586 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

the spirits, and to be able by means of their incantations, to direct
and control them. They consequently possessed much influence and
their services were being constantly demanded. Shamanism played
everywhere a very important part in the lives of the native races of
this region. Believing as they commonly did that all pathological
conditions of the body, all internal maladies and sickness, were caused
by the presence or ill-will of spirits, it could hardly have been other-
wise. Indeed, we may say that Shamanism — that is, belief in the
medicine man's powers — and totemism — that is, belief in guardian
spirits — made up the whole sum and substance of the religion of
the tribes of this region. 

Among the coastal tribes and the Dene Shamanism held the
larger place and played the most important part; among the interior
Salish belief in the personal guardian spirit predominated. 

The shaman or medicine man of the American tribes is not at all
that arrant, self-conscious humbug that some writers have considered
him to be. He believes in himself and his powers sincerely, and
however much we may despise his methods and his knowledge, we
cannot justly deny him sincerity if he be a typical member of his
class. He is generally a person of peculiar psychical temperament
given by long practice to seeing visions, dreaming dreams and pass-
ing into trances, in which he believes he holds converse with, and
receives instructions from, his "familiar spirits"; and such is the
belief in his powers held by the people who seek and employ him,
that if he tells them they will recover, unless their malady is a mortal
one, or beyond the power of the mind to influence through their
imagination, they will and do recover in a way which, if we did not
understand how it came about, would be truly wonderful at times. I 

Totemism — using the word in the American sense, that is, as the
doctrine of "guardian spirits" — differs from Shamanism mainly in
the fact that it brings the individual into personal and direct relation
with the spirits of things without the mediation or intervention of
the medicine man or shaman. 

Among the native races of America this particular practice had
a very great vogue, and we find it in one form or another among all
the Indians of our province. Among the interior tribes, particu-
larly those of the Salish, every man and woman customarily had his
or her personal friendly spirit or spirits. The method of acquiring 

KIXCOLITH (.HUKCH AXD SCHOOL 

INTERIOR OF KIXCOLITH CIILRCH 

XISHKA CHIEFS AND LEADERS 

BRITISH COLUMBIA ^^87 

these seems to be practically the same every^vhere. The seeker goes
apart by himself into the forest or mountains and undergoes a more
or less lengthy course of training and self-discipline. This course
among the Salish continued for a period of from four days to as
many years, according to the object the seeker had in view. Those
taking the longer course are generally men seeking shamanistic or
other special ''mystery'' powers. Prolonged fasts, repeated bathings,
forced vomitings and other exhausting bodily exercises are the means
adopted for inducing the desired state — the mystic dreams and vis-
ions. With the body in the enervated condition which must neces-
sarily follow such vigorous treatment, the mind becomes abnormally
active and expectant; dreams, visions and hallucinations arc as nat-
ural to the seeker in such a state as breathing; and it is not difKcult
for us to understand how real to him must seem the vision of the
looked for spirit, and how firm his belief in its actual manifestation. 

The spirit of almost every object might become a totem or guard-
ian spirit, a few only lacked "mystery power." Certain objects or
animals were more desired than others because of their stronger
'"mystery'' powers, and each class and order of the people had its
own favourite and characteristic objects. This was particularly so in
the case of shamans, who each possessed many "familiars." These
were chieflv the spirits of objects which had reference to death, such
as dead bodies or their parts, especially hair, teeth, skulls, nails, etc.,
nocturnal animals, darkness, grave posts and such like uncanny
things. 

Among the coastal tribes the personal totem had given place very
largely to the family or clan totem. Here the people were grouped
in totemic bodies, each of which claimed a common totem after
whose name the clan was commonly called. Thus we have the eagle
clan, the wolf clan, the whale clan, the bear clan and a host of others.
It was this custom of clan grouping which gave rise to the so-called
totem-poles of our coast, these carved poles being emblematic, her-
aldic representations of the family or clan totems, a phase of totem-
ism peculiar to our own Indians. 

SOCIAL ORG.WIZATIOX 

Early in our study of primitive or savage races we discovered
that their social organization often differed in many interesting fea- 

588 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

tures from our own. The Indians of this province are no exception
to this rule, for we find among them at least three distinct forms of
family grouping or organization. The earliest and most primitive
of family grouping is that in which descent is counted through the
mother only. This we call matrilineal organization. The second
and later is that in which descent is counted through the father only.
This is called patrilineal organization, and the third or latest is that
in which descent may be counted on either or both sides of the family
and which has been called kindred or co-parental organization.
This is the organization we ourselves live under. The native races
of British Columbia present us with all three of these forms of family
grouping. The northern coastal tribes reckon descent exclusively
through the mother. With them the husband or father is an out-
sider, having only the status of a favoured or privileged visitor in
the mother's clan, but possessing no authority w^hatever over his own
offspring or family. Under this condition of things the mother's
eldest brother, that is, the children's maternal uncle, is the head of
her family, and has control of her children. This relation, so strange
from our point of view, is well exemplified in the following inci-
dent: A man of the Tsimshian tribe had gone out hunting and had
become lost in the forest. When he had been missing some days the
missionary stationed there was astonished to see his grown son going
about the village quite unconcerned as to his father's fate. The mis-
sionary asked w'hy he was not out looking for his missing father.
The youth expressed astonishment at the question; why should he
look for his father; his own people should do that, it was not his
business or duty at all! 

Similarly under matrilineal organization a father cannot leave
any of his property or any of his clan belongings to his own children,
but must leave them to his nieces and nephews, the children of his
sister or sisters, they being members of his own clan. It was prob-
ably in great part this inability to transmit to his own offspring his
personal possessions and honours that led to the breaking down of
the matrilineal organization and the substitution therefor of the
partilineal or father-right condition of things; for we find that some
men married their sons to their own sisters, that is, their aunts, in
order that the offspring from this union might rightfullv. according
to clan law, inherit his honours and possessions. 

SECTION OF KIXCOLITH 

Till': XKW MODE OF TRAVEL. ARCHDEACOX COLLTSON'S LAUNCH, THE "DAWN," 

ARRIVED IX HARBOUR 

'i:-' 

BRITISH COLUMBIA 589 

Under patriarchal rule the mother's relations are not regarded
as the relatives of the children. She, under this rule, is an intruder
or visitor in the husband's clan and should he die before herself her
relatives come and take her away, together with all the property she
may have acquired. 

The third and latest form of family organization is best found
among the interior Salish. Here matriarchy has everywhere been
superseded by patriarchy, and this again in several of the divisions
by the co-parental family group, where descent is counted on both
sides of the family and where the father's and mother's relatives make
up the kin-group of the children. 

The simplest form of social organization is found among the
interior hunting tribes, where a state of pure anarchy may be said
to have formerly prevailed, each family being a law unto itself and
acknowledging no authority save that of its own elder-man. Each
local community was composed of a greater or less number of these
self-ruling families. There was a kind of headship or nominal
authority given to the oldest and wisest of the elder-men in some of
the larger communities, where occasion called for it or where cir-
cumstances arose in which it became necessary to have a central
representative. This led in some centres to the regular appointing
of local chiefs or tribal heads, whose business it was to look after
the material interest of the commune over which they presided; but
the office was always strictly elective and hedged with manifold lim-
itations as to authority and privilege. 

But as we leave the inland tribes and proceed down the Fraser,
we find these simple communistic forms of organization giving place
to others more formal and complex. Society here is divided into
more or less distinct castes and classes, and the office of headman,
though still in theory elective, has become practically hereditary,
passing generally from father to son in the same family. The strictly
democratic equality of the interior tribes has disappeared and the
communes are now made up of the three orders of chiefs, nobles
and base-folk, and the nearer we get to the coast the stricter and
more inflexible these class distinctions become. 

There remains yet one other feature of their social life to speak
of: we refer to their practice of making and keeping slaves. The
custom was common to some extent to all the tribes, but more par- 
590 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

ticularly to those of the coastal region. Every family of standing
had its own body of slaves, both male and female. These did all the
rough, dirty and laborious work, such as fetching water and gather-
ing firewood. These slaves were acquired either by purchase or
taken in war. 

Mention should also be made of their secret societies and their
"potlatch" ceremonies. The former was peculiar to the coastal
tribes and the initiation ceremonies were sometimes very elaborate
and peculiar. Space does not permit us to treat of these at length
here. The latter, or "potlatch," is a kind of gift-feast and is a most
ingeniously devised system, peculiar to the Northwest tribes of
America, for acquiring social prestige and influence, and at the same
time laying up a provision for the future. By a well-understood
rule, which is observed with a greater punctiliousness than any
observance among ourselves, every recipient of a gift at a potlatch
gathering is bound in honour to return another of double value to
the donor or his legal heirs at some future time. And in this repay-
ment his relatives and fellow-clansmen arc expected to aid him if
necessary. They indeed become his sureties; and the honour of the
family, clan or even tribe is involved in the repayment of the gifts. 

The property usually distributed on these occasions consists in
the main of skins, horses, personal clothing, blankets, guns, canoes,
and, since the advent of the dollar, money. On one historic occasion
presents to the value of $15,000 are known to have been distributed,
chiefly in the form of blankets, the old time measure of wealth. On
another the gifts consisted of 134 sacks of flour, 140 pairs of blankets,
a large quantity of apples and other provisions, and $700 in currency.
From two to five thousand Indians meet together at these potlatch
gatherings. About twenty-five years ago one of the Vancouver Island
chiefs gave a great potlatch to about twenty-five hundred persons
brought together from dififerent tribes. He feasted and entertained
his guests for over a month, and then sent them home with his accu-
mulated savings of the five previous years. This prolonged feast
spread his fame far and wide over the Province, and he was there-
after looked upon as one of the greatest of chiefs. 

Though it is now made illegal to hold potlatch ceremonies on
account of the disorder and inebriety sometimes witnessed thereat,
there can be no doubt that in earlier pre-trading days before the 

« 

BRITISH COLUMBIA 59i 

introduction of "fire-water" the effect of such a custom as the pot-
latch was on the whole good and beneficial, engendering as it did
feelings of good will and friendship between settlement and settle-
ment and tribe and tribe, and making war almost impossible between
them. 

h 

1^

582 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

hospitality, and in pre-trading days also for their chastity. Father
De Smet has the following to say of the Kootenays, which to a large
extent applies to all the stocks, or rather did when we first came into
contact with them, but particularly to the Salish: 

"The beau ideal of the Indian character, uncontaminated by
contact with the whites, is found among them. What is most pleas-
ing to the stranger is to see their simplicity united with sweetness
and innocence, keep step with the most perfect dignity and modesty
of deportment. The gross vices which dishonour the red man on
the frontiers are utterly unknown among them. They are honest to
scrupulosity. The Hudson's Bay Company, during forty years that
it has been trading in furs with them, has never been able to perceive
that the smallest object has been stolen from them. The agent takes
his furs down to Colville ev^ery spring and does not return before
autumn. During his absence the store is confided to the care of an
Indian, who trades in the name of the Company, and on the return
of the agent renders him a most exact account of his trust. The
store often remains without anyone to watch it, the door unlocked
and unbolted, and the goods are never stolen. The Indians go in
and out. help themselves to what they want, and always scrupulously
leave in place of whatever article thev take its exact value.'' 

Father Morice has much the same to say of the Dene. He
writes: ''A noteworthy quality of the Dene, especially of such as
have remained untouched by modern civilization, is their great
honesty. Among the Sikani a trader will sometimes go on a trap-
ping expedition, leaving his store unlocked, without fear of any of
its contents going amiss. Meanwhile a native may call in his absence,
help himself to as much powder and shot or any other item he may
need, but he will never fail to leave there an exact equivalent in
furs." 

Simon Fraser was likewise much impressed with the honesty of
the interior Salish with whom he came in contact, and everyone else
who had anything to do with our Indians in ^he early days also
speaks in the highest terms of their honesty and faithfulness. 

But it is not necessary to go far afield to learn what their charac-
ter was before the settlement of the country by ourselves; it is plainly
revealed to us in their folk-tales and tribal traditions. 

These show us that their lives were moral and well regulated; 

i 

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V. 

XT. 

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C 

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o
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BRITISH COLUMBIA 583 

that deep shame and disgrace followed a lapse from virtue in the
married and unmarried of both sexes. The praise and enjoinment
of virtue, self discipline and abstinence in young men is no less
clearly brought out, whilst the respect and consideration paid by the
young everywhere to their elders afTords an example which more
advanced races might with profit copv. 

We are sometimes too prone to imagine that life among primitive
peoples is wholly debased and vile, and that paganism has no virtues
of its own. That nothing can be farther from the facts of the case,
the ethical precepts and teachings of such people as the Salish make
perfectly clear. Following are some of these precepts as held and
taught by the Thompson River Indians:
It is bad to steal. 

People will despise you and say you are poor. They will laugh
at you and will not live with you. They will not trust you ; they
will call you "thief."
It is bad to be un virtuous. 

It will make your friends ashamed of you, and you will be
laughed at and gossiped about. No one will want to make you
his wife.
It is bad to lie. 

People will laugh at you, and when y(ju tell them anything they
will not believe what you say. They will call you "liar."
It is bad to be lazy. 

You will always be poor and no woman will care for you. You
will have few clothes, and you will be called "lazy one."
It is bad to commit adultery. 

People will avoid you and gossip about you. Your friends and
children will be ashamed, and people will laugh and scofY at
them. You will be disgraced or divorced. You will be called
"adulterer."
It is bad to boast if you arc not great. 

People will dislike you and laugh at you. They will call you
"coyote," "proud" or "vain."
It is bad to be cowardly. 

People will laugh at you, insult you and mock you. They will
impose upon you and trade with you without paying. Women
will not want you for a husband; they will call you "woman"
and "coward." 

584 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

It is bad to be inhospitable or stingy. 

People will be stingy to you, will shun you and will gossip about
you, and call you "stingy one."
It is bad to be quarrelsome. 

People will have no dealings with you; they will avoid and dis-
like you. Your wives will leave you; you will be called "bad,"
"family quarreller," "angry one."
It is good to be pure and cleanly.
It is good to be honest, truthful and faithful.
It is good to be brave, industrious and grateful.
It is good to be hospitable, liberal and friendly.
It is good to be modest and sociable. 

Your family and friends will be proud of you, and everybody
will admire and esteem you.
People who inculcate such sound, practical morality and such vir-
tues in the minds of their children as these can scarcely be called
debased, or be said to be greatly in need of instruction from our-
selves. 

It is true that the Thompsons represented the Salish at their high-
est and best, both morally and physically, but similar precepts and
virtues were taught in most tribes before the days of our advent;
and if they have fallen away from these high standards, as we fear
they have, the fault is not theirs, but ours. They have but followed
what they have observed among ourselves; they have been only too
truly receptive of our superior civilization in all its phases. Recep-
tiveness is one of their most striking qualities, and they adopt in
wholesale fashion the customs and modes of life they observe among
ourselves. The same may be said of the Dene; and it would be diffi-
cult indeed to find any peoples more susceptible to foreign influences,
more receptive of new ideas, and more ready and willing to adopt
and carry them out than the British Columbian Indians. \Yc
assumed a grave responsibility when we undertook to civilize these
races. 

RELIGIOIS 15KI,IEI-.S .\X1) I'RACTICF.S 

Religion, in the ordinary meaning of the word, the British
Columbian tribes had none. They recognized no Supreme Being
who controlled the universe, no High Gods who ruled the destinies 

I 

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o
2i 

CO 

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W 

o
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12! 

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BRITISH COLUMBIA r,85 

of men, nor even a "Great Spirit," such as is ascribed, and wrongly
so, to some of the eastern tribes of America, to whom they could
pray for protection and help. The nearest approach they made to
anything of the kind was found among some of the interior Salish,
who at times invoked the Spirit of the Dawn, one of the many "mys-
tery" spirits with which they peopled their universe. 

They believed in a multiplicity of spirits; that all nature, in all
her forms, was thus animated. Every object had its own soul or
spirit, which was distinct from the body or material form, and could
separate itself from it and live an independent spirit or ghostly
existence. 

Not only were those objects which we call animate, that is, living
sentient bodies, possessed of souls or spirits, but also every insensate
object, the smallest and most insignificant in common with the larg-
est and most impressive. The blade of grass, a stick or a stone, the
very tools and utensils they themselves made and employed, each and
all possessed spirit forms more real than their corporeal ones, because
more permanent and indestructible. The material form of the object
could be destroyed, the tool could be broken, the fish or the deer
killed and eaten, but the spirit forms of these objects would still
remain. Thus the spirit world was a very real world to them, ever
present and ever encompassing them, was, indeed, the source of all
the ills and pleasures of their existence. Whatever good luck might
befall them was due entirely to the benevolence of the "spirits," as
in like manner all their ill luck and misfortunes were due to their
malevolence. They were ever at the mercy of the ghosts of things,
whose pity must be implored, anger propitiated, and goodness recom-
pensed; and everv deliberate act of their lives was more or less con-
ceived and carried out witii this intent and purpose. 

Some of the tribes of the Dene seem to Iiave had, in pre-mission-
ary days, some vague indefinite conception of a Being who lived on
high and who was the effective cause of the rain, snow, winds and
other celestial piienomena. It was known by a native term which
meant "that which is on Iiigh." lUit they never worshipped this
power, but rather feared and dreaded it, and sought at all times to
get out of its way; or if this was not possible to appease and propit-
iate it, and the spirits who were supposed to obey it, with the aid of
their medicine men. These men are supposed to have power over 

578 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

Speaking, therefore, with all caution and reserve, it may fairly
be said that the total native population of today represents very little
more than one-tenth of what it was when we first came in contact
with the Indians, a little more than a century ago. 

Ibe principal cause of this excessive mortality is alcoholism and
its attendant evils; chief among the secondary causes are small-pox,
syphilis and pneumonia. 

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 

It has been said that an Indian taken from one portion of the
continent could easily be mistaken for an inhabitant of some other
portion. This is because of the strong facial resemblance the natives
commonly bear to one another. This general likeness, this distinc-
tive pan-American visage, would seem to consist, in the main, of a
well-formed ovaloid face in which a decidedly acquiline and some-
what pointed nose forms the chief feature, dark eyes and hair, and a
skin the hue or colour of which is commonly called red or coppery,
but which is really a brown, with an undertone of red running
through it. This general type seems to exist all over the continent,
but variations from it are numerous, and some of these are so extreme
as to point to the existence of a secondary type. This second type is,
in most of its features, the direct antithesis of the primary or truly
American type. It is characterized by an unusual breadth of face,
the nose is concave and spreading, the cheek bones high and promi-
nent, the mouth coarse, and the colour a palish yellow. 

In British Columbia we seem to meet with a cast of countenance
that partakes of the characters of both types, approximating here
more nearly to the characteristic American type and there to the
adventitious or so-called Mongoloid type. This would seem to indi-
cate that the native races of British Columbia have received a later
infusion of East-Asian blood than the natives in more distant parts
of the continent. 

This view is entirely in harmony with the beliefs commonly held
by American students, the consensus of opinion now being that this
continent was originally peopled from the West, and that the East-
Asian hordes did not enter the country in one great wave, but rather
in successive minor waves, and that therefore the natives of British 

BRITISH COLUMBIA 57y 

Columbia, being presumably the latest comers, arc more closely
allied to the Mongoloid peoples of East-Asia than are the tribes or
stocks farther east or south. Those who have observed the strong
facial likeness between our Indians and the Japanese and Chinese
can have little doubt of this. The resemblance is so close and strik-
ing at times that even the Indians themselves are struck with and
comment upon it. We cannot say even apprcjximatelv when these
invasions from Asia took place; we only know that thev were not of
recent date, and that there are no tribes or peoples living there now
who have more than a very indefinite and general ethnic relationship
to our British Columbian stocks. 

When we first came into contact with the native tribes of this
province we found that some of them, notably the coastal Salish and
the Vancouver Island Kwakiutl, had a curious habit of deforming
their heads; the effect of which was at times to give them a very
singular appearance. Each division had its own type of cranial con-
tortion. The Kwakiutl type was found in its most characteristic
form among the Koskeeno, who live about Kwatzino Sound on the
northwest portion of V^ancouver's Island. Here the head was elon-
gated backward to an extraordinary and unsightly degree. The
style of deformation among the coastal Salish tribes dififered very
considerably. Among the Squamish a band was laid across the
child's forehead, and held there by thongs fastened to the bottom of
the cradle, the deformation being always effected during the cradle-
life of the individual; another pad or band was then tied across tlie
top of the head just back of the coronal suture to prevent the pres-
sure from the forehead-band forcing the head in that direction.
This produced a three-fold pressure on the front, top and back of
the head, the cfifect of which was to give a peculiarly receding sweep
to the frontal bone, a flattening to the (Hcipital or posterior region,
and produce a compensatory bulge of the head sideways; the result
of which was to make the head appear abnormalh ■^hort and the
face unusually broad. 

Among the neighbouring Sechelt tribes the coronal pad or cush-
ion was omitted, or rather was placed farther back on the lambda,
with the result that the top of the head was forced upwards into a
decided transverse ridge, like the roof of a house, giving a most
singular aspect to the individual when the head was uncovered. 

580 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

This "style of head" was apparently more common among women
than men, the most extreme cases the writer has personally observed
being always those of women. The object of these deformations
was in all instances to give, what the natives considered, a more
beautiful and desirable form to the head, the normal contours not
being pleasing to their eyes; and the practice afifords an excellent
illustration, like that of the extremely small feet of Chinese ladies,
of the truth of the dictum that beauty is not an absolute, but a rela-
tive quality, the standard of which varies from age to age and from
people to people. 

The practice among some of the Salish seems to have had a defi-
nite social, as well as an aesthetic significance. There appear to have
been recognized degrees of contortion marking the social status of
the individual. For example, slaves, of which the Salish kept con-
siderable numbers, were prohibited from deforming the heads of
their children at all, consequently a normal, undeformed head was
the sign and badge of servitude. And in the case of the base-born
of the tribes the heads of their children were customarily but slightly
deformed, while the heads of the children born of wealthy or noble
persons, and particularly those of chiefs, were severely and exces-
sively deformed. 

It might be thought that such severe contortion of the brain-case
would injuriously afifect the brain itself, but such does not seem to
have been the case. Some of the most noted men of this region were
chiefs whose heads were excessively deformed. 

MORAL CHARACTERISTICS 

In all moral qualities, save that of courage, the Indians of British
Columbia ranked high before contact with the whites; in point of
valour they fell far below the eastern tribes; and while some were
braver and better fighters than others, not one of the stocks could be
said to be really warlike. In earlier days the coastal and delta Salish
were kept in perpetual fear and trembling by a single tribe of
marauding Kwakiutls, who made periodic forays upon their vil-
lages, routing and slaughtering the men and carrying off the women
and children into slavery. So dreaded was this band, and so timid
and pusillanimous the Salish men, that when the whites first settled 

f 

INDIAN FISH CACHES 

I 

BRITISH COLUMBIA r,8i 

in their midst they would come running to them like frightened chil-
dren upon the first rumour of the approach of their foes and beg to
be protected from them. The interior Salish, who are physically a
finer people than those of the coast and delta, do not appear to have
been so cowardly. 

Though they protected themselves with palisaded forts, they were
always ready to defend their homes and property from the attacks
of their foes. But most of the Dene were no better than the coast
and delta Salish. Father Morice speaks most strongly of their tim-
idity and cowardice. He writes: 

"The Dene are generally pusillanimous, timid and cowardly.
Even among the Carriers, the proudest and most progressive of all
the western tribes, hardly any summer passes but some party runs
home panic-stricken, and why? They have heard at some little dis-
tance some 'men of the woods,' evidently animated by murderous
designs upon them, and they have barely escaped with their lives!
Thereupon great commotion and tumult in the camp. Immediately
everybody is charitably warned not to venture alone in the forest,
and after sunset every door is carefully locked against any possible
intruder." 

Mr. Bernard R. Ross, one of the northern Hudson Bay factors,
has written also in the same strain in his manuscript account of the
Indians of that region. "As a whole," he says, "the race under con-
sideration is unwarlike. The Cheppewyans, Beavers and Yellow-
Knives are much braver than the remaining tribes. I have never
known in my long residence among this people, of arms having been
resorted to in conflict. In most cases their mode of personal combat
is a species of wrestling, and consists in the opponents grasping each
other's long hair. Knives are almost invariably laid aside previous
to the contest. 1 am disposed to consider this peaceful disposition
proceeds more from timidity than from any actual disinclination to
shed blood. A strange footprint or any unusual sound in the forest
is (]uite sufficient to cause great excitement in caniii. I 1ki\c on sev-
eral occasions caused all the natives encamped around to flock for
protection into the fort tkiring the night by simply whistling, hidden
in the bushes." 

Apart, however, from this weakness, their other virtues stood out
conspicuously. They were proverbial for their honesty and for their 

CHAPTER XVIII
THE NATIVE RACES OF BRITISH COLUMBIA 

BY CHARLES HILL-TOUT 

Mention has frequently been made of the native races of British
Columbia in the earlier chapters of this work, and many interesting
incidents relating to our earlier intercourse with them have been
touched upon at greater or less length, but it has been thought this
history would not be the complete and comprehensive work its
authors desire to make it unless a chapter were devoted to the native
tribes who peopled this portion of the Dominion before we ourselves
occupied it, hence this brief sketch of their life-history. 

The native races of British Columbia form a portion of the abo-
riginal people who occupied this continent when the attention of
Europe was first directed to it by the voyage of Columbus. Since
that time they have been known to us by the name of Indians. This
name was given to them under the mistaken notion that this conti-
nent was a portion of India and the people, therefore, Indians, and
the name has ever since stuck to them. 

When it was once definitely ascertained that the new world was
not a portion of India, speculation concerning the origin of the
natives became rife. Whence had they come and what was their
former history? One author thinks they must be Trojan refugees
who had fled thither and found a haven of refuge after the sack of
Troy, because he fancied he detected a word in their language which
had a Graeco-Roman sound. Another connects them with those
early navigators, the PhoEnicians; another brings them from China,
and others again make them Jews and see in them the lost ten tribes
of Israel. This is perhaps the most common view held by the uncrit-
ical. But the most naive and whimsical of all the origins suggested
for them is that propounded by Dr. Cotton Mather, a learned divine
of the eighteenth century. He declares that the appearance of man 

573 

574 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

on the American continent was due to the direct agency of the Evil
One, who, seeing in the earl)' spread of Christianity the loss of his
power over mankind, conceived the brilliant idea of seducing a por-
tion of the race to the New World, where, in the language of the
learned author, they would be hid and be out of sound of the silver
trumpet of the Gospel, and where he would have them entirely for
his own to the end of time! 

Modern inquiry, conducted on somewhat different lines, has
resulted in showing us that whatever may have been the origin of
the native races of the New World, they have been dwellers here
for a verv long period of time, compared with which the siege of
Troy or the dispersion of the Jews is a matter of very recent date.
The remains of primitive implements of rude form in geological
strata which are clearly of ancient formation, and of hearth-sites
associated with bones of extinct species of the horse and other ani-
mals now unknown, make this very certain. The distinguished
Americanist, Dr. Brinton, held the opinion that American man was
present and active, using tools and fire during the Inter-Glacial
Period; and that he had spread over the continent and lived in both
North and South America at the close of the Glacial Age, he
regarded as beyond any doubt. 

However this may be, when we first came into contact with them
they occupied the whole continent from end to end. We found
them segregated into numerous tribes and nations, characterized by
all degrees of culture from the very rude savagery of Tierra del
Fuego to the comparatively advanced refinement and civilization of
Mexico, Central America and Peru, and exhibiting a diversity of
languages truly bewildering. 

Of late years scholars have given much attention and study to
them, and they have been ranged or classified into distinct groups
or stocks on the basis of their language. Some one hundred and fifty
of these have been recognized. 

Of this number ten are found within the confines of the Dominion
of Canada and of this ten six, or more than half, have their habitat in
large part in this province. It will make our treatment of them
clearer if we divide them into two divisions: the Coast and Island
tribes, and the Interior tribes. This division follows the lines of
their culture, the two groups being very distinct in their mode of life
and customs. 

BRITISH COLUMBIA 575 

The Coast and Island tribes reckoning from north to south com-
prise the Haida of the Queen Charlotte Islands and part of the
Prince of Wales Archipelago: 

The Tsimshian, inhabiting the Nass and Skeena rivers and adja-
cent islands: 

The Kwakiutl-Nootka, inhabiting the whole coastal region from
Gardiner Channel to Cape Mudgc (with the exception of the region
around Dean Inlet, where an isolated intrusive band of Salish have
made their home), and the greater portion of the west coast and the
northern half of Vancouver's Island. 

South of this territory we find the coastal divisions of the great
Salish stock, which extend beyond our own boundaries into the neigh-
bouring states of the American Union. 

The interior of the province is divided between the Inland divi-
sion of the Salish, who occupy all the southern portion west of the
crest of the Selkirk range; the Kootenay tribes, who inhabit the val-
ley of the Upper Columbia river and the Kootenay lake and river;
and the Dene or Athapascan tribes, who occupy all the northern
portion of the province and extend beyond it to the confines of the
Eskimo. 

Each of these stocks or nations is divided into a greater or less
number of sub-groups or divisions, and some of these dififer so sharply
from each other in customs and language that a casual observer
would be deceived into regarding them as distinct and unrelated
stocks or peoples. This is notably the case with the wide-spread
Dene and Salish, whose sub-divisions differ more from each other,
both in mode of life and language, than do the different Romance
nations of Europe. 

Mention has been made in other portions of this history of the
establishment of the Fur Companies in this part of the continent,
and the amalgamation of the North-West Fur Company with its
great rival, the Hudson's Bay Company. Under the organization of
the latter the natives of British Columbia had their first training in
civilization. The Hudson's Bay Company, through their employees,
ever treated the Indians with uniform kindness and justice; and it
is largely owing to their beneficent and enlightened policy that the
early history of this region is free from those deeds of horror and
bloodshed which darken the pages of the history of the settlement
of the lands farther south. Uprisings of the natives against the set- 

576 BRITISH COLUMBIA 

tiers, raids and forays on their settlements or property are events
almost unknown in the early history of British Columbia. As long
as the country was under the rule of the Fur Companies the Indians
lived much as did their forefathers, and beyond performing certain
occasional services for the Posts, they were free to come and go when,
and live where, they pleased. But when, in 1858, the Home Govern-
ment revoked the grant which it had made to the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany twenty years before — by which the Company was given control
of the lands west of the Rocky Mountains and the rights of exclusive
trading and dealing with the natives — and the country became a
Crown Colony, the Indians naturally came under the jurisdiction of
the Crown officers; and when the colony was opened up for settle-
ment certain lands and localities were set aside for their exclusive
use and occupancy. Later, in 1870, when the country was trans-
formed from a Crown Colony into a province of the Dominion, the
Indians became wards of the Federal Government, and their lands
and affairs passed to the control of the Indian Department. This
Department is under the general superintendence of one of the min-
isters of State, usually of the minister of the Interior. Under him
there is a Deputy Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs, who
has the direct control of all matters concerning the natives and their
general welfare. Each province has its own Superintendent, who is
assisted in his duties by a number of local Indian agents and other
officers. 

The treatment of the Indians by the Department has always been
just and humane, with the result that wars and disturbances of the
peace have but rarely occurred, and the native races of the Dominion
may now be classed among the most peaceable and law-abiding of his
Majesty's subjects. Industrial, boarding and ordinary day schools
have of late years been established in different centres among them,
and the Indians of the present day are fast fitting themselves for the
conditions of modern civilized life. Many of the tribes in this prov-
ince live today in well-ordered villages with lighted streets and
water-work systems of their own, and are better housed and have
more comforts than the average European peasant. The men of the
tribes engage, for the most part, regularly in fishing and lumbering
or in agriculture and stock raising, and their outlook for the future
is by no means a discouraging one. 

BRITISH COLUMBIA 577 

Truth, however, compels one to say that a backward glance over
the history and condition of the native races of the province as a
whole since our advent among them does not present so satisfactory
a picture; and one is obliged to confess that contact with the white
man has not been everywhere an unmixed blessing for the Indian.
The transition from the old order of things to the new was in the
main too abrupt and radical and the race has suffered accordingly,
notwithstanding the benevolent care of the government. Nowhere
is this shown more clearly than in the high, death-rate and the conse-
quent diminution of their numbers. The whole native population
of the province today numbers scarcely 25,000; and though we have
no definite knowledge of the extent of the population when we first
occupied the country, the estimates of the early settlers, the traditions
of the Indians themselves, and the number of deserted and abandoned
villages, which, in the memory of those now living, formerly con-
tained hundreds of inhabitants, all indicate that five times that num-
ber, or 125,000, would not be an excessive estimate during the first
half of the last century. 

The writer's own investigations, conducted over a series of years,
leave no room for doubt in his mind that the present Salish popula-
tion of approximately 12,000 does not represent a fifth of the popu-
lation of this stock at the time of Simon Eraser's visit to them. One
tribe alone, the Lukungen, whose settlements are at the southeastern
end of Vancouver's Island, was estimated in 1859 to number 8,500.
Today they could not muster 200, or less than one-fortieth of their
former numbers. The neighbouring Cowitchin tribes about forty-
five years ago numbered five thousand and five souls; today they do
not reach eight hundred. Tiiis frightful death-rate has not been
confined to the tribes of the Salish stock; the others have suffered
proportionately. That moribund race, the Haida of the Queen
Charlotte Islands, numbered in 1840, according to estimates based
on reliable information, 8,328. Twenty-five years ago the number
had dwindled to approximately 2,000, and today the total native
population of the Islands would not exceed 700. Father Morice, the
distinguished missionary student and writer, has the same to say of
the Dene stock, whose total population at the present time is less, he
claims, than one-tenth of what it was when Mackenzie first passed
through their country.