The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 1, Wild Tribes. Hubert Howe Bancroft
![The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 1, Wild Tribes - Hubert Howe Bancroft](limg_read206179.jpg "The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 1, Wild Tribes - Hubert Howe Bancroft")
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.
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
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
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
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
'By far the best looking, most intelligent and energetic people on the N. W. Coast.'
The Sebassas are 'more active and enterprising than the Millbank tribes.'
'Had it not been for the filth, oil, and paint, with which, from their earliest infancy, they are besmeared from head to foot, there is great reason to believe that their colour would have differed but little from such of the labouring Europeans, as are constantly exposed to the inclemency and alterations of the weather.'
Tolmie mentions several instances of the kind, and states that 'amongst the Hydah or Queen Charlotte Island tribes, exist a family of coarse, red-haired, light-brown eyed, square-built people, short-sighted, and of fair complexion.'
'After the age of puberty, their bodies, in their natural state, are covered in the same manner as those of the Europeans. The men, indeed, esteem a beard very unbecoming, and take great pains to get rid of it, nor is there any ever to be perceived on their faces, except when they grow old, and become inattentive to their appearance. Every crinous efflorescence on the other parts of the body is held unseemly by them, and both sexes employ much time in their extirpation. The Nawdowessies, and the remote nations, pluck them out with bent pieces of hard wood, formed into a kind of nippers; whilst those who have communication with Europeans procure from them wire, which they twist into a screw or worm; applying this to the part, they press the rings together, and with a sudden twitch draw out all the hairs that are inclosed between them.'
At Salmon River, 52° 58´, 'their dress consists of a single robe tied over the shoulders, falling down behind, to the heels, and before, a little below the knees, with a deep fringe round the bottom. It is generally made of the bark of the cedar tree, which they prepare as fine as hemp; though some of these garments are interwoven with strips of the sea-otter skin, which give them the appearance of a fur on one side. Others have stripes of red and yellow threads fancifully introduced towards the borders.' Clothing is laid aside whenever convenient. 'The women wear a close fringe hanging down before them about two feet in length, and half as wide. When they sit down they draw this between their thighs.'
A house 'erected on a platform, … raised and supported near thirty feet from the ground by perpendicular spars of a very large size; the whole occupying a space of about thirty-five by fifteen (yards), was covered in by a roof of boards lying nearly horizontal, and parallel to the platform; it seemed to be divided into three different houses, or rather apartments, each having a separate access formed by a long tree in an inclined position from the platform to the ground, with notches cut in it by way of steps, about a foot and a half asunder.'