2 Indian Youths Banished to Island Exile

Two teen-agers banished by a tribal court for beating and robbing a pizza deliveryman left aboard a fishing boat Monday for separate, uninhabited islands where they will spend at least a year alone.

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 last week.

A tribal court Friday had ordered the 17-year-old Tlingit Indians to spend a year to 18 months on unidentified islands for robbing and severely beating the deliveryman in Everett, Wash., last year. It marked the first time a criminal case had been referred by a state court to a tribal panel for punishment.

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

Four elders accompanied the boys to the islands to help them refine their subsistence hunting and fishing skills. Elders said they will be taught how to make bows and arrows, and traditional trapping methods.