Banished Teens On Their Way To Islands -- Tribal Members To Help Build Shanties, Teach Survival

KLAWOCK, Alaska - Tlingit Indian teenagers left aboard a fishing boat yesterday for separate isolated islands in Southeastern Alaska, where they will spend a yearlong banishment.

As relatives watched, waved and quietly cried, Adrian Guthrie and Simon Roberts left the Klawock cannery dock aboard "Wolf Chief," the boat that had served as their jail for the past week.

The boys were to have taken a Bible and other Christian literature with them, said Melvin Charles, one of the men guarding the boys. "They won't have any Playboys or anything," he said.

They were expected to be allowed to take their dogs for companionship and to warn them of bears, Roberts said.

Four elders accompanied the boys to the islands to help them refine their subsistence hunting-and-fishing skills and build 12-by-8-foot shanties, according to Franklin James, one of the tribal judges. Elders said they will be taught how to make bows and arrows, and traditional trapping methods.

After the boat was loaded with hundreds of pounds of frozen salmon, halibut and groceries yesterday, the boys hugged friends and relatives, said their goodbyes and posed for photos.

A considerable amount of food was loaded on the boat yesterday. Along with the frozen fish were packages of hot dogs, loaves of bread and sacks of potatoes.

Roberts' grandfather, Theodore Roberts, will spend about a week on the island teaching Tlingit survival skills to his grandson.

The older man will teach Roberts to use skunk cabbage as wrapping before burying fish to preserve it, Roberts said. "He'll teach me how to bury the parts of the deer that you don't use, (to preserve it for later), too," he said.

Roberts, who will turn 18 in December, said his grandfather has taught him various Tlingit wilderness-survival traditions since he was very young. Growing up in Klawock, he went camping, but never in winter.

"There's lots of things I still have to learn," Roberts said.

He would not discuss the tribal-court hearing or how he felt about the yearlong sentence because he is not allowed to, according to the tribal judges. However, he did say banishment is a better alternative.

"It's better than going to prison and being some guy's girlfriend," Roberts said.

Roberts and Guthrie, 17-year-old cousins, were found guilty of robbery and assault by a panel of 11 judges last week. The judges sentenced them to 12 to 18 months' banishment.

The boys, who assaulted a pizza-delivery man in Everett in August 1993, were turned over to a tribal court led by Rudy James, a Tlingit tribal member, last month after Snohomish County Superior Court Judge James Allendoerfer gave James 18-month custody of the boys.

The two are expected to contemplate their crime during their banishment and find ways to help make restitution to their victim.

Guthrie faces 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 years in prison and Roberts faces 5 1/2 years. After the two return, they will go before Allendoerfer and could be sentenced to serve the remainder of their time in a conventional setting.

Material from Associated Press is included in this report.