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CUSTOMS AND ARTS OF THE KWAKIOOL. 345 
 
 ::vs' 
 
 ! I 
 
 ! ■ 
 
 CUSTOMS AND ARTS OF THE KWAKIOOL.* 
 
 Bv GEORGE M. DAWSON, D. S., F. G. S. 
 
 DURING the summer of 1885, the "writer was engaged in the 
 geological examination of the northern i)art of Vancouver 
 Island and its vicinity, the territory of the Kwakiool people. In 
 connection with the prosecution of his work, he was in constant 
 and intimate association with this people, and enjoyed many ex- 
 cellent opportunities of obtaining facts respecting them, of hear- 
 ing their traditions and stories, and of becoming familiar with 
 their mode of life and habits of thought. The notes, made at the 
 time, are hero presented in a systematized form. As thus set 
 down in order, they are intended to be merely a record of facts 
 and observations, and are offered as a contribution toward our 
 knowledge of the Indians of the west coast. Notwithstanding 
 diversity of language and dialect, these coast people form a single 
 group in respect to arts, and to a less extent in regard to customs 
 and traditions. The useful arts and modes of construction have 
 
 * Abridppd from a paper entitled " Notes and Ob.servations on the Kwakiool People of 
 Vancouver Inland," presented to the Royal Society of Canada, May 26, 1887. 
 
346 
 
 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 
 
 evidently been readily adopted by various tribes from whatever 
 source they may have originated. In dexterity and constructive 
 skill, as well as in artistic representation, the Haida people, how- 
 ever, excel all the others. 
 
 The villages consist usually of a single row of houses ranged 
 along the edge of the beach and facing the sea. The houses are 
 generally large, and are used as dwelling-places by two or more 
 families, each occupying a corner, which is closed in by temporary 
 partitions of split cedar planks, six or eight feet in height, or by 
 a screen of cloth on one or two sides. Each family has, as a rule, 
 its own fire, with cedar planks laid down near it to sit and sleep 
 on. When, however, they are gathered in the houses of smaller 
 and ruder construction, at summer fishing-places, etc., a single 
 fire may serve for a whole household. The household effects and 
 property of the inmates are piled up round the walls, or stored 
 away in little cupboard-like partition spaces at the sides or back 
 of the house. Above the fire belonging to each family is gener- 
 ally a frame of poles or slips of cedar, upon which clothes may be 
 hung to dry, and dried fish or dried clams are stored in the smoke. 
 Eating is a perpetually recurring occupation, and smoke appears 
 to ooze out by every chink and cranny of the roofs of the large 
 houses, the whole upper part of which is generally filled with it. 
 The houses of the Kwakiool are not so large or so well constructed 
 as those of the Haida, though, if Vancouver's representations of 
 them are to be accepted as accurate, they are more commodious 
 and better built now than in his time. The introduction of metal 
 tools may have produced a change of that kind. Wood-carving 
 is practiced, but not so extensively as among the Haida, and 
 carved totem-posts are not nearly so numerous nor so large or 
 artistic in design as among that people. Such examples of posts 
 of this kind as occur are also invariably separate from the houses, 
 and no instance of a carved post forming the door of a house was 
 seen in any of the villages. 
 
 The most valuable possession of the Kwakiool and other north- 
 ern tribes is the " copper " or copper plate of which the peculiar 
 form is illustrated in my " Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands.'* 
 A conventional face is often scraped out upon the surface of the 
 " copper." The most valued coppers are very old and have been 
 handed down for generations. These are known as tlct-kwa. 
 Smaller "coppers" of modern manufacture are named tlil-tloh- 
 sum. A copper, to be of value, should be of equal thickness 
 throughout, except at the edges, where it should be thicker than 
 elsewhere. When struck, it should emit a dull sound and not 
 ring. The dentalium shell, named a-tl-a, was formerly used as a 
 currency, but, as with other coast tribes, the blanket is now the 
 unit of value. A somewhat inferior quality, known in the Hud- 
 
t: 
 
 CUSTOMS AND ARTS OF THE KWAKIOOL. 
 
 347 
 
 son's Bay Company parlance as a " two-and-a-half point " blanket, 
 is the standard, and is named uV -hul-as-kum. 
 
 When a child has grown large enough to leave the little cradle, 
 tied into which it spends most of its earlier days, usage demands 
 that the cradle, together with all the wrappings and hark form- 
 ing the bedding and its appendages, shall be carefully collected 
 and carried to a recognized place of deposit. This custom is not 
 now strictly adhered to with regard to the cradle, but is still 
 obligatory in respect to the bedding, which is generally neatly 
 packed in a box or basket, and laid away, never to be touched 
 again. Every village probably has such a place of deposit. That 
 for the Ka-loo-kwis village is a sheltered recess in limestone cliffs 
 at the western extreme of Harbledown Island. It is named kl-ats- 
 a-kwCisli', or " cedar-bark deposit-place." Another similar recess 
 in a cliff, filled with cradle wrappings, exists on the south side of 
 Pearse Peninsula, east end of Broughton Island. At Mel'-oopa 
 and at Hwat-es' there are similar places, that at the first-named 
 village being beneath logs, at the back of the village, and not on 
 the shore. 
 
 When a young man desires to obtain a girl for a wife, he must 
 bargain with her parents, and pay to her father a considerable 
 number of blankets. Owing to the great desire to accumulate 
 blankets for the purposes of the potlatch or donation-feast, to- 
 gether with the scarcity of marriageable girls, the parents are 
 very strict and exacting in this respect. The young man is often 
 still further fleeced by his wife, who, at the instigation of her 
 parents, may seize upon some real or imaginary cause of griev- 
 ance and leave him. The father then exacts a further blanket 
 payment for her return, and so on. 
 
 Medicine, or sorcery, as practiced by these people for the cure 
 of disease, is much the same n« among other tribes of the coast, 
 though the peculiar tubular bone charm, employed by the Haida 
 and Tshmisian, was not here observed. The sorcerer may be 
 either a man or a woman, famed for skill in such matters, to 
 whom their vocation may have been indicated by dreams or 
 visions. Medicines may be given to the patient by his friends, 
 but the sorcerer does not deal in drugs, devoting his attention 
 solely to exorcising the evil principle causing the disease. This 
 is . »ne by singing incantation songs, the use of a rattle, and vigor- 
 ous sucking of the part affected, which in many cases is kept up 
 for hours and frequently repeated, and must always be hand- 
 somely paid for. Sickness is still, generally, and was formerly at 
 all times, attributed to the witchcraft of enemies. Certain per- 
 sons were known to possess the power, and were called e'-a-kc- 
 nooh. Such a malignant person, wishing to bewitch an enemy, is 
 supposed to go through a series of complicated and absurd cere- 
 
 TrTt/^ 0* 
 
348 
 
 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 
 
 \ i 
 
 monies, of which the following is an outline : An endeavor is first 
 made to procure a lock of hair, some saliva, a piece of the sleeve 
 and of the neck of the dress, or of the rim of the hat or head- 
 dress which has absorbed the perspiration of the person to be 
 bewitched. These are placed with a small piece of the skin and 
 flesh of a dead man, dried and roasted before the fire, and rubbed 
 and pounded together. The mixture is then tied up in a piece of 
 skin or cloth, which is covered over with spruce-gum. The little 
 package is next placed in a human bone, which is broken for the 
 purpose, and afterward carefully tied together and put within a 
 human skull. This again is placed in a box, which is tied up and 
 gummed over and then buried in the ground in such a way as to 
 be barely covered. A fire is next built nearly, but not exactly, on 
 the top of the box, so as to warm the whole. Then the evilly dis- 
 posed man, beating his head against a tree, names and denounces 
 his enemy. This is done at night or in the early morning, and in 
 secret, and is frequently repeated till the enemy dies. The actor 
 must not smile or laugh, and must talk as little as possible till the 
 spell has worked. If a man has reason to suppose tliat he is being 
 practiced on in this way, he or his friends must endeavor to find 
 the deposit and carefully unearth it. Rough handling of the box 
 may prove immediately fatal. It is then cautiously unwrapped 
 and the contents are thrown into the sea. If the evilly disposed 
 person was discovered, he was in former years immediately killed. 
 If, after making up the little package of relics as above noted, it 
 is put into a frog, the mouth of which is tied up before it is 
 released, a peculiar sickness is produced which causes the abdo- 
 men of the person against whom the sorcery is directed to 
 swell. 
 
 After death the body is immediately coffined, not a moment 
 being lost. Should death occur at night, the coffin-box is set out- 
 side the house at once, till daylight may admit of its being dis- 
 posed of. The face of the dead is first washed and the hair combed, 
 and then the face and head are painted with vermilion and the 
 body wrapped in blankets by near relatives or friends. It is then 
 p '.t into any box of a suitable size that can be found, generally 
 one of those used for the storage of house effects or dried fish. 
 The box so employed is named iik-l-a'-tse. The body is doubled 
 up, and no hesitation is felt in using violence toward it in order 
 to press it into the box. The graves of the Kwakiool are of two 
 principal kinds: little scaffolds to which the coffin-box is lashed, 
 high upon the branches of fir-trees, and known as tuh-pe'-kh; and 
 tombs built of slabs of wood on the ground. Small tent-like erec- 
 tions of calico are now often substituted for the latter, and the 
 bodies of relatives or friends, dying at different times, are in both 
 cases often placed together. If a person of importance or much 
 
CUSTOMS AND ARTS OF THE KWAKIOOL. 
 
 349 
 
 respected, a canoe (previously rendered unserviceable) is often 
 drawn up and deposited near the gi-ave. The trees used for the 
 deposit of the dead are often quite close to tlie village, but when 
 a tomb is i)laced i;pon the ground, it is generally on scjme rocky 
 islet or insular rock, which may be farther away, but is still in 
 sight from the village. Such islands become regular cemeteries. 
 Graves in trees are generally festooned with blankets or streamers 
 of cloth, and similar . ppendages are affixed to poles in the vicin- 
 ity of graves on the ground. Roughly carved human figures in 
 wood are also often added. These sometimes hold in their hands 
 wooden models of the copper plates which are so much valued by 
 these northern tribes of the coast. Similar models are also at 
 times nailed up on posts near the graves. At Pa'-as (Blunden 
 Harbor) the upper part of one of these coppers (but one of inferior 
 value) was found broken in two and affixed at a grave in token of 
 grief. The lower part was not found, and had probably been used 
 before on some similar occasion. At Fort Rupert and Alert Bay, 
 bodies are now frequently buried in the ground, owing to the 
 influence of the whites. Such a grave is named tik-i-ds. 
 
 After the body has been deposited in the grave, a fire is made 
 near it, in which some food is burned, such as dried salmon, fat, 
 dried clams, etc., and all the smaller articles belonging to the 
 deceased are thrown into the fire at the same time. The canoe, 
 house^ and other larger effects are then taken possession of by the 
 son, father, daughter, wife, or brother of the dead, generally in the 
 order named The wife or husband of the deceased goes into 
 special mourning for a period of one month among the Queen 
 Charlotte Sound tribes, or for four months among the Kos'-ki-mo. 
 The survivor lives during this period separately in a very small 
 hut, which is built behind the house, eating and drinking alone, 
 and using for that purpose dishes not employed by other members 
 of the tribe. The near relatives of the dead cut their hair short, 
 or, if women, cut a small portion of it off. A widow marks her 
 face with scratches, in token of mourning ; among the Kos'-ki-mo 
 she cuts her face with a shell, and does not generally marry again 
 for at least a year. In some cases, about a month after death, the 
 men of the tribe collect in a house to sing a song which relates 
 the deeds and virtues of the deceased. This is named sd'-luma or 
 kivai'-um, the "crying-song." Children are sometimes, in the 
 same way, mourned for by the women. When at Mel'-oopa (" Na- 
 witti ") in 1878, the first sound we heard at daybreak was the cry- 
 ing and lamentation of the women, the song being taken up first 
 by one and then by another, in different parts of the village. 
 This, it was ascertained, was in consequence of the death of a boy 
 which had occurred some time before. 
 
 In my notes on the Haida people of the Queen Charlotte Isl- 
 
35° 
 
 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 
 
 \ 
 
 ands, the facts which could be obtained as to the jwflafcli or dona- 
 tion-feast of these Indians and of the Tshimsian were detailed. 
 This custom is common to all the coast tribes of this part of North 
 America, and has extended, though in a less marked form, into 
 the interior of the continent. The main features of the custom 
 are probably identical, or nearly so, among all the tribes of the 
 British Columbia coast. They are certainly nearly the same with 
 the Haida, Tshimsian, and Kwakiool peoples. Among the latter, 
 this ceremony is known as pus-a or ya-hooit, these terms probably 
 denoting special forms of the ceremony appropriate to certain oc- 
 casions. 
 
 As a particular instance of the custom, let us suj^pose that a 
 Nim'-kish, of Alert Bay, has collected together as his own, or ob- 
 tained control of, say, five hundred blankets, and wishes to make 
 a potlatch to the Fort Rupert tribes. He goes to the Foi't Rupert 
 village and makes known his intention of distributing a thousand 
 blankets at a certain date. He begins by lending out his stock of 
 five hundred blankets, giving larger numbers to those who are 
 well off, and particularly to such as are known to have the inten- 
 tion of giving a potlatch in return. This loan is reckoned a debt 
 of honor, to be paid with interest at the proper time. It is usual 
 to return two blankets for every one borrowed, and Indians with 
 liberal ideas may return even more. The greater the number of 
 blankets loaned out to any individual, the more he knows that his 
 wealth and standing are appreciated by the stranger, who, later 
 on, taking with him a thousand or more blankets, returns to his 
 home at Alert Bay ; at which place also, in due time, the Fort Ru- 
 pert people arrive. The potlatch does not, however, then occur at 
 once, as much preliminary talk, ceremony, and feasting are in or- 
 der, and the Nim'-kish must entertain their visitors — first one and 
 then another volunteering feasts and diversions. It may also, 
 very probably, happen that delay arises because the man about to 
 give the potlatch has not obtained the requisite number of blank- 
 ets, many being owing to him and others having been promised 
 by friends whom he is obliged to dun. The Fort Rupert people, 
 becoming weary of waiting, lend all the weight of their influence 
 to coerce the debtors into payment, and these may, in the end, be 
 forced to borrow from others to enable them to redeem their 
 pledges — all such arrangements leading to interminable haggling 
 and worry. At length, however, all is ready, and, with the ac- 
 companiment of much bombastic speech-making and excitement, 
 the mass of blankets is distributed in exact proportion to the so- 
 cial position of those taking part — or, what is the same thing, in 
 proportion to their individual contributions. 
 
 To surpass the man who has last given a potlatch, and acquire 
 a superior standing to his, the next aspirant must endeavor to 
 
 as 
 
CUSTOMS AND ARTS OF THE KWAKIOOL. 
 
 351 
 
 I or dona- 
 detailed, 
 of North 
 orm, into 
 e custom 
 Des of the 
 ame with 
 he latter, 
 probably 
 3rtain oc- 
 
 )se that a 
 rn, or ob- 
 i to make 
 j-t Rupert 
 thousand 
 s stock of 
 who are 
 the inten- 
 led a debt 
 t is usual 
 ians with 
 lumber of 
 s that his 
 fho, later 
 •ns to his 
 Fort Ru- 
 L occur at 
 are in or- 
 one and 
 nay also, 
 about to 
 :>i blank- 
 promised 
 people, 
 influence 
 end, be 
 m their 
 aggling 
 the ac- 
 itement, 
 the so- 
 hing, in 
 
 acquire 
 Bavor to 
 
 give away more than a thousand blankets, and will strive as soon 
 as possible to be in a position to do so. 
 
 The nominal excuses for giving a potlatch are numerous, the 
 most common being, however, the wish to assume a now and more 
 honorable name. The name proposed to bo taken passes by com- 
 mon consent, if the potlatch shall have been successful and on a 
 sufficient scale. 
 
 Should an Indian wish to humiliate another for any reason, lie 
 may destroy a great number of blankets or much other valued 
 property. This, according to custom, leaves his adversary in debt 
 to the amount of the property made away with. It then behooves 
 the debtor to bring out and destroy a like or if possible a greater 
 amount of property. If he is not able to do this, he lies under the 
 reproach of having been worsted by his foe. 
 
 The difficulties attendant on any effort t'jward the improve- 
 ment of the condition and mode of life of the coast tribes of Brit- 
 ish Columbia are very grave ; and the actual results of missionary 
 labors, such as those carried on by Mr. Hall among the Kwai-'iool, 
 and other self-sacrificing persons elsewhere, are in most cases, to 
 all appearance, small. 
 
 It is difficult to induce individuals to abandon their old cus- 
 toms and bad habits, and nearly impossible to prevent them from 
 relapsing, from time to time, owing to the fact that they still live 
 promiscuously among and herd together with the mass of the 
 tribe. Since the arrival of the whites, the Kwakiool, equ"''ly with 
 other tribes, have become, in a word, " demoralized." They have 
 lost, to a great extent, their pride and interest in the things which 
 formerly occupied them, losing at the same time their spirit and 
 self-respect, and replacing it by nothing. It is comparatively easy 
 at all times to obtain a sufficiency of food, and food is at some 
 seasons — as during the salmon-run — to be had in the greatest 
 abundance with very little effort. Beyond this, there is r*othing 
 more to occupy their time fully and to keep them out of mischief. 
 They are restless and unhappy. In some seasons, good wages are 
 to be obtained by picking hops in the vicinity of Puget Sound, 
 and it has thus become customary for many of the tribes to go 
 south in the autumn, nominally^ for this purpose, but in reality 
 with no great prospect of obtaining work. They may then be 
 seen leaving their villages in bodies in their large and well-built 
 traveling-canoes, whole families together with their household 
 effects and children, and three, four, or five paddlers to each ca- 
 noe, setting out cheerfully enough on their voyage of two hun- 
 dred miles or more. They may obtain a little money while away, 
 which they invest in goods and whisky, if they can obtain it (and 
 in this there is unfortunately very little difficulty). They live, 
 however, iu the vicinity of Victoria and other large towns in a 
 
352 
 
 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 
 
 state of sliamoless debaiiclicry, and tluis very often return in a 
 diseased state to their lionies. 
 
 The condition of these j)eople is in no sense bettered by en- 
 deavoring to teach them moral maxims or religious dogma. They 
 do not appreciate the truth of the former, nor can they in their 
 low mental state rightly understand the latter. To endeavor to 
 do so is merely to imitate the procedure of the Indian shaman 
 over the dying. If, on the contrary, you speak to them of means 
 of improving their material condition, or deplore with them the 
 rapid diminution of their tribe, the more thoughtful and mature 
 listen with the greatest respect and attention. The problem is, 
 fundamentally, an industrial one, and is to be attacked, if success- 
 fully, from that side. They are naturally industrious enough, 
 and capable, though not so persistently laborious as the whites, 
 and less easy to control than the Chinese. They obtain a certain 
 amount of precarious employment in connection witli the can- 
 neries and other -nascent industiiesof the northern c(jast, but have 
 not generally the offer of any p(irmanent remunerative work. 
 
 It is thus primarily essential to establish industries among 
 them which will remove the temptation now felt to drift to the 
 larger settlements and towns. laiprovoment in mental and moral 
 tone will then naturally follow. 
 
 'Si 
 
return in a 
 
 ered by on- 
 gma. They 
 bey in their 
 endeavor to 
 ian shaman 
 n of means 
 h them the 
 and mature 
 problem is, 
 , if success- 
 US enough, 
 the whites, 
 n a certain 
 :h the can- 
 st, but have 
 I work, 
 ries among 
 Irift to the 
 and moral 
 
 7*0"