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By Charles Hill-Tout, F.A.G.S.; etc., etc., Western Member of the Ethnological Committee appointed by the British Association for the Survey of Canada. HE past has a great fascination for some minds — I mean the past of mankind; and, by- the-way, liow inmieasurably remote has tliat past become in these latter days of the 19th century. It seems but yesterday that one was taught that this past went back only a few, a very few, thousand years ; that the very first of our kind came into being with all the rest of created things, and the old globe itself, less than 6,000 years ago. Alcn of the highest intellectual attanmients taught and believed this no longer than twenty- five years ago. It seems incredible now with our later and wider knowledge that men could so long have closed their eyes, as well as their minds, to the evidences of antiquity about them; yet such w; know to be the case. To-day, th.e dullest school-boy can tell you that tl;*. globe is demonstratably millions of years old, and that man's history stretches back into the far, dim days of tens of thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands, of years ago. For we know to-day, as certainly as we know that the sun rose yesterday, that man was not only in existence thousands of years before the date we used to believe the world and all upon it first came into being, but actually in- habited, populous and wealthy cities, and possessed a civilization and culture, in some points superior even to our own. at least, two or three millenniums before that time. And of the younger scienc..*s of this wonderful century of discoveries. to which we are indebted for this wider knowledge, there is none that has a greater claim upon our gratitude than archaeology, or the science of ancient things. Archaeology associates itself in many minds exclusively with Egypt and Assyria. The interesting discoveries that have been made there of late years have brought these Old World centres before the public eye to the partial ex- clusion of other places scarcely less in- teresting or important; and it may be a surprise to some to know that some of the most interesting, as well as the most perplexing of ancient human remains, are found, not in the Old World at all. but in the New — on this very continent of ours. In Central America, in the midst of the dense, tropical vegetation, far in the trackless forests, covered with climbing plants and half-buried beneath the accumulated mould of unnumbered centuries' formation, there lie the re- mains of wonderful cities, spacious or- nate temples and stupendous pyramids, that vie in their solemn, silent grandeur and mystery with the ancient ruins of the Nile or the Euphrates. Who built or who inhabited them is one of the un- solved mysteries of the past. But it is not only in Central America that inter- esting evidences of man's past are to be found. They lie scattered up and down the whole continent, though perhaps they are not all so imposing or myster- ious as those of Central America. Mexi- co, Peru, all the great river valleys, and even this far northwestern Province of ''■ PREHISTORIC RACES OF K C. ours, all possess highly interesting monuments of nuin's forgotten past. And, confining our attention more par- ticularly to this section of the continent, it may interest the readers of the .Min- ixc; Rf.coud if we consider briefly some oi the salient features of the archaeology of this Province, which is not without a special interest of its own. It is barely a century ago that the first wdiite men set foot in this Province. Our occupation of it dates back, as it were, from yesterday; yet human pos- session of it goes back we know for at least two millenniums before our advent here, and how far beyond it is impos- sible at this point to sa\. Who and what the earliest inhabitants were; what kind of monuments of the past they have left behind them; to what other peoples they were related, whether to the present tribes or to others who have long since passed away, are questions, it is thought, would interest the readers of this special edition of the jMining Rj> CORD. Such questions can necessarily be but briefly treated in an article of this kind. To write all that could be wrhten upon them would fill volume.^; for the learned societies of Europe and America have of late years spent much money and time in carrying on explorations and investigations in this region, and their agents have now brought together a large body of interesting facts, some of which are here for the first time brought before the general reader's notice. The study of man's past lias revealed nothing more clearly to us than the fact of his world-wide dispersion. From every part of the globe, no matter where one goes, comes evidence of man's pres- ence, cither now, or in the past. TTad we no other proof of this great antiquity we should be warranted in assuming it from this fact alone. When this con- tinent was first discovered populous tribes occupied tlic whole of its broad surface from end to end. from bleak and desolate Patagonia to the frozen shores of the Arctic Ocean, and from its east- ern confines to its farthest western limits. Some of them, «uch as the peo- ples of ancient Mexico and Peru were living in a comparatively high state of civilization and culture, far higher in- deed than that which has up to the pre- sent succeeded it under Spanish in- fluence. ( )thers maintained a miserable existence in the face of adverse natural surroLUidings, as among the degraded Patagonians in the far south; or the presence of human foes, more iiostilc than nature at her cruellest, as among those wretched, solitary individuals whom the early pioneers met in their journeys across the Rockies, and wiio looked upon the possession of the putri- fying entrails of game and other camp refuse as the highest joy of their mis- erable existence; while between these two extremes every degree of savagery and barbarism might be found. Indeed, one of the most interesting features of the New World is the presence within it of conditions of life which have long since passed away and been foreotten in the Old. While archaeological in- vestigations reveal to us broken, frag- mentary histories or dead and by-gone races in Europe, and our historic im- aginations endeavour to recall their lives and conditions and circumstances, by a study of their relics, here in Ameri- ca we see before our very eyes human beings living in the simplicity, the squalor and the savagerA- of primitive man ; or attaining to that degree of pas- toral culture we believe the primitive Aryan tribes had risen to before their final sejiaration into their present great historical divisions. We can study the conditions through which early man and our own ancestors passed in tlie forgot- ten days of long ago; and. observing tlieni as they actually exist under primi- tive conditions, correct the misconcep- tion and errors that our imaginations are prone to lead us into. We read in our national histories ' the ancient Britons and others living in mud and wicker huts, clothing themselves in the untanned skins of wild beasts, or stain- ing their naked bodies with the juices of plants and herbs; living upon fish or venison and such roots and wild fruits as nature deigned to bestow upon them in her bounty; but how few^ of us realize what life under these conditions means. To rightly ■.inder^tand the condition of most of the peoples of Europe when the Roman Legions were over-running 173490 \li~l- 8 THE B. C. MINING RECORD. and subduing it we should study the conditions of the native races of this continent, as they are and as they were when we first came into contact with them. But enough of general oliserva- tion, we will now deal more particularly with what we may gather of primitive man from his records and monuments as we find them in this Province. These, generally speaking, are of two kinds, tumuli and kjoikkcii-moeddi)i<^cr, or kitchen-middens, as thcv are more fam- riiile I.— Bone Implements from Midden. iliarly called. Both are found scattered up and down the whole Province, gen- erally along the shores of gulfs and bays, or on the banks of streams and rivers. Archaeologically speaking the tumuli are intrinsically the more interesting of the two, though as a rule they are singu- larly poor in relics of their builders. The middens of Europe and of the Atlantic seaboard and the mounds of the great central and eastern valleys have long since become classic, but the middens and tumuli of British Columbia were practically unknown to the archaeologi- cal world a few years ago until the publi- cation by the Royal Society of a mono- graph of the writer's upon them: yet our tumuli have many interesting and distinctive features of their own, and the midden, from which the relics figured in the accompanying illustrations were taken, ccceeds in mass and area the largest middens of classic Denmark, and abounds in interesting ethnological data. This particular midden, now known as the "Great Fraser Midden," is Pliite II.— ^tone Implements from Midden. upwards of i,\oo feet in length and 3tK) feet in breadth, and covers to an aver- age depth of about 5 feet, and to a maxi- mum depth of over 15 feet, an area of over 4^ acres in extent. It is composed of the remains of marine shells, mostly of the clam and mussel kind, intermin- gled with ashes and other earthy matter. It is situated on the right bank of the north arm of the Fraser, a few miles up from its present mouth, and opposite the alluvial islands called Sea and Lulu Island. The existence of so extensive a midden, composed so largely of the PREHISTORIC RACES OF B. C. 9 remains of shell fish that belong to salt water, at such an unusual distance from the n^-^arest clam and mussel bear- ing beds of to-day, was for a time a puzzle to me, when my attention was first drawn to it. 1 could perceive no satisfactory reason w'.y these midden- makers should have chosen this parti- cular site for their camping ground in- stead of one five or six miles farther down the bank, and nearer to the pre- sent source of supply Oi- this staple of their lardors. And upon discovery a httle later of other middens still higher up the river by fifteen or sixteen miles the puzzle became proportionatel* greater, 1 found it difficult to believe that the enormous mass of shell-fish, whose remains enter so largely into the composition of these great piles, had been laboriously brought up against the stream in canoes or "packed" on the backs of the patient "klootchmans." It was too contrary to the genius of the people to suppose this. Making a brief survey of the district, a little later, the fact was disclosed that the mouth of the river was formerly some twenty miles higher up than it is at present, and, that the salt waters of the Gulf of Georgia had in by-gone days laved the base of the declivity on which the City of New Westminster now stands; and had passed on from thence and met the fresh waters of the Frascr in the neighbourhood of the little bayside vil- lage of Port Hammond. .\nd. further, that the large islands now inhabited bv ranchers, which bar in mid-stream the onrush of the annual freshets nntst once have had no existence at all; and even after their formation had begun must have ' xisted for a very consider ible period as tidal flats such as nia\ be seen to-day stretching beyond the whole delta for a distance of five or six miles. Th^t these islands were once tidal-flats is cer- tain, from the fact that the v.ater from the wells dug on them by the ranchers, is so brackish that the water of the mud- dy Fraser is preferred to it. And, fur- ther, that when in this condition they afforded shelter to shell-fish similar to those whose remains are found in the middens near by. is clearly evidenced by the fact that beds of similar shells are frequently met with, in situ, as I have been credibly inJormed, when digging for water in the interior parts of the islands. Uut as this discovery seemed to point to a rather remote past for the formation of these middens, I was re- luctant to admit this obvious inference, until I had ascertained that the enor- mous stumps of cedar and fir which I found projecting from the midden — several of which have diameters of from 6 to 8 /eet, and indicate by their an- nular rings from five to seven cen- turies' growth — had their roots actually in the midden mass itseli; and had ob- viously grown there since the midden had been formed. Ascertaining this by personal excavation and realizing that three-quarters of a millennium had passed away since the middens had been abandoned, I could no longer resist the inference that they had been formed when the islands opposite and below them were tidal, shell-bearing fiats. The question now naturally arises, when and for what reasons was this an- cient camping ground abandoned? Was it at a period shortly before the appear- ance upon them of those forest giants, whote the and approximate age I have just mentioned, or was it at a much ear- lier date; and was it abandoned because the particular community dwelling there had been exterminated by their enemies, or was it because the clams and mussels gave out in consequence of a sudden or a gradual rise in the level of the neigh- bouring fiats? In seeking an answer to these queries the cause of the abandon- ment of so ancient a camping grotind may possibly be found m this last rea- son. The explanation seems plausible, but the former cause suggested is more likely the truer one. The abandonment many centuries ago of so many other middens, elsewhere along our bays and inlets, where no such cause as this can be assigned — where clams and mussels still exist in great quantities, and have so existed from time immemorial, as the extensive, tree-covered midden-piles now testify — seems to call for a more comprehensive and lers local explana- tion. This view is further supported by the anatomical evidence which thcse middens supply. In their lo"°r hori- zons skulls have been found of a type whollv unlike the crania to be found r 10 THE B. C. MhNING RECORD. among the Cowichan trilics to-day. Tlicy are too decidedly dolichocopliali:. or "lonfT-headed," to be classified anions; any oi' the typical crania of tliis district, and suggest affinity rather with the Eskimo or h'astern tribes, than witli any in this region north of California. ( )ther striking features of these midden crania, which differentiate them further from the Lower Fraser type, are the extreme narrowness of the forehead and the lofty sweep of the cranial vault. These crania undoubtedly lend support to the hypo- thesis that the middens of this region, at any rate, were formed by a pre-S;i- lishan people and not by the present Salisli tribes of this region, fn cons'd- ering the time when the abandonment pendent, extraneous evidence (;f the en- ormous tree-stumps now ;'ound in the midden, whose size, condition and other characteristics all warrant «me in say- ing that many of them are from 500 10 /oo years oUl. i'he age «)f liie islands, then, cannot be less than the age oi the midden trees, though it may not be very considerably greater. b xactiy how much older they are it seems impossible from the evidence at hand at present to say with any degree of certainty. 'I'here is nothing in tlieir formation, as far as I have been ai)le to ascertain, for which it is necessary to assign a greater length (jf time than a thousand years. They are wh.olly alluvial and only just above the level of the frcshei.-. and high' tides and I'late III.— Hone and Stono ImplomentB. took place, the physical changes which have clearly taken place in the stuary since the shells which enter so largely into the composition of the middens, were gathered from the tidal Hats that have since become tree-clad and cul- tivable islands, afford us some clue t<3 work upon in the case of the midden under consideration. If we can arrive at an estimate of the age of the islands we shall get some idea of the period of abandonment; for there is little doubt, T think, that these r>aser middens were wholly formed before those physical changes which transformed the ■^heil- bearing flat into an island took place. In seeking to form this estimate we are assisted in .some measure bv the inde- were often, before they were dyked dur- ing the annual Hoods, extensively inun- dated. .\nd although they are m their higher parts now thickly covered with timber I have not been abl.- to fi'id or hear of a tree more than a few feet in diameter or of more than three or four centuries' growth at most. If, then, I am correct in estimating the period which has ela])sed since the Hats ceased to support shell-fish and took on the form of islands at a thousand years, something like this period has in all probability elapsed since this camping ground was abandoned bv .ts owners on account of the extinction of their chief food supply at this point, and pos- sibly a very much longer period if from I \ PREHISTORIC RACES OF B. C. 11 the cn- iii the 1(1 other in say- 1 500 10 islands, V of tlie he \ery y i:o\v ipussiblc CSC'llt to 'riicre far as I which it iigth of "Ik'v are bove the ides and the more likely cause suggested. But placing the abandonment at the lat- est possible date consistent with the presence and condition of the tree stumps, when to this period has been added the time taken to form the mid- den itself we find ourselves in the pos- session, in this extensive pile of refuse, of a monument of the past second to none in the country in antiijuity. J'hat the accumulation of such a heap of l:u- man refuse as this midden presents, to make no mention of others aim jst as large, occupied a very consrlorable period of time there can be no doubt. It possesses many features in common with the Danish kjockkcii-moi'ddingcr, now so famous, which led such eminent investi- gators as Worsaae, Steenstrup, Lubbock and others to regard the period of form- ation of those well-known piles as ex- tending, in the words of the learned au- thor of the "Origin of the Arj'ans," over "many centuries at least, more prob- ably several millenniums." We are not unjustified, therefore, in claiming a very considerable period of time for the ac- cumulation of these similar and much larger heaps of B.C. Viewing it, there- fore, from the most conservative stand- point, it may be reasonably conceded that the lower parts of this midden could hardly have been laid down later than the beginning of our own era. That particular midden-pile was slowly formed through the centuries, and was not the rapid accumulations of a large body of people, is more than prol)able from tlie fact that there are on its sur- face, at some distance from each other, four or live crowns or eminences — due as 1 have personally ascertained, not to any local elevation of the sub-soil, but wholly to an increase in the midd-'n mass itself — which, from what we know of the mode of formation of more veccnt accumulations of the kind, we iriuy rea- sonably infer were old family centres. From these features, as wcli as from many other minor ones, sticli as the paucity of relics, in comiii: 'mu with other camping grounds whor;.- large communities are known to have once dwelt, such as at Hammond, it may be fairly concluded that this midden was the camp-site of a few families only; and when it is remembered what an enor- mous mass of stuff there is in it, we are bound on any reasonable hyi)othe!-is to allow a very consideratile time for its accunudation. .\nd from the fact that the midden is found to overlie the clean, coarse gravel of the drift — which shows no trace of vegetable matter; while all around the midden, outside 01 its own material, and all along the bank, rich, loamy, vegetable mould is found over- lying the drift-gravel to a depth of nearly a foot — it is certain to my mind that there was an aboriginal settlement on this bank before the appearance of post- glacial vegetation m this district. The glacial period of this part of Xorth America was much later than elsewhere, though exactly how long ago it was since the glaciers retreated from our glens and valleys is }et a matter of dis- pute among geologists. That it was comparatively recent, is pretty certain, from the fact that accurate observation by a well-known scientist disclosed the fact only recently that one of our largest glaciers up the Coast has retreated over thirty miles during the last hundred yeans. That the valleys of the Coast Range were under ice-caps long after the ice had retreated from the northern half of Vancouver Island is certain from the presence of later forms of vegetation th.ere, as for example, the oak. It is well known that the oak succeeds the fir only after a long interval of time, when the soil has become fit by the de- cav of vegetable matter for its growth. The oak, so characteristic of the scenery around Victoria, for instance, is wholly unknown on the Mainland, and even on the Island only reaches as far north as Comox, or thereabouts. This is not strange. The southern end of the Island was under the inunediate influence of the warm ijrcczes of the Japan current, which made its preseiice felt there before it did on the Mainland, and long after the Island had become habitable our Mainland valleys were still wrapped in their ioshrouds. Many of the higher ones are still sleeping under the ice, while others have not long emerged. The townsite of \'ancouver and its neighbourhood was wholly covered by a huge ice-sheet in former days as those who have had to excavate, or make gar- dens know to their cost. In the higher 173490f M 12 THE B. C. MINING RECORD. parts, the glacial clays aiu! gravels still remain as they were laid down by the melting of the great Capilaiio glacier, which has left its trail behind it in the numerous and troublesome boulders that everywhere, but especially in the west end, in the line of the moraines, encum- ber the ground. Vegetati(jn has l)een too recent in this locality for nature to have made sufficient mould to cover them up, and the forest which now covers to some extent the glacial gravels of South Vancouver had not, I believe, made its appearance when the old mid- den-makers on the old bank of the Fra- scr first made their camp there. Every feature of the midden bears unmistak- five centuries old, from the position in which they were found, but yet it would puzzle anybody to pick them out from others of the same kind from which the fish were taken only a few years ago. There are numerous other signs besides this that speak of extreme age. It rarely happens that a skull is taken out whole; it generally falls to pieces in handling, and but from the fact that certain parts of the midden have been transformed into a kind of dry concrete we should not have succeeded in taking any out whole. Then again, not a particle of wood has been found in the midden so far, unless it be the rotting rootlets of the trees that penetrate the mass to a Explanation of lettering in Plate IV. : a— Central pile over body. /" ■Quleksiind. *-(;iay. i'-Diirlt gritty sand. A— Outer 8(|UHro of boulders, i— Quicksand. <:— Huieksand. rf— C'hnrconl. «•— Course brown sand able testimony of extreme age, every- thing taken from it, except, of course, the stones, being found in the last stage of decay: an instance of which is the condition of the shell remains. Gener- ally speaking, the shells when taken out whole, which happens rarely, all crumble to pieces at the touch, even 'when they bear no marks of fire on them; and that the clam shell, at any rate, is exceeding- ly durable is clear from the fact that trees of many centuries' growth are found along Burrard Inlet and else- where growing over shell-heaps and gripping with their roots whole clam- shells, as perfect and firm as the day they were thrown out. I have shells in my possession that cannot be less than depth of several feet. Axe and toma- hawk-heads, which were undoubtedly once fastened into wooden hafts or handles, are quite common; but where they are found there is never any trace of then- wooden hafts to be seen. ' These and sundry ether unmistakable evi- dences all speak clearly of the great an- tiquity of the accumulation. ) do not wish to exaggerate this; I desire only to discuss the plain facts of the case for the readers of the Mining Record as they appear to me; and it is not unlikelv that more extensive investigations wilfmake it necessary to extend rather than cur- tail the age here claimed. In the accompanying illu.^trations are figured a few samples of the relics thus PREHISTORIC RACKS OF B. C. 13 Dsitioii itt ; it would out from Afhich the ears ago. s besides It rarely ut wliolo; handling, tain parts msformed vc should any out article of uidden so ootlets of nass to a and tonia- idoubtcdly hafts or but where any trace -n. These able evi- ■ great an- T do not ire only to ise for the w as they likely that will make than cur- ations are relics thus far taken from this midden. They are as will be seen, simple in make and de- sign, and such as arc foiuid among primitive peo|)le clsewhe ". Xo pottery of any kind has been lound in these middens; indeed, the ceramic art api)ears tt) have been wholly ur. known to tlie ab- origines of 15.C. The mortars or bowls and pestles seen in the illustrations were not as is often supposed for corn-grind- ing purposes. They do not appear to have possessed such; no grain of any kind being known, as far as the writer has been able to discover, among the West Coast Indians nor' i of the Col- umbia. .Some of their tools and uten- sils, such as the pestle, or more properly, stone-hanuuer, and the sword-like in Pliite V.-I'lan of Mouiuls of Fifth Series. 36x36 feet. strument in the illustrations, are beau- tifully made and polished. It appears to have been customary to fashion their bowls after the likeness of some anim.d. The fish-head pattern is one of the co.ii- monest. The bear pattern was also a favourite style. Occasionally they were made to represent a human head. There was one taken from the old camping grounds at Port Hammond which 'jad a human face carved on one of its sides, the top of the head rising several inches above the rim of the recepticlc. Large numbers of barbed bone s[)car-p(5ints are found. The stone edges, axes, knives and chisels are generally of jade, of which material I shall have some- thing to say later, and some have been found with edges as sharp and keen as those of a steel axe. llone needles, with the eye sometimes in the centre, at other times in the end, are quite com- mon. A favourite weapon among these midden people seems to nave been one foriued froiu the ytjung horn of the • Ik. These horns in their first growth are round and pointed, and at this stage were selected by the warriors for their "skidl-crackers." The horn was ap- parently inserted in the end of a rod or otlierwise secured to a haft. They are aptly termed skull-crackers, for three adult sl.uUs have already been taken from this midden with circular perfora- CS PiKti' VI.— Copiier Instruments from Mounds. tions in their crowns, clearly niad^ bv these instruments, and as clean cut as if the piece had been taken out with a mechanic's punch. It may now be interesting to pass from the middens and consider for a little while the tumuli, or burymg grounds of this region. We cannot consider them all; we will, therefore, select a group of some of the more interesting ones. A typical cluster of these was found on the right bank of the Fraser at Hatzic and examined b)' the writer a few years ago. These sepulchres with their ancient mode of burial belong, like the middens, to a comparatively distant past. The Indians now dwelling in the neighbour- hood know nothing of them and dis- c 14 THE K C. MINING RECORD. claim all knowlodgo of the pcopk- who built thoin; and what is more, arc (|uite unconcerned at their heinj^ (jpened or disturbed. 'J his indilTerence, in the face of the zealous viy^ilance thev exercise over their own old burial jrroMiid or depositories of the dead, is the nu)re striking. The diCficidty of ])rncurin)^ anatomical material from any of the bur- ial y;rounds of the modern tribes is a well-known fact; and this unusual indif- ference displayed towards tiiese mounds by the Indians of the district is stronpf evidence of itself that they belong I sonic antecedent and forj^otten people. Itidced, an aged Indian of the place in- formed the writer that the traditions oi his people tell of their l)eing there from the earliest times, tha* no one knew who made them, and tliat no Indian would approach them on any account. In- dian traditions, one knows, are not very reliable c'.ita, but in this instance they support the evidence of the mo mds themselves and may rest upon a hasis of truth. Whether thty are i)re-SaIinhan ?r not. they were utuloubtedly con- structed many centuries ago, as we shall presently show. These tumuli are 'nteresting ajiari from the question of their antiquity, from the fact that thev present to us, either a development from simple con- ceptions and ideas concerning the ilead to more advanced and complex rnes; or else thev mark in a most interesting maimer the different degrees of iionour their builders were wont to pay to their dead; for they show a markedly gradu- ated transition from interment of a body beneath a smiple pile of clay, to the con- struction of comparatively elaborate tombs, composed of a great numb'.'r of boulders arranged in precise .md geo- metrical order, and covered with altern- ate layers of sand and clay of different kinds. The simplest and first of this cluster or series, and, as T am led U) be- lieve the oldest, was formed by ])lacing the dead body on the ground somewhat below the level of its surface and then heaping over it the soil of the inmicdiate neighbourhood, for there are shallow ditches around the base of these mounds which show that the soil of win'ch they are formed was taken from the spot. In all these mounds throughout :he whole series, whether simple or otherwise, U should be stated, one corpse oidy was ever interred, .\bout this there is no doubt; and this fact of separate, indi- vidual inierment is the more striking in the more elaborate tombs which must have occupied the relatives of the dead many weeks in their construction. Many of these simpler and less coiispicunis mounds have doui)tless been levelled by the rancher^' of that neighbourh )od without attracting attention; as the bones of the body in these are always found wholly deconqxjsed, with the single exception, at times, of a bit of the lower jaw, and their matter has been so closely integrated with tlie soil that the fact tliat a body once lay there is only to be discovered by the presence of a darker shade or streak in it. Absolutely nothing but the teeth or their rnnains. or as stated before, tiny fragments of the lower jaw, which crumble away m the hand has been found in these clay mounds; not a vestige f>f tools, weapons or belongings of any kind. And it nT.iy here be stated that it is one of the singu- larities of these se])nlchres, and a very significant fact, that not a single relic of stone, not so nmcli as a single flake of any kind has been taken from the whole series, though the greatest care was used in seeking for them. In this, as in other respects, the interments in these mounds present, as we shall pres- ently sec, a marked contrast to those of the Salish tribes about I.ytton, in which stone and bone relics are round in con- siderable numbers. These clay or earth mounds are of varying dimensions, some of them, evi Id mound-builders, or whetiier the lir s were lighted in the belief that they oin- forted the shades of the departed >ii ihc'r journey to the nether world .;e may never know. The eviderce of fires :iid the presence of charred bones is a com V\^.A fct 4 4 t^^^rn^ .Specimens of Arrow lli'ntls.eic, from Preliislorio lliirliil (iroumls, I.ytton, H.e. Two-thirds NHturnl Slzi'. paratively common feature of the mounds on N'ancouver island, but no charred bones have ever been found in these llatzic mounds. The next class of mounds differed again from the last in having a large quantity of coarse, dark sand in their central jiarts. It would seem that in constructing the jiarticular graves, after piling i ,> the boulders over the boely the builders had covered them with a deep layer of (piicksaiid — which in that district underlies the clay top- soil — and over this again had strewn a layer of this coarse, dark sand. Wher2 they procured this latter sand from is not known. There is none like it in the neighbourhood at present. It is much coarser and darker in colour than that now found in the I'Vaser near by. But wherever they brought it from they wore not sparing of its employment. l he rancher on whose farm these tumuli are found took t)ut from one side of one of these between -'o and 30 barrowfiiLs for building i)ur|)oses, ami wluii 1 opened it up later there was still a great c|uan- tity left in it. This iiu)und is one of tlic most interesting of the group, inasnuich as it incidentally presents us with some independent, positive evidence of their anticpiity. ( )ii one side of its crown the stump of a large cedar tree is seen pro- jecting, the wliole in the last stages of decay. To anyone who knows any- thing of the enduring nature of the cedar of IJritish C"olumbia the evidence which this cedar stump offers will be very con- vincing. A cedar tree will lie un the ground for 1,000 years, it is estimated by timber men and otiiers. and yet its wnod #**■ t ^ # < if Specimens of Arrow Ilends from Middens of H.c. Two-tliirdsXaliiral Size. will be firm and good and fit to make up into door and window-sashes. Tliere is now, not two hundred yards from this mound, a living fir tree growing as- traddle over a pro.strate cedar log, the age of which from its dimensions can- not be much less than five centuries, and yet the wood of the cedar under it is still solid and firm enough for the car- penter's use. It is almost impos- sible to say how long the cedar of this region will endure, and if a claim of 1,000 years be made for tne growth and the complete decay of this tree whose roots have crumbled and mouldered away among the bones hidden beneath them for many a long year, most British Columbians who know anything of the durability of our cedar will think that a very moderate claim indeed; and it is mmtmum 16 THE B. C. MINING RECORD. not at all unlikely that twice that period has elapsed since the mound was con- structed. Even while I am writing this the mail has just brought me a copy of Science, in which it is stated that some Egyptian boats made of cedar and as- signed to a period of 4,500 years ago, have recently been found buried near the banks of the Nile. Here is an inter- esting and independent proof of the powei of this wood to withstand the ravages of time. My estimate compared with the age of these boats is a matter of the day before yesterday. This abnormality is probably without a par- allel throughout this region of con- torted crania. It does not appear, more- over, to conform to any of the three types of deformation known to have been practised in former times by the present race of Indians on this Coast. And what is most curious and signfi- cant about it is that it is the skull of a woman. Women, therefore, had as much honour paid to them by these mound-builders as men, which is cer- tainly not the case among the present tribes. This fact alone would seem to i Specimens of Midden Utensils. mound is also interesting from the fact that it is the only one that has yielded any anatomical material of importaiice. Whether from the large quantity of sand in it, which may have acted as a drain, or from the fact that this large tree stood over it for many centuries, or from the combination of circumstances, the human remains in this mound have been bettor preserved, in part, than in the others. The long bones among others, as well as the skull, were taken out almost entire, though, unfortunately, all but the skull S(jon crumbled away. This, liappily. T was able, in part, to preserve. It is a strange- ly deformed skull, and in its excessive indicate a difference of race from the present tribes. The next class differs in several es- sential features from those already des- cribed. The chief characteristic licen here is an outer, rectangular boundary of boulders, set side by side in the form of a square, having t.^ch of. its sides fac- ing towards one of the cardinal points of the compass like the pyramids of ^Mexico. This square was apparently laid off before the body was interim d, whicli was ])laced in tiic Cf'ntre and cov- ered as before with a pile of bouldors similar to those forming the square. ( )ver these again, and between then; ?nd the outer square, a layer of quicksand PREHISTORIC RACES OF B. C. 17 liout a par- 3n of con- pear, niore- f the three 1 to have mes by the this Coast, and signfi- e skull of a e, had as ri by these lich is cer- the present lid seem to e from the several es- ilready des- i:ristic licen r boundary in the form ts sides fac- linal points yramids of apparently is interuJ, re and cov- of bouUlcTS he square, n theiii pnd ■ quicksand was placed; then followed a thin layer of dark, gritty sand, similar to that found in the other mound; over this again came more quicksand, followed by a layer of coarse brown sand over the whole extent of the mound, extending to and beyond the outer boulders; and on the top of this the sepulchral fire was kindled. Over the ashes of this fire, which extended over the whole mound, more quicksand was heaped, followed by the capping of clay. A section illustra- tive of this mound may be .-.een in plate skull and bones were found, and the rec- tangular object (i), a pair of which was recovered, and which was probably an earring, was taken from a mound of the fifth class. The ring figured on this (4) was taken from a mound of the second class, enclosed in a fold of hide, the whole wrapped up in a wad of cedar bark. These five copper objects, a frag- ment of a blanket woven from the hair of some animal, presumably from the colour and texture, the mountain-sheep, and a sm.all quantity of human hair of Wooden grave-posts from neighbourhood of I.ytton, B.C. IV. The base or floor of this mound must have been sunk several feet below the level of the general surface of the land. The mound wiien opened stood about six feet above the surround- ing soil, but its height from top to bot- tom at the centre was nearly eleven feet, and must have been considerably higher when first constructed. The copper bracelet figured on plate \T. was taken from this mound. The copper awl, or spindle shown in the same plate III. was taken from the mound in which the two colours, black and brown, form the entire collection of relics taken from these mounds. The next and conclud- ing class of the group shows a consid- erable advance upon die preceding ones. The plan here, as seen in plate V., is much more elaborate and complex. In- stead of the outer square as in the others formed by a single line of bould- ers, we have three squares, one within tile other, in the inncrriiost of which, be- neath the pile of boulders, lay the body; and the outer one is composed in this ; liil ! IH! 11 18 THE B. C. MINING RECORD. instance of two parallel rows of bould- ers, capped and united by a third. The superficial mass of this mound, and an- other alongside, and apparently like it, had been too much disturbed before my attention was drawn to them to allow N'tlahapamuq, Warrior's shirt of the old days, after drawing; by y^.. ef Mischelle, of Lytton. Con- structed from trebled Elk-hide. Pattern of ancient dress of a chief's wife or daughter, after drawinfr by Chief Miscbelle, of Lytton, B.C. Material soft doe-skin. me to speak with any certainty of any- thing beyond their ground plan; but judging from the sandy condition of the soil on them, I should be inclined to say that they resembled those of the fourth class in their upper parts. It is inter- esting to note in this connection that a number of mounds have recently been opened up on the St. John's River, Florida, the chief characteristic of which seems to be the employment pf different kinds of sand in distinct layers in their construction. To give an idea of the labour involved in the construction of one of these mounds it may be stated that it took a man, with the help of a wheel-barrow Drawing of stone figure found In the Indian burial- grounds at Kamloops, H.C. Said by the old Indians to have been used in former days In Puberty cere- monies. 'On the back of the slttlnf? tlgure, which Is supposed to represent a woman giving birth to a child, is a lizard-like animal in relief. In the fore- head of the lower tignre is a deep hole, which, ac- cording to my Informant, held the sacred water with which tlio Shaman sprinkled the girl on her return from retirement In the woods. The material is a kind of granite. Figure now in the Provincial Museum. ' and Other suitable tools, eight days to remove a few yards off the soil only from the underlying boulders' of the mound whose ground plan is given in plate V. What time it must have taken the native builders to erect one of the more elaborate sepulchres with their in- ferior tools can easily be imagined. To T PREHISTORIC RACES OF B. C. ly in's River, tic of which pf different ■ers in their )ur involved le of these at it took a heel-barrow I IndlHii burial- the old Indians n Puberty cere- \g tlRuro, which Iving birth to n lef. In thefore- lole, which, ac- icred water with rl on her return le material is a the I'roTlncial ?ht days to soil only deis of the is given in have taken one of the ith their in- igined. To bring and place the boulders alone must have taken a long time, and many days must liave been consumed in bringing such large quantities of sand in their simple receptacles and in digging the clay which caps the structure through- out its whole area, evfii now, after all these years of erosion, to a depth of several feet. Some of the mounds on Vancouver Island arc p\Tamidal in form. Whether any of these Fraser ones were of that form originally camiot now be determined. Exteriorly they present the appearance of truncated cones rather than four-sided pyramids, but this may easily be due to time and ele- ments. The boulders, it may be stated, found in these mounds, weighed from 25 lbs. up to 200 lbs each, and must have been brought from some of the moun- tain stream beds, no stone of any kind, not even a pebble, being found any- where in the neighbourhood of the ranch. Other groups of tumuli, dif- fering in some points from these of Hat- , zic and resembling them in others, are found in many other parts of the Pro- vince, particularly on \ ancouver Island. There is a particularly iiUcresting Main- land gioup near llounciary Bay. One featui^e in which these differ from those described, and in which they resemble many of the cairns on \'aiicouver Island, is the existence in them of a cist, or stone coffin, in the centre of the mound, formed by slabs of rock, ni which the body was placed. Rarely are the human remains in any of these tumuli recov- ered entire, at best a few of the harder bones only remain. We gather from this fact, as well as from many other features of them, that these ttmnili are very old and contain the rem.; ins of men and women who, whether they arc allied 10 the present tribes or not, were very prob- ably contemporai-ies of the tumuli- builders of luiropc. Historic data in- forms us that these tumuli-builders of the Old World could not have lived later than 2.000 or 3,000 years ago; and as all the conditions of these structures, and the remains found in them, closely resemble those of VkC, where nnich tlie same climatical conditions are found as obtain in England, thei-e is groat like- lihood that in many instances tlivise of this region are as old as those of Eng- land. As already stated, the bones in our tumuli are rarely recovered and so little anatomical material of this kind has thus far been collected that no con- clusive results can be reached as to their relationship to the present tribes of the Province. What little has been done in this way is too meagre to have much weight. There is, however, one strik- ing fact which seems to suggest that these old mound-builders and the mod- ern tribes are not reiated and that is that none of the tribes now found in B.C, bury, or have buried, as far as we can learn, in this way, and there are no more conservative peoples in the world when it comes to customs of this kind than the uncultivated races. The mode of sepulture followed by all the tribes in- habiting the districts wherein these tumuli are found has been from time im- memorial, either tree-burial or slab- tomb burial, mainly the former. The dead body was doubled up till the knees touched the chin and thus securely bound and placed in a box or otherwise wrapped in a blanket, accordmg to the locality, and afterwards suspended from the branches of a fir tree. There was no commoner sight a few years ago than these suspended boxes or bundles. Now, under missionary intiuence, the dead of the natives are invariably interred after the manner of our own dead. In other instances the remains, treated as be- fore, would be placed in a little shed or hut built of cedar slabs, sometimes di- recthy on the ground, and sometimes raised a few feet above it, or else, in some instances among the Coast tribes, a small island some little distance from the camping-ground, would be chosen and set apart for the reception of the dead. In no instance that has come to the writer's knowledge did they ever bury tlie body under the ground in this region. In the interior, among the .Shiiswaps and Thompsons, it was otherwise, the numerous sand-hills of that locality suggesting and offering to these tribes an easy way of disposing of their dead. From this fact, then, that the piesent Coast tribes never buried their dead in the ground we have strong reason for thinking that they and the old mound or tumuli-builders are not of the same race, or, if so, have been ^: i T I r ' i ^' Hi 20 THE B. C. MINING RECORD. much modified by contact with other alien races. I said that the Shushwaps and Thomp- sons of the interior took advantage of the numerous sand hills in the vicinity of their camp-sites to dispose of their dead, and a few remarks on these burial places may now be interesting. Of all the fields in the Province in which I have worked there are none so rich in relics as those of this region. Dur- ing the last twenty years, or so, many hundreds of the most interesting speci- mens have been taken from these cen- tres. Up to the present there is no evi- these were mostly of stone or bone and the sands of that region being generally dry, they have in numerous instances been preserved in as good a condition as when placed in the graves generations ago. It would take a good-sized volume to figure and describe the relics alone that have been recovered from the old prehistoric camp sites around Lytton. Beautifully-formed arrow-heads of jas- per, agate, chalcedony, crystal, and a kind of obsidian, of all known shapes and sizes, from the tiny barbed point of less than half an inch in length up to points of 2 or 3 inches long; jade celts, ^ iJpeciinens of Haidii workmiinship In ooppar, ivory and boiiu. dence that the older prehistoric graves of this region contain the remains of a race differing from the present tribe ; the later burials were apparently carried out on the same plan as the earliest that have been discovered. This briefly, consisted in doubling up the body and wrapping it in a blanket made, some- times from the fibrous matter of the sage-bush plant, sometimes from the wool of mountain sheep or goats, then laying it in a hole in the sand and plac- ing about the head a greater or less num- ber of specimens of household and other utensils, weapons, tools and charms. As axes and knives, polished like burnished metal, figurettes, quaintly carved bone charms, pestle-hammers of a dozen dif- ferent patterns, polished steatite pipes in animal forms, straight tubular pipes re- sembling huge cigar-Iiolders incised with mystic lines, carved and decorated bone utensils and ornaments, stone clubs of various forms, exquisite leaf-shaped javelin points, two-edged stone swords, and a host of other objects in stone and bone, such as needles, hair-pins, awls for basket-making, horn and wooden spoons, grind-stones, skin-scrapers, per- forated discs, "ceremonials," and last, T PREHISTORIC RACES OF B. C. 21 or bone and ng generally us instances a condition i generations sized volnme relics alone roni the old ind Lytton. eads of jas- ^stal, and a lown shapes bed point of ength up to jade celts, ke burnished carved bone a dozen dif- itite pipes in lar pipes re- lers incised id decorated 1, stone clubs leaf-shaped tone swords, in stone and ir-pins, awls md wooden crapcrs, per- s," and last. but not least, blocks of cut and partially cut jade are amongst the relics recover- ed here. These last are extremely in- teresting, for until the writer's discovery of them at Lytton, together with similar uncut boulders of the same material taken from the adjacent Fraser bed, the presence of jade tools and weapons among our tribes had given rise to many surmisings as to their place of origin. The only locality on this part of the con- tinent where jade was known to exist up to this time in its native beds was in Alaska, but the large projiortion of jade utensils among the natives of this region seemed, in the opinion of many, to sug- g(jst that the material must be found nearer than Alaska. My fortunate dis- covery of blocks of this material in the bed of the Fraser makes this quite cer- tain. We know now that the Fraser is the source of this stone. It is found in the form of smootii, water-worn bould- ers between Lillooet and the junction of the Fraser with the Thompson. It was from these boulders that the old-time natives cut, with infinite pains and no small skill, the choicest of their stone tools and weapons. When it is stated that typical jade is several degrees hard- er than good steel, it v.'ill easily be un- derstood that the ancients had no easy task to perform when they set them- selves to cut out an adze, an axe, or a chisel from one of these boulders. For a long time the method of cutting these tools by the ancients was a puzzle to archaeologists, but after a time some celts were discovered, v.'hich had shal- low grooves on one or both of their faces. From this it was clear that the pieces forming their tools had been ground bodily out of the block. The question then arose, how was the cutting or grinding done? It was the present writer's good fortune to be able to throw some light on this question also, by the discovery of specimens in various stages of cutting recovered from the old camp- sites about Lytton. Briefly, the cutting was performed in two ways, by grinding with narrow, lievcllcd grit-stones, and by cutting with a rock crystal of some kind, commonly an agate. The former methods made the grooved adzes or axes, the latter the clean-cut ones. The cutting was done on both sides of the stone, and when the cuts or grooves approacTied each otlier the piece was broken off by a sharp blow, the jagged edge being ground down smooth by rubbing on a block of sandstone. Water was used in both instances to keep the cut clean. This is clear, both iro:v *'"° evidence of the stones themselves as well as from the assertions of the older Indians. You will still hear it frequently stated that these cuts or grooves were effected by means of a bow and sand. The absurd- ity of the statement is readily seen when an attempt of the kind has been made. Imagine a wabbling bow-string cutting out a groove in the rounded surface of a slippery, polished boulder, off which the sand, the effective cutting material, would roll quicker than it could be poured upon it, water notwithstandmg. We cannot wander round the Pro- vince much further, but no description of the archaeology of B.C. could be at- tempted without saying a few words about the Gihangs or totem-poles of the Haida and Tsimsean, but especially of the former. Two capital specimens of these may be seen in the Provincial jVIuseum. These structures are like- wise monuments of the past, though later in time, than the tumuli and mid- dens we have already considered. They are a kind of "Family Tree," a sculp- tured, genealogical record of the blood relations of their owners. No two of them are, therefore, exactly alike. .Some of these poles are from 50 to 60 feet high — a few even higher. I'hey are formed from the trunks of enormous cedar trees and are covered from top to bottom with grotesque sculptures of various marine and land animals. They stand in the forefront of the old houses, and in their base is constructed the door-way or en- trance to the building. This is usually a huge hole cut out of the solid block and represents the gaping mouth of some huge monster. The sculptures are con- ventionalized beyond all recognition of the creatures intended by most white people, but are as readily perceived by a native as are the different letters of our alphabet by us. No two artists make the same animals alike, and yet there is always something characteri.stic in them which reveals to the Indian the ani- A 22 THE B. C. MINING RECORD. i I mals portrayed. These creatures repre- sent the different totemic relations of the individual, to the perpetuation of whose memory the pole is erected, and convey to the native mind very much the same information that a printed family pedi- gree does to us. Besides these Gihangs — some of which are many generations old, and all of which are now fast disap- pearing either by acts of vandalism, or by being carried away bodily to fill some niche in the large museums of the East, or even, in a few instances, those of Europe — the Haidas are justly re- nowned for their general artistic skill. of course), and carved in the most spirited and finished style; suggesting rather the sceptre of an Oriental poten- tate than a mere fish-club. The Haidas were also skilled in the art of tatooing. Some of the figuring upon the bodies of the older men are extremely quaint and artistic, a few examples of which are here reproduced. It is impossible in the limits of this short article to do more than touch upon a few of the more striking points of our subject, but it would not be possible to close our account before adding a few words upon the tribal divisions of our Mythological Creature. Bear. Frog. Specimens of Some specimens of this may be seen in the accompanying illustrations, the beauty and richness of design of which will readily be seen and appreciated. The artistic Chinese and Japanese are hardly more skilful in carving than are the Queen Charlotte Islanders, not only in wood, but also in stone and ivory and bone. Their commonest tools and uten- sils were formerly liighly decorated with carving and sculpture. As an instance of this it may be mentioned that their baton-like fish clubs, employed for knocking a troublesome fish on the head when landed in their canoes, were frequently fomied from ivory (marine. ThundiT-blrd. Dcvll-tish. Halda Tattooing. natives and their ethnic relations. It will probably be scarcely believed by some that the native races of this con- tinent, North and South, number not less tlian i6o distinct linguistic stocks or families. This does not take into ac- count tile hundreds of dialects spoken by the different divisions of the family. In li.C. alone we have six different stocks, and some of these, like the Sa- lish, have from 50 to 100 dialects, some of which differ from each other as wide- ly as does English from (ierman. This great number of linguistic families be- comes the more striking and significant when we remember that in the whole of PREHISTORIC RACES OF B. C. 23 the most suggesting ital poten- hc Haidas f tatooing. ? bodies of iiuaint and wliich are lits of this ouch upon ints of our possible to ling a few )ns of our ations. It .'lieved by f this con- iniber not Stic stocks ke into ac- :ts spoken the fatnily, c different kc the Sa- ects, some ?r as wide- nan. This imilies be- significant e whole of Europe there are found at most but four distinct families; and it is one of the most perplexing problems of American lin- guistics to account satisfactorily for this great number of independent languages. The ethnic names by which our six Col- umbian stocks are known are the Haida- Tlingit in the North, Tsimscans on antl about the Skeena, Kwakiutl-Nootka on the northern half of Vancouver Island and adjacent parts of the Mainland, Sa- lish, which comprises the tribes on Van- couver' and other islands south of Co- mox, those of the Coast as far south as the Columbia and the tribes on and about the Frascr, up to and inclusive of the Thompsons and Shuslnvaps, Koote- nays, of the Kootenay Lakes and dis- trict, and the wide-spreading Dene, or .-\thabascans, who, strangely enough, are related to the fierce and blood-thirsty Apaches of Xew Mexico, etc. To the casual observer, all the members of these different stocks present nuich tiie same appearance, and they do undoubtedly share manv traits in common, but yet, there are well-drawn lines which mark off the members of one stock from those of another quite as widely as the lines of difference mark off the several races of Europe from one another; and their diversified languages clearly show them to have had different origins. What these origins were is a problem which has exercised the mind of scholars since our discovery of this continent, and the theories which have been put forward from time to time would fill a good many volumes. Some of these are bizarre and irrational in the extreme, and some are as amusing as they are niiive. I cannot forbear quoting one of these, it is so thoroughly original and whimsical. It is that propounded by the learned Dr. Cotton r^lather. He believed that the aborigines of this continent had been lured here by the arch-fiend Satan, who saw in the spread of Christianitv the loss of his own hold upon mankind. He therefore seduced the ancestors of our natives to these shores, where they would be shut off and lost to the rest of the world and would be entirely beyond power of the gospel, and he would have them always for his very own. Since the learned Doctor's day some little ad- vance has been made on more scientific lines than these towards the solution of this perplexing problem, but a discus- sion of this subject would take us be- yond the scope of our article