The villages of these tribes are almost always on the seashore. The houses
were generally in one long line, and all faced the sea. The houses of the
different tribes differed somewhat. The house of the Haida was almost
square, measuring perhaps forty or fifty feet on a side. In olden times
they were sunk several feet into the ground. On entering the house the
visitor found himself upon a platform several feet wide running around the
four sides; from it he stepped down upon a second platform, and from it
upon a central square of dirt which contained the fireplace. The eating
place was around this hearth; the place for lounging, visiting, and
sleeping was on the upper platform. There each person of the household had
his or her own place. At its rear edge, near the wall, were boxes
containing the person’s treasures and the household’s food. There was but
one doorway and no windows in a Haida house. Outside the house, at the
middle of the front, stood a curious, great, carved post of wood. These
were covered with queer animal and bird patterns, each with some meaning
(see XXIX.). In Haida houses the doorway was cut in the lower part of this
great post or pole.
The beach in front of the village used to be covered with canoes dragged
up on the sand. These canoes were “dugouts” of single tree trunks. The
logs were cut in summer time, the best wood being yellow cedar. The chief
tool used was the adze, made of stone or shell. Fire was used to char the
wood to be cut away. After it had been partly cut out inside it was
stretched or shaped by steaming with water and hot stones, and then
putting in stretchers. Sometimes single-log canoes were large enough to
carry from thirty to sixty people. They were often carved and painted at
the ends. The paddles used in driving these canoes were rather slender and
long-bladed, often painted with designs.
The present dress of these Indians is largely the same as our own. In the
days of the first voyagers, they wore beautiful garments of native
manufacture. They had quantities of fine furs of seals and sea-otters.
These were worn as blankets; when not in use they were carefully folded
and laid away in boxes. They wore close and fine blankets of the wool of
the mountain sheep and the hair of the mountain goat. These were closely
woven and had a fine long fringe along the lower border. They were covered
with patterns representing the totem animals. The blanket itself was a
dirty white in color, but the designs were worked in black, yellow, or
brown. Further south, among the Tshimpshian Indians of British Columbia,
fine blankets were woven of the soft and flexible inner bark of the cedar;
these were bordered with strips of fur.
[Illustration.]