mind rather than the presence of appalling crime that had prompted his adoption of the title.
Acting upon the Adjutant’s advice, Kebeth recited the details of the murder to United States Deputy-Marshal Tanner, and led that officer and Judge Sehlbrede and a posse of citizens to the burial-place of Burt Horton and his wife, Snow had fallen, and the shores of Lynn Canal were covered to the depth of ten feet, but the hunter led them without a misstep to the spot.
Attorney General Griggs, in his official statement of the case, says that the hunter, at the time he made his confession, and when he led the officials to the place of tragedy, and throughout the ensuing trial when his testimony was complete and self-accusing, had no other expectation than that he would be executed for his crime. ‘He frequently stated,’ adds the Attorney-General, ‘that he desired to suffer death as an example to his people, with the hope that it might tend in the future to better their condition and prevent them from committing similar crimes.’
Kebeth hoped that his execution would fully expiate the crime, but, of course, a trial was held, and his accomplices brought to justice. They were gathered from the four corners of the Arctic. They invoked much money and considerable influence in their defense, and tried desperately to shift full responsibility to their fallen leader, who, while more than willing to assume the whole blood-guiltiness, could not keep them in their cross-examination, from betraying their complicity in the crime.
“The court-room during the trial was crowded by Indians and Eskimos from all parts of Alaska. The fame of the leader, his marvelous conversion, and his sensational disclosures were absorbing themes even among the white population....”
The story of Kebeth, the Alaskan Indian, is indeed a striking one, illustrating afresh the all-conquering power of the gospel of Christ. Let it be Saul of Tarsus, the self-righteous Pharisee, or Kebeth of Alaska, the degraded savage, “there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek (or, heathen): for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. For—
ED.