Chapter III: Columbians (1)

HABITAT OF THE COLUMBIAN GROUP--PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY--SOURCES
OF FOOD-SUPPLY--INFLUENCE OF FOOD AND CLIMATE--FOUR EXTREME
CLASSES--HAIDAHS--THEIR HOME--PHYSICAL PECULIARITIES--
CLOTHING--SHELTER--SUSTENANCE--IMPLEMENTS--MANUFACTURES--
ARTS--PROPERTY--LAWS--SLAVERY--WOMEN--CUSTOMS--MEDICINE--
DEATH--THE NOOTKAS--THE SOUND NATIONS--THE CHINOOKS--THE
SHUSHWAPS--THE SALISH--THE SAHAPTINS--TRIBAL BOUNDARIES.

The term COLUMBIANS, or, as Scouler[228] and others have called them, _Nootka-Columbians_, is, in the absence of a native word, sufficiently characteristic to distinguish the aboriginal nations of north-western America between the forty-third and fifty-fifth parallels, from those of the other great divisions of this work. The Columbia River, which suggests the name of this group, and Nootka Sound on the western shore of Vancouver Island, were originally the chief centres of European settlement on the North-west Coast; and at an early period these names were compounded to designate the natives of the Anglo-American possessions on the Pacific, which lay between the discoveries of the Russians on the north and those of the Spaniards on the south. As a simple name is always preferable to a complex one, and as no more pertinent name suggests itself than that of the great river which, with its tributaries, drains a large portion of this territory, I drop 'Nootka' and retain only the word 'Columbian.'[229] These nations have also been broadly denominated Flatheads, from a custom practiced more or less by many of their tribes, of compressing the cranium during infancy;[230] although the only Indians in the whole area, tribally known as Flatheads, are those of the Salish family, who do not flatten the head at all.

[Sidenote: COLUMBIAN FAMILIES.]

In describing the Columbian nations it is necessary, as in the other divisions, to subdivide the group; arbitrarily this may have been done in some instances, but as naturally as possible in all. Thus the people of Queen Charlotte Islands, and the adjacent coast for about a hundred miles inland, extending from 55° to 52° of north latitude, are called _Haidahs_ from the predominant tribe of the islands. The occupants of Vancouver Island and the opposite main, with its labyrinth of inlets from 52° to 49°, I term _Nootkas_. The _Sound Indians_ inhabit the region drained by streams flowing into Puget Sound, and the adjacent shores of the strait and ocean; the _Chinooks_ occupy the banks of the Columbia from the Dalles to the sea, extending along the coast northward to Gray Harbor, and southward nearly to the Californian line. The interior of British Columbia, between the Cascade and Rocky Mountains, and south of the territory occupied by the Hyperborean Carriers, is peopled by the _Shushwaps_, the _Kootenais_, and the _Okanagans_. Between 49° and 47°, extending west from the Cascade to the Rocky Mountains, chiefly on the Columbia and Clarke Fork, is the _Salish_ or Flathead family. The nations dwelling south of 47° and east of the Cascade range, on the Columbia, the lower Snake, and their tributary streams, may be called _Sahaptins_, from the name of the Nez Percé tribes.[231] The great _Shoshone_ family, extending south-east from the upper waters of the Columbia, and spreading out over nearly the whole of the Great Basin, although partially included in the Columbian limits, will be omitted in this, and included in the Californian Group, which follows. These divisions, as before stated, are geographic rather than ethnographic.[232] Many attempts have been made by practical ethnologists, to draw partition lines between these peoples according to race, all of which have proved signal failures, the best approximation to a scientific division being that of philologists, the results of whose researches are given in the third volume of this series; but neither the latter division, nor that into coast and inland tribes--in many respects the most natural and clearly defined of all[233]--is adapted to my present purpose. In treating of the Columbians, I shall first take up the coast families, going from north to south, and afterward follow the same order with those east of the mountains.

[Sidenote: HOME OF THE COLUMBIANS.]

No little partiality was displayed by the Great Spirit of the Columbians in the apportionment of their dwelling-place. The Cascade Mountains, running from north to south throughout their whole territory, make of it two distinct climatic divisions, both highly but unequally favored by nature. On the coast side--a strip which may be called one hundred and fifty miles wide and one thousand miles long--excessive cold is unknown, and the earth, warmed by Asiatic currents and watered by numerous mountain streams, is thickly wooded; noble forests are well stocked with game; a fertile soil yields a great variety of succulent roots and edible berries, which latter means of subsistence were lightly appreciated by the indolent inhabitants, by reason of the still more abundant and accessible food-supply afforded by the fish of ocean, channel, and stream. The sources of material for clothing were also bountiful far beyond the needs of the people.

Passing the Cascade barrier, the climate and the face of the country change. Here we have a succession of plains or table-lands, rarely degenerating into deserts, with a good supply of grass and roots; though generally without timber, except along the streams, until the heavily wooded western spurs of the Rocky Mountains are reached. The air having lost much of its moisture, affords but a scanty supply of rain, the warming and equalizing influence of the ocean stream is no longer felt, and the extremes of heat and cold are undergone according to latitude and season. Yet are the dwellers in this land blessed above many other aboriginal peoples, in that game is plenty, and roots and insects are at hand in case the season's hunt prove unsuccessful.

Ethnologically, no well-defined line can be drawn to divide the people occupying these two widely different regions. Diverse as they certainly are in form, character, and customs, their environment, the climate, and their methods of seeking food may well be supposed to have made them so. Not only do the pursuit of game in the interior and the taking of fish on the coast, develop clearly marked general peculiarities of character and life in the two divisions, but the same causes produce grades more or less distinct in each division. West of the Cascade range, the highest position is held by the tribes who in their canoes pursue the whale upon the ocean, and in the effort to capture Leviathan become themselves great and daring as compared with the lowest order who live upon shell-fish and whatever nutritious substances may be cast by the tide upon the beach. Likewise in the interior, the extremes are found in the deer, bear, elk, and buffalo hunters, especially when horses are employed, and in the root and insect eaters of the plains. Between these four extreme classes may be traced many intermediate grades of physical and intellectual development, due to necessity and the abilities exercised in the pursuit of game.

The Columbians hitherto have been brought in much closer contact with the whites than the Hyperboreans, and the results of the association are known to all. The cruel treacheries and massacres by which nations have been thinned, and flickering remnants of once powerful tribes gathered on government reservations or reduced to a handful of beggars, dependent for a livelihood on charity, theft, or the wages of prostitution, form an unwritten chapter in the history of this region. That this process of duplicity was unnecessary as well as infamous, I shall not attempt to show, as the discussion of Indian policy forms no part of my present purpose. Whatever the cause, whether from an inhuman civilized policy, or the decrees of fate, it is evident that the Columbians, in common with all the aborigines of America, are doomed to extermination. Civilization and savagism will not coalesce, any more than light and darkness; and although it may be necessary that these things come, yet are those by whom they are unrighteously accomplished none the less culpable.

Once more let it be understood that the time of which this volume speaks, was when the respective peoples were first known to Europeans. It was when, throughout this region of the Columbia, nature's wild magnificence was yet fresh; primeval forests unprofaned; lakes, and rivers, and rolling plains unswept; it was when countless villages dotted the luxuriant valleys; when from the warrior's camp-fire the curling smoke never ceased to ascend, nor the sounds of song and dance to be heard; when bands of gaily dressed savages roamed over every hill-side; when humanity unrestrained vied with bird and beast in the exercise of liberty absolute. This is no history; alas! they have none; it is but a sun-picture, and to be taken correctly must be taken quickly. Nor need we pause to look back through the dark vista of unwritten history, and speculate, who and what they are, nor for how many thousands of years they have been coming and going, counting the winters, the moons, and the sleeps; chasing the wild game, basking in the sunshine, pursuing and being pursued, killing and being killed. All knowledge regarding them lies buried in an eternity of the past, as all knowledge of their successors remains folded in an eternity of the future. We came upon them unawares, unbidden, and while we gazed they melted away. The infectious air of civilization penetrated to the remotest corner of their solitudes. Their ignorant and credulous nature, unable to cope with the intellect of a superior race, absorbed only its vices, yielding up its own simplicity and nobleness for the white man's diseases and death.

[Sidenote: HAIDAH NATIONS.]

In the HAIDAH family I include the nations occupying the coast and islands from the southern extremity of Prince of Wales Archipelago to the Bentinck Arms in about 52°. Their territory is bounded on the north and east by the Thlinkeet and Carrier nations of the Hyperboreans, and on the south by the Nootka family of the Columbians. Its chief nations, whose boundaries however can rarely be fixed with precision, are the _Massets_, the _Skiddegats_, and the _Cumshawas_, of Queen Charlotte Islands; the _Kaiganies_, of Prince of Wales Archipelago; the _Chimsyans_, about Fort Simpson, and on Chatham Sound; the _Nass_ and the _Skeenas_, on the rivers of the same names; the _Sebassas_, on Pitt Archipelago and the shores of Gardner Channel; and the Millbank Sound Indians, including the _Hailtzas_ and the _Bellacoolas_, the most southern of this family. These nations, the orthography of whose names is far from uniform among different writers, are still farther subdivided into numerous indefinite tribes, as specified at the end of this chapter.

The Haidah territory, stretching on the mainland three hundred miles in length, and in width somewhat over one hundred miles from the sea to the lofty Chilkoten Plain, is traversed throughout its length by the northern extension of the Cascade Range. In places its spurs and broken foot-hills touch the shore, and the very heart of the range is penetrated by innumerable inlets and channels, into which pour short rapid streams from interior hill and plain. The country, though hilly, is fertile and covered by an abundant growth of large, straight pines, cedars, and other forest trees. The forest abounds with game, the waters with fish. The climate is less severe than in the middle United States; and notwithstanding the high latitude of their home, the Haidahs have received no small share of nature's gifts. Little has been explored, however, beyond the actual coast, and information concerning this nation, coming from a few sources only, is less complete than in the case of the more southern Nootkas.

[Sidenote: PHYSICAL PECULIARITIES OF THE HAIDAHS.]

Favorable natural conditions have produced in the Haidahs a tall, comely, and well-formed race, not inferior to any in North-western America;[234] the northern nations of the family being generally superior to the southern,[235] and having physical if not linguistic affinities with their Thlinkeet neighbors, rather than with the Nootkas. Their faces are broad, with high cheek bones;[236] the eyes small, generally black, though brown and gray with a reddish tinge have been observed among them.[237] The few who have seen their faces free from paint pronounce their complexion light,[238] and instances of Albino characteristics are sometimes found.[239] The hair is not uniformly coarse and black, but often soft in texture, and of varying shades of brown, worn by some of the tribes cut close to the head.[240] The beard is usually plucked out with great care, but moustaches are raised sometimes as strong as those of Europeans;[241] indeed there seems to be little authority for the old belief that the North-western American Indians were destitute of hair except on the head.[242] Dr Scouler, comparing Chimsyan skulls with those of the Chinooks, who are among the best known of the north-western nations, finds that in a natural state both have broad, high cheek-bones, with a receding forehead, but the Chimsyan skull, between the parietal and temporal bones, is broader than that of the Chinook, its vertex being remarkably flat.[243] Swollen and deformed legs are common from constantly doubling them under the body while sitting in the canoe. The teeth are frequently worn down to the gums by eating sanded salmon.[244]

[Sidenote: HAIDAH DRESS AND ORNAMENT.]

The Haidahs have no methods of distortion peculiar to themselves, by which they seek to improve their fine physique; but the custom of flattening the head in infancy obtains in some of the southern nations of this family, as the Hailtzas and Bellacoolas,[245] and the Thlinkeet lip-piece, already sufficiently described, is in use throughout a larger part of the whole territory. It was observed by Simpson as far south as Millbank Sound, where it was highly useful as well as ornamental, affording a firm hold for the fair fingers of the sex in their drunken fights. These ornaments, made of either wood, bone, or metal, are worn particularly large in Queen Charlotte Islands, where they seem to be not a mark of rank, but to be worn in common by all the women.[246] Besides the regular lip-piece, ornaments, various in shape and material, of shell, bone, wood, or metal, are worn stuck in the lips, nose, and ears, apparently according to the caprice or taste of the wearer, the skin being sometimes, though more rarely, tattooed to correspond.[247] Both for ornament and as a protection against the weather, the skin is covered with a thick coat of paint, a black polish being a full dress uniform. Figures of birds and beasts, and a coat of grease are added in preparation for a feast, with fine down of duck or goose--a stylish coat of tar and feathers--sprinkled over the body as an extra attraction.[248] When the severity of the weather makes additional protection desirable, a blanket, formerly woven by themselves from dog's hair, and stained in varied colors, but now mostly procured from Europeans, is thrown loosely over the shoulders. Chiefs, especially in times of feasting, wear richer robes of skins.[249] The styles of dress and ornament adopted around the forts from contact with the whites need not be described. Among the more unusual articles that have been noticed by travelers are, "a large hat, resembling the top of a small parasol, made of the twisted fibres of the roots of trees, with an aperture in the inside, at the broader end" for the head, worn by a Sebassa chief; and at Millbank Sound, "masks set with seals' whiskers and feathers, which expand like a fan," with secret springs to open the mouth and eyes.[250] Mackenzie and Vancouver, who were among the earliest visitors to this region, found fringed robes of bark-fibre, ornamented with fur and colored threads. A circular mat, with an opening in the centre for the head, was worn as a protection from the rain; and war garments consisted of several thicknesses of the strongest hides procurable, sometimes strengthened by strips of wood on the inside.[251]

[Sidenote: HAIDAH HOUSES.]

The Haidahs use as temporary dwellings, in their frequent summer excursions for war and the hunt, simple lodges of poles, covered, among the poorer classes by cedar mats, and among the rich by skins. Their permanent villages are usually built in strong natural positions, guarded by precipices, sometimes on rocks detached from the main land, but connected with it by a narrow platform. Their town houses are built of light logs, or of thick split planks, usually of sufficient size to accommodate a large number of families. Poole mentions a house on Queen Charlotte Islands, which formed a cube of fifty feet, ten feet of its height being dug in the ground, and which accommodated seven hundred Indians. The buildings are often, however, raised above the ground on a platform supported by posts, sometimes carved into human or other figures. Some of these raised buildings seen by the earlier visitors were twenty-five or thirty feet from the ground, solidly and neatly constructed, an inclined log with notches serving as a ladder. These houses were found only in the southern part of the Haidah territory. The fronts were generally painted with figures of men and animals. There were no windows or chimney; the floors were spread with cedar mats, on which the occupants slept in a circle round a central fire, whose smoke in its exit took its choice between the hole which served as a door and the wall-cracks. On the south-eastern boundary of this territory, Mackenzie found in the villages large buildings of similar but more careful construction, and with more elaborately carved posts, but they were not dwellings, being used probably for religious purposes.[252]

[Sidenote: FOOD OF THE HAIDAHS.]

Although game is plentiful, the Haidahs are not a race of hunters, but derive their food chiefly from the innumerable multitude of fish and sea animals, which, each variety in its season, fill the coast waters. Most of the coast tribes, and all who live inland, kill the deer and other animals, particularly since the introduction of firearms, but it is generally the skin and not the flesh that is sought. Some tribes about the Bentinck channels, at the time of Mackenzie's visit, would not taste flesh except from the sea, from superstitious motives. Birds that burrow in the sand-banks are enticed out by the glare of torches, and knocked down in large numbers with clubs. They are roasted without plucking or cleaning, the entrails being left in to improve the flavor. Potatoes, and small quantities of carrots and other vegetables, are now cultivated throughout this territory, the crop being repeated until the soil is exhausted, when a new place is cleared. Wild parsnips are abundant on the banks of lakes and streams, and their tender tops, roasted, furnish a palatable food; berries and bulbs abound, and the inner tegument of some varieties of the pine and hemlock is dried in cakes and eaten with salmon-oil. The varieties of fish sent by nature to the deep inlets and streams for the Haidah's food, are very numerous; their standard reliance for regular supplies being the salmon, herring, eulachon or candle-fish, round-fish, and halibut. Salmon are speared; dipped up in scoop-nets; entangled in drag-nets managed between two canoes and forced by poles to the bottom; intercepted in their pursuit of smaller fish by gill-nets with coarse meshes, made of cords of native hemp, stretched across the entrance of the smaller inlets; and are caught in large wicker baskets, placed at openings in weirs and embankments which are built across the rivers. The salmon fishery differs little in different parts of the Northwest. The candle-fish, so fat that in frying they melt almost completely into oil, and need only the insertion of a pith or bark wick to furnish an excellent lamp, are impaled on the sharp teeth of a rake, or comb. The handle of the rake is from six to eight feet long, and it is swept through the water by the Haidahs in their canoes by moonlight. Herring in immense numbers are taken in April by similar rakes, as well as by dip-nets, a large part of the whole take being used for oil. Seals are speared in the water or shot while on the rocks, and their flesh is esteemed a great delicacy. Clams, cockles, and shell-fish are captured by squaws, such an employment being beneath manly dignity. Fish, when caught, are delivered to the women, whose duty it is to prepare them for winter use by drying. No salt is used, but the fish are dried in the sun, or smoke-dried by being hung from the top of dwellings, then wrapped in bark, or packed in rude baskets or chests, and stowed on high scaffolds out of the reach of dogs and children. Salmon are opened, and the entrails, head, and back-bone removed before drying. During the process of drying, sand is blown over the fish, and the teeth of the eater are often worn down by it nearly even with the gums. The spawn of salmon and herring is greatly esteemed, and besides that obtained from the fish caught, much is collected on pine boughs, which are stuck in the mud until loaded with the eggs. This native caviare is dried for preservation, and is eaten prepared in various ways; pounded between two stones, and beaten with water into a creamy consistency; or boiled with sorrel and different berries, and moulded into cakes about twelve inches square and one inch thick by means of wooden frames. After a sufficient supply of solid food for the winter is secured, oil, the great heat-producing element of all northern tribes, is extracted from the additional catch, by boiling the fish in wooden vessels, and skimming the grease from the water or squeezing it from the refuse. The arms and breast of the women are the natural press in which the mass, wrapped in mats, is hugged; the hollow stalks of an abundant sea-weed furnish natural bottles in which the oil is preserved for use as a sauce, and into which nearly everything is dipped before eating. When the stock of food is secured, it is rarely infringed upon until the winter sets in, but then such is the Indian appetite--ten pounds of flour in the pancake-form at a meal being nothing for the stomach of a Haidah, according to Poole--that whole tribes frequently suffer from hunger before spring.[253]

The Haidah weapons are spears from four to sixteen feet long, some with a movable head or barb, which comes off when the seal or whale is struck; bows and arrows; hatchets of bone, horn, or iron, with which their planks are made; and daggers. Both spears and arrows are frequently pointed with iron, which, whether it found its way across the continent from the Hudson-Bay settlements, down the coast from the Russians, or was obtained from wrecked vessels, was certainly used in British Columbia for various purposes before the coming of the whites. Bows are made of cedar, with sinew glued along one side. Poole states that before the introduction of fire-arms, the Queen Charlotte Islanders had no weapon but a club. Brave as the Haidah warrior is admitted to be, open fair fight is unknown to him, and in true Indian style he resorts to night attacks, superior numbers, and treachery, to defeat his foe. Cutting off the head as a trophy is practiced instead of scalping, but though unmercifully cruel to all sexes and ages in the heat of battle, prolonged torture of captives seems to be unknown. Treaties of peace are arranged by delegations from the hostile tribes, following set forms, and the ceremonies terminate with a many days' feast.[254] Nets are made of native wild hemp and of cedar-bark fibre; hooks, of two pieces of wood or bone fastened together at an obtuse angle; boxes, troughs, and household dishes, of wood; ladles and spoons, of wood, horn, and bone. Candle-fish, with a wick of bark or pith, serve as lamps; drinking vessels and pipes are carved with great skill from stone. The Haidahs are noted for their skill in the construction of their various implements, particularly for sculptures in stone and ivory, in which they excel all the other tribes of Northern America.[255]

[Sidenote: HAIDAH MANUFACTURES.]

The cedar-fibre and wild hemp were prepared for use by the women by beating on the rocks; they were then spun with a rude distaff and spindle, and woven on a frame into the material for blankets, robes, and mats, or twisted by the men into strong and even cord, between the hand and thigh. Strips of otter-skin, bird-feathers, and other materials, were also woven into the blankets. Dogs of a peculiar breed, now nearly extinct, were shorn each year, furnishing a long white hair, which, mixed with fine hemp and cedar, made the best cloth. By dyeing the materials, regular colored patterns were produced, each tribe having had, it is said, a peculiar pattern by which its matting could be distinguished. Since the coming of Europeans, blankets of native manufacture have almost entirely disappeared. The Bellacoolas made very neat baskets, called _zeilusqua_, as well as hats and water-tight vessels, all of fine cedar-roots. Each chief about Fort Simpson kept an artisan, whose business it was to repair canoes, make masks, etc.[256]

The Haidah canoes are dug out of cedar logs, and are sometimes sixty feet long, six and a half wide, and four and a half deep, accommodating one hundred men. The prow and stern are raised, and often gracefully curved like a swan's neck, with a monster's head at the extremity. Boats of the better class have their exteriors carved and painted, with the gunwale inlaid in some cases with otter-teeth. Each canoe is made of a single log, except the raised extremities of the larger boats. They are impelled rapidly and safely over the often rough waters of the coast inlets, by shovel-shaped paddles, and when on shore, are piled up and covered with mats for protection against the rays of the sun. Since the coming of Europeans, sails have been added to the native boats, and other foreign features imitated.[257]

[Sidenote: TRADE AND GOVERNMENT.]

Rank and power depend greatly upon wealth, which consists of implements, wives, and slaves. Admission to alliance with medicine-men, whose influence is greatest in the tribe, can only be gained by sacrifice of private property. Before the disappearance of sea-otters from the Haidah waters, the skins of that animal formed the chief element of their trade and wealth; now the potatoes cultivated in some parts, and the various manufactures of Queen Charlotte Islands, supply their slight necessities. There is great rivalry among the islanders in supplying the tribes on the main with potatoes, fleets of forty or fifty canoes engaging each year in the trade from Queen Charlotte Islands. Fort Simpson is the great commercial rendezvous of the surrounding nations, who assemble from all directions in September, to hold a fair, dispose of their goods, visit friends, fight enemies, feast, and dance. Thus continue trade and merry-making for several weeks. Large fleets of canoes from the north also visit Victoria each spring for trading purposes.[258]

Very little can be said of the government of the Haidahs in distinction from that of the other nations of the Northwest Coast. Among nearly all of them rank is nominally hereditary, for the most part by the female line, but really depends to a great extent on wealth and ability in war. Females often possess the right of chieftainship. In early intercourse with whites the chief traded for the whole tribe, subject, however, to the approval of the several families, each of which seemed to form a kind of subordinate government by itself. In some parts the power of the chief seems absolute, and is wantonly exercised in the commission of the most cruel acts according to his pleasure. The extensive embankments and weirs found by Mackenzie, although their construction must have required the association of all the labor of the tribe, were completely under the chief's control, and no one could fish without his permission. The people seemed all equal, but strangers must obey the natives or leave the village. Crimes have no punishment by law; murder is settled for with relatives of the victim, by death or by the payment of a large sum; and sometimes general or notorious offenders, especially medicine-men, are put to death by an agreement among leading men.[259] Slavery is universal, and as the life of the slave is of no value to the owner except as property, they are treated with extreme cruelty. Slaves the northern tribes purchase, kidnap, or capture in war from their southern neighbors, who obtain them by like means from each other, the course of the slave traffic being generally from south to north, and from the coast inland.[260]

Polygamy is everywhere practiced, and the number of wives is regulated only by wealth, girls being bought of parents at any price which may be agreed upon, and returned, and the price recovered, when after a proper trial they are not satisfactory. The transfer of the presents or price to the bride's parents is among some tribes accompanied by slight ceremonies nowhere fully described. The marriage ceremonies at Millbank Sound are performed on a platform over the water, supported by canoes. While jealousy is not entirely unknown, chastity appears to be so, as women who can earn the greatest number of blankets win great admiration for themselves and high position for their husbands. Abortion and infanticide are not uncommon. Twin births are unusual, and the number of children is not large, although the age of bearing extends to forty or forty-six years. Women, except in the season of preparing the winter supply of fish, are occupied in household affairs and the care of children, for whom they are not without some affection, and whom they nurse often to the age of two or three years. Many families live together in one house, with droves of filthy dogs and children, all sleeping on mats round a central fire.[261]

[Sidenote: HAIDAH GAMBLERS.]

The Haidahs, like all Indians, are inveterate gamblers, the favorite game on Queen Charlotte Islands being odd and even, played with small round sticks, in which the game is won when one player has all the bunch of forty or fifty sticks originally belonging to his opponent. Farther south, and inland, some of the sticks are painted with red rings, and the player's skill or luck consists in naming the number and marks of sticks previously wrapped by his antagonist in grass. All have become fond of whisky since the coming of whites, but seem to have had no intoxicating drink before. At their annual trading fairs, and on other occasions, they are fond of visiting and entertaining friends with ceremonious interchange of presents, a suitable return being expected for each gift. At these reception feasts, men and women are seated on benches along opposite walls; at wedding feasts both sexes dance and sing together. In dancing, the body, head, and arms are thrown into various attitudes to keep time with the music, very little use being made of the legs. On Queen Charlotte Islands the women dance at feasts, while the men in a circle beat time with sticks, the only instruments, except a kind of tambourine. For their dances they deck themselves in their best array, including plenty of birds' down, which they delight to communicate to their partners in bowing, and which they also blow into the air at regular intervals, through a painted tube. Their songs are a simple and monotonous chant, with which they accompany most of their dances and ceremonies, though Mackenzie heard among them some soft, plaintive tones, not unlike church music. The chiefs in winter give a partly theatrical, partly religious entertainment, in which, after preparation behind a curtain, dressed in rich apparel and wearing masks, they appear on a stage and imitate different spirits for the instruction of the hearers, who meanwhile keep up their songs.[262]

After the salmon season, feasting and conjuring are in order. The chief, whose greatest authority is in his character of conjurer, or _tzeetzaiak_ as he is termed in the Hailtzuk tongue, pretends at this time to live alone in the forest, fasting or eating grass, and while there is known as _taamish_. When he returns, clad in bear-robe, chaplet, and red-bark collar, the crowd flies at his approach, except a few brave spirits, who boldly present their naked arms, from which he bites and swallows large mouthfuls. This, skillfully done, adds to the reputation of both biter and bitten, and is perhaps all the foundation that exists for the report that these people are cannibals; although Mr Duncan, speaking of the Chimsyans in a locality not definitely fixed, testifies to the tearing to pieces and actual devouring of the body of a murdered slave by naked bands of cannibal medicine-men. Only certain parties of the initiated practice this barbarism, others confining their tearing ceremony to the bodies of dogs.[263]

[Sidenote: MAGICIANS AND MEDICINE-MEN.]

None of these horrible orgies are practiced by the Queen Charlotte Islanders. The performances of the Haidah magicians, so far as they may differ from those of the Nootkas have not been clearly described by travelers. The magicians of Chatham Sound keep infernal spirits shut up in a box away from the vulgar gaze, and possess great power by reason of the implicit belief on the part of the people, in their ability to charm away life. The doctor, however, is not beyond the reach of a kinsman's revenge, and is sometimes murdered.[264] With their ceremonies and superstitions there seems to be mixed very little religion, as all their many fears have reference to the present life. Certain owls and squirrels are regarded with reverence, and used as charms; salmon must not be cut across the grain, or the living fish will leave the river; the mysterious operations with astronomical and other European instruments about their rivers caused great fear that the fisheries would be ruined; fogs are conjured away without the slightest suspicion of the sun's agency.[265] European navigators they welcome by paddling their boats several times round the ship, making long speeches, scattering birds' down, and singing.[266] Ordinary presents, like tobacco or trinkets, are gladly received, but a written testimonial is most highly prized by the Haidahs, who regard writing as a great and valuable mystery. They have absolutely no methods of recording events. Although living so constantly on the water, I find no mention of their skill in swimming, while Poole states expressly that they have no knowledge of that art.[267]

Very slight accounts are extant of the peculiar methods of curing diseases practiced by the Haidahs. Their chief reliance, as in the case of all Indian tribes, is on the incantations and conjurings of their sorcerers, who claim supernatural powers of seeing, hearing, and extracting disease, and are paid liberally when successful. Bark, herbs, and various decoctions are used in slight sickness, but in serious cases little reliance is placed on them. To the bites of the sorcerer-chiefs on the main, eagle-down is applied to stop the bleeding, after which a pine-gum plaster or sallal-bark is applied. On Queen Charlotte Islands, in a case of internal uneasiness, large quantities of sea-water are swallowed, shaken up, and ejected through the mouth for the purpose, as the natives say, of 'washing themselves inside out.'[268]

[Sidenote: HAIDAH BURIALS.]

Death is ascribed to the ill will and malign influence of an enemy, and one suspected of causing the death of a prominent individual, must make ready to die. As a rule, the bodies of the dead are burned, though exceptions are noted in nearly every part of the territory. In the disposal of the ashes and larger bones which remain unburned, there seems to be no fixed usage. Encased in boxes, baskets, or canoes, or wrapped in mats or bark, they are buried in or deposited on the ground, placed in a tree, on a platform, or hung from a pole. Articles of property are frequently deposited with the ashes, but not uniformly. Slaves' bodies are simply thrown into the river or the sea. Mourning for the dead consists usually of cutting the hair and blackening anew the face and neck for several months. Among the Kaiganies, guests at the burning of the bodies are wont to lacerate themselves with knives and stones. A tribe visited by Mackenzie, kept their graves free from shrubbery, a woman clearing that of her husband each time she passed. The Nass Indians paddle a dead chief, gaily dressed, round the coast villages.[269]

The Haidahs, compared with other North American Indians, may be called an intelligent, honest, and brave race, although not slow under European treatment to become drunkards, gamblers, and thieves. Acts of unprovoked cruelty or treachery are rare; missionaries have been somewhat successful in the vicinity of Fort Simpson, finding in intoxicating liquors their chief obstacle.[270]

[Sidenote: THE NOOTKAS.]

THE NOOTKAS, the second division of the Columbian group, are immediately south of the Haidah country; occupying Vancouver Island, and the coast of the main land, between the fifty-second and the forty-ninth parallels. The word _nootka_ is not found in any native dialect of the present day. Captain Cook, to whom we are indebted for the term, probably misunderstood the name given by the natives to the region of Nootka Sound.[271]The first European settlement in this region was on the Sound, which thus became the central point of early English and Spanish intercourse with the Northwest Coast; but it was soon abandoned, and no mission or trading post has since taken its place, so that no tribes of this family have been less known in later times than those on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The chief tribes of the Nootka family, or those on whose tribal existence, if not on the orthography of their names authors to some extent agree, are as follows.[272] The _Nitinats_, _Clayoquots_, and _Nootkas_, on the sounds of the same names along the west coast of Vancouver Island; the _Quackolls_ and _Newittees_,[273] in the north; the _Cowichins_, _Ucletas_, and _Comux_, on the east coast of Vancouver and on the opposite main; the _Saukaulutuchs_[274], in the interior of the island; the _Clallums_,[275] _Sokes_, and _Patcheena_, on the south end; and the _Kwantlums_ and _Teets_,[276] on the lower Fraser River. These tribes differ but little in physical peculiarities, or manners and customs, but by their numerous dialects they have been classed in nations. No comprehensive or satisfactory names have, however, been applied to them as national divisions.[277]

Between the Nootka family and its fish-eating neighbors on the north and south, the line of distinction is not clearly marked, but the contrast is greater with the interior hunting tribes on the east. Since their first intercourse with whites, the Nootkas have constantly decreased in numbers, and this not only in those parts where they have been brought into contact with traders and miners, but on the west coast, where they have retained in a measure their primitive state. The savage fades before the superior race, and immediate intercourse is not necessary to produce in native races those 'baleful influences of civilization,' which like a pestilence are wafted from afar, as on the wings of the wind.[278]

[Sidenote: NOOTKA PHYSIQUE.]

The Nootkas are of less than medium height, smaller than the Haidahs, but rather strongly built; usually plump, but rarely corpulent;[279] their legs, like those of all the coast tribes, short, small, and frequently deformed, with large feet and ankles;[280] the face broad, round, and full, with the usual prominent cheek-bone, a low forehead, flat nose, wide nostrils, small black eyes, round thickish-lipped mouth, tolerably even well-set teeth; the whole forming a countenance rather dull and expressionless, but frequently pleasant.[281] The Nootka complexion, so far as grease and paint have allowed travelers to observe it, is decidedly light, but apparently a shade darker than that of the Haidah family.[282] The hair, worn long, is as a rule black or dark brown, coarse, and straight, though instances are not wanting where all these qualities are reversed.[283] The beard is carefully plucked out by the young men, and this operation, repeated for generations, has rendered the beard naturally thin. Old men often allow it to grow on the chin and upper lip.

[Sidenote: NOOTKA HAIR AND BEARD.]

To cut the hair short is to the Nootka a disgrace. Worn at full length, evened at the ends, and sometimes cut straight across the forehead, it is either allowed to hang loosely from under a band of cloth or fillet of bark, or is tied in a knot on the crown. On full-dress occasions the top-knot is secured with a green bough, and after being well saturated with whale-grease, the hair is powdered plentifully with white feathers, which are regarded as the crowning ornament for manly dignity in all these regions. Both sexes, but particularly the women, take great pains with the hair, carefully combing and plaiting their long tresses, fashioning tasteful head-dresses of bark-fibre, decked with beads and shells, attaching leaden weights to the braids to keep them straight. The bruised root of a certain plant is thought by the Ahts to promote the growth of the hair.[284]

The custom of flattening the head is practiced by the Nootkas, in common with the Sound and Chinook families, but is not universal, nor is so much importance attached to it as elsewhere; although all seem to admire a flattened forehead as a sign of noble birth, even among tribes that do not make this deformity a sign of freedom. Among the Quatsinos and Quackolls of the north, the head, besides being flattened, is elongated into a conical sugar-loaf shape, pointed at the top. The flattening process begins immediately after birth, and is continued until the child can walk. It is effected by compressing the head with tight bandages, usually attached to the log cradle, the forehead being first fitted with a soft pad, a fold of soft bark, a mould of hard wood, or a flat stone. Observers generally agree that little or no harm is done to the brain by this infliction, the traces of which to a great extent disappear later in life. Many tribes, including the Aht nations, are said to have abandoned the custom since they have been brought into contact with the whites.[285]

[Sidenote: NOOTKA FACE-PAINTING.]

The body is kept constantly anointed with a reddish clayey earth, mixed in train oil, and consequently little affected by their frequent baths. In war and mourning the whole body is blackened; on feast days the head, limbs, and body are painted in fantastic figures with various colors, apparently according to individual fancy, although the chiefs monopolize the fancy figures, the common people being restricted to plain colors. Solid grease is sometimes applied in a thick coating, and carved or moulded in _alto-rilievo_ into ridges and figures afterwards decorated with red paint, while shining sand or grains of mica are sprinkled over grease and paint to impart a glittering appearance. The women are either less fond of paint than the men, or else are debarred by their lords from the free use of it; among the Ahts, at least of late, the women abandon ornamental paint after the age of twenty-five. In their dances, as in war, masks carved from cedar to represent an endless variety of monstrous faces, painted in bright colors, with mouth and eyes movable by strings, are attached to their heads, giving them a grotesquely ferocious aspect.[286] The nose and ears are regularly pierced in childhood, with from one to as many holes as the feature will hold, and from the punctures are suspended bones, shells, rings, beads, or in fact any ornament obtainable. The lip is sometimes, though more rarely, punctured. Bracelets and anklets of any available material are also commonly worn.[287]

The aboriginal dress of the Nootkas is a square blanket, of a coarse yellow material resembling straw matting, made by the women from cypress bark, with a mixture of dog's hair. This blanket had usually a border of fur; it sometimes had arm-holes, but was ordinarily thrown over the shoulders, and confined at the waist by a belt. Chiefs wore it painted in variegated colors or unpainted, but the common people wore a coarser material painted uniformly red. Women wore the garment longer and fastened under the chin, binding an additional strip of cloth closely about the middle, and showing much modesty about disclosing the person, while the men often went entirely naked. Besides the blanket, garments of many kinds of skin were in use, particularly by the chiefs on public days. In war, a heavy skin dress was worn as a protection against arrows. The Nootkas usually went bareheaded, but sometimes wore a conical hat plaited of rushes, bark, or flax. European blankets have replaced those of native manufacture, and many Indians about the settlements have adopted also the shirt and breeches.[288]

[Sidenote: DWELLINGS OF THE NOOTKAS.]

The Nootkas choose strong positions for their towns and encampments. At Desolation Sound, Vancouver found a village built on a detached rock with perpendicular sides, only accessible by planks resting on the branches of a tree, and protected on the sea side by a projecting platform resting on timbers fixed in the crevices of the precipice. The Nimkish tribe, according to Lord, build their homes on a table-land overhanging the sea, and reached by ascending a vertical cliff on a bark-rope ladder. Each tribe has several villages in favorable locations for fishing at different seasons. The houses, when more than one is needed for a tribe, are placed with regularity along streets; they vary in size according to the need or wealth of the occupants, and are held in common under the direction of the chief. They are constructed in the manner following. A row of large posts, from ten to fifteen feet high, often grotesquely carved, supports an immense ridge-pole, sometimes two and a half feet thick and one hundred feet long. Similar but smaller beams, on shorter posts, are placed on either side of the central row, distant from it fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five feet, according to the dimensions required. This frame is then covered with split cedar planks, about two inches thick, and from three to eight feet wide. The side planks are tied together with bark, and supported by slender posts in couples just far enough apart to receive the thickness of the plank. A house like this, forty by one hundred feet, accommodates many families, each of which has its allotted space, sometimes partitioned off like a double row of stalls, with a wide passage in the middle. In the centre of each stall is a circle of stones for a fire-place, and round the walls are raised couches covered with mats. In rainy weather, cracks in the roof and sides are covered with mats. No smoke or window holes are left, and when smoke becomes troublesome a roof-plank is removed. The entrance is at one end. These dwellings furnish, according to Nootka ideas, a comfortable shelter, except when a high wind threatens to unroof them, and then the occupants go out and sit on the roof to keep it in place. Frequently the outside is painted in grotesque figures of various colors. Only the frame is permanent; matting, planks, and all utensils are several times each year packed up and conveyed in canoes to another locality where a frame belonging to the tribe awaits covering. The odor arising from fish-entrails and other filth, which they take no pains to remove, appears to be inoffensive, but the Nootkas are often driven by mosquitos to sleep on a stage over the water.[289]

[Sidenote: FOOD OF THE NOOTKAS.]

The Nootkas, like the Haidahs, live almost wholly on the products of the sea, and are naturally expert fishermen. Salmon, the great staple, are taken in August and September, from sea, inlet, and river, by nets, spears, pots or baskets, and even by hooks. Hooks consist of sharp barbed bones bound to straight pieces of hard wood; sea-wrack, maple-bark, and whale-sinew furnish lines, which in salmon-fishing are short and attached to the paddles. The salmon-spear is a forked pole, some fifteen feet long, the detachable head having prongs pointed with fish-bone or iron, and the fish in deep water is sometimes attracted within its reach by a wooden decoy, forced down by a long pole, and then detached and allowed to ascend rapidly to the surface. Spearing is carried on mostly by torch-light. A light-colored stone pavement is sometimes laid upon the bottom of the stream, which renders the fish visible in their passage over it. Nets are made of nettles or of wild flax, found along Fraser River. They are small in size, and used as dip-nets, or sunk between two canoes and lifted as the fish pass over. A pot or basket fifteen to twenty feet long, three to five feet in diameter at one end, and tapering to a point at the other, is made of pine splinters one or two inches apart, with twig-hoops; and placed, large end up stream, at the foot of a fall or at an opening in an embankment. The salmon are driven down the fall with poles, and entering the basket are taken out by a door in the small end. This basket is sometimes enclosed in another one, similar but of uniform diameter, and closed at one end. Fences of stakes across the river oblige the salmon to enter the open mouth in their passage up, and passing readily through an opening left in the point of the inner basket, they find themselves entrapped. In March, herring appear on the coast in great numbers, and in April and May they enter the inlets and streams, where they are taken with a dip-net, or more commonly by the fish-rake--a pole armed with many sharp bones or nails. Early in the season they can be taken only by torch-light. Halibut abound from March to June, and are caught with hooks and long lines, generally at some distance from shore. For all other fish, European hooks were early adopted, but the halibut, at least among the Ahts, must still be taken with the native hook. Many other varieties of fish, caught by similar methods, are used as food, but those named supply the bulk of the Nootka's provision. In May or June, whales appear and are attacked in canoes by the chief, with the select few from each tribe who alone have the right to hunt this monarch of the sea. The head of their harpoon is made of two barbed bones and pointed with muscle-shell; it is fastened to a whale-sinew line of a few feet in length, and this short line to a very long bark rope, at one end of which are seal-skin air-bags and bladders, to keep it afloat. The point is also fastened to a shaft from ten to twenty-five feet in length, from which it is easily detached. With many of these buoys in tow the whale cannot dive, and becomes an easy prey. Whale-blubber and oil are great delicacies, the former being preferred half putrid, while the oil with that of smaller denizens of the sea preserved in bladders, is esteemed a delicious sauce, and eaten with almost everything. Sea-otters and seals are also speared, the former with a weapon more barbed and firmly attached to the handle, as they are fierce fighters; but when found asleep on the rocks, they are shot with arrows. Seals are often attracted within arrow-shot by natives disguised as seals in wooden masks.