Part 17 (1/2)

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; n.o.ble 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.

Pa.s.sing 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 gra.s.s 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 lat.i.tude 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 sh.e.l.l-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 cla.s.ses 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. .h.i.therto have been brought in much closer contact with the whites than the Hyperboreans, and the results of the a.s.sociation are known to all. The cruel treacheries and ma.s.sacres 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 prost.i.tution, 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 suns.h.i.+ne, 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 n.o.bleness 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 _Ma.s.sets_, the _Skiddegats_, and the _c.u.mshawas_, of Queen Charlotte Islands; the _Kaiganies_, of Prince of Wales Archipelago; the _Chimsyans_, about Fort Simpson, and on Chatham Sound; the _Na.s.s_ and the _Skeenas_, on the rivers of the same names; the _Seba.s.sas_, on Pitt Archipelago and the sh.o.r.es 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 lat.i.tude 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 p.r.o.nounce their complexion light,[238] and instances of Albino characteristics are sometimes found.[239] The hair is not uniformly coa.r.s.e 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 dest.i.tute 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 s.e.x 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 sh.e.l.l, 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 Seba.s.sa 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 cla.s.ses 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 mult.i.tude 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 superst.i.tious 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 quant.i.ties 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 coa.r.s.e 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, c.o.c.kles, and sh.e.l.l-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 sp.a.w.n 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 ma.s.s, 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 appet.i.te--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 s.e.xes 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.]