_Native Races of the British Empire_
THE NATIVE RACES OF
BRITISH NORTH AMERICA
THE NATIVE RACES OF
BRITISH NORTH AMERICA
BY
W. D. HAMBLY, F.R.A.I., B.Sc.
(RESEARCH DEGREE, OXON.)
OXFORD DIPLOMA IN ANTHROPOLOGY
ASSISTANT ANATOMIST IN THE WELLCOME RESEARCH EXPEDITION
TO THE ANGLO-EGYPTIAN SUDAN, 1913-14
HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON, EDINBURGH, GLASGOW
TORONTO, MELBOURNE, CAPE TOWN, BOMBAY
1920
[Illustration: NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN CHIEF.]
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
MORRISON & GIBB LTD., EDINBURGH
PREFACE
During recent years there has been a very happy tendency to change the
nature of geographical teaching from a monotonous memorising of the
names of natural features to a subject of living interest.
In the endeavour to effect this change there has been a serious
omission in our failure to appeal to natural interests of children by
making the human element a central feature of geographical work.
A study of the picturesque lives of native races of the British
Empire is an absolute essential if the teacher wishes to impart the
appropriate colour and setting to a subsequent course of economic,
regional, and political geography.
The sharp contrast between European beliefs and customs and those of
primitive people is in itself an incentive to study and interest.
In addition to this, a sympathetic understanding of the many native
races who are controlled by English statesmanship is necessary for the
material and moral progress of dominions in the British Empire.
W. D. HAMBLY.
CONTENTS PAGE
CHAPTER I
THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE 9
CHAPTER II
SOME OCCUPATIONS OF INDIAN TRIBES 16
CHAPTER III
SOCIAL LIFE AMONG INDIAN TRIBES 22
CHAPTER IV
THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ESKIMO 28
CHAPTER V
THE ESKIMO AS A HUNTER 36
CHAPTER VI
TALES TOLD BY THE ESKIMO 52
[Illustration: Map of the northern U.S. and Canada with
names of native tribes]
NATIVE TRIBES OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA
CHAPTER I
THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLE
The “Old World” was startled in 1493 by the great navigator Columbus,
who returned with wonderful narratives concerning the “New World” of
North America, whose native population he called “Indians” because,
strange as it may seem to us, he thought that by sailing west he must
come to the land of India. At the present day scientists are at a loss
to account for the origin of Eskimo and North American Indian tribes;
sometimes the former are connected with the European cave dwellers,
who did such beautiful work in bone and ivory toward the end of the
old Stone Age. Whatever may have been the origin of countless numbers
of Indians, comprising hundreds of tribes, we may be certain that they
had inhabited the continent from a very remote period, for in very deep
old layers of soil one may find stone axes and arrowheads, which are
side by side with human remains and the bones of extinct species of the
horse.
Not one little book, but many large ones, would be required in order
to give an account of all the Eskimo and Indian tribes of British North
America, to say nothing of the vast numbers of tribes watched over by
the United States. So we shall have to content ourselves with a glimpse
at the lives of a few tribes inhabiting country which lies between the
extreme north of North America and a boundary line passing from the
south of Vancouver Island through the Great Lakes, to the south of the
St. Lawrence estuary.
Eskimo tribes on the west coast of Greenland are under Danish rule,
while Eskimo and Indian people of Alaska are subject to control by the
U.S.A. Hence we shall concern ourselves chiefly with the “Central”
Eskimo of Hudson Bay, Baffin Land, Davis Strait, and Labrador; while
with regard to Indian tribes we may select just a few of those which
lie wholly, or to some great extent, within British territory.
[Illustration: A NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN.]
Although Eskimo tribes are to be found from Behring Strait to
Greenland, and Indians anywhere between Vancouver Island and
Newfoundland, the appearance of peoples in widely separated tribes is
very much the same. All the Eskimo are short of stature (average height
5 ft. 2 in.), well built and sturdy, while the skin colour is a dark
yellowish brown, not unlike the shade that characterises the Southern
European. In some respects the Eskimo is not unlike an inhabitant of
Mongolia, for at once a traveller would notice the broad face, high
cheek bones, straight black hair, and oblique eyes. The head of an
Eskimo is long in proportion to the breadth, and the very high vault
enables a student to pick out an Eskimo skull from a great number
of those belonging to other races. The North American Indians, too,
are very uniform in appearance, and a native taken from one place
could easily be mistaken for an inhabitant of some region far away;
for in almost all cases there is the broad face, long well-shaped
nose, and pointed chin. To speak of a “Red” Indian gives quite a
wrong impression, for the skin is of a coppery brown, with a kind of
underlying red tinge. The hair is usually long, straight, and black,
but in British Columbia, and amongst the Déné, a reddish shade of hair
is not uncommon, while among Salish tribes of the Pacific Coast the
hair may be wavy or slightly curled.
Of all the native tribes of British North America the Eskimo have
by far the hardest and most unpleasant life, because they have no
vegetable foods, cannot practise agriculture, and are entirely
dependent on the products of hunting expeditions, which for nine months
out of twelve are undertaken in bitterly cold weather, and among dreary
wastes of snow. Indians such as the “Haida” of Queen Charlotte Islands,
the “Kwakiutl” of Vancouver, and some of the “Salish” and “Déné” tribes
of British Columbia, are most fortunate on account of a warm temperate
climate and an abundant supply of various animal and vegetable foods.
To the west of the Rocky Mountains lies a hilly, well-wooded country,
abounding with game such as deer, foxes, bears, hares, beavers,
squirrels, while birds are plentiful, and delicious salmon may be
obtained from the Fraser River and its tributaries. Of all trees the
cedar has been most useful to the coastal tribes, for it is to them
what the cocoa-nut palm is to the people inhabiting the South Sea
Islands. From the wood of cedar trees, houses and canoes are made,
while clothing may be manufactured from the inner bark; and there is
no part of this useful tree which is not put to some good purpose.
Basket work is very cleverly woven with strands of different colours
representing geometrical patterns, people, and objects. It may be
thought that the outlines of human and animal figures are too stiff,
but one must remember that the rigid nature of the basket work compels
the worker to make straight lines.
[Illustration: BASKET-WORK HAT: WHALING SCENE INWOVEN. WOOTKA
SOUND, N. W. AMERICA.]
Some drawings of animals are provided with human, or almost human
faces. This is done, not because the worker is unskilful, but because
he believes that spirits of his ancestors may dwell in animals.
Therefore the human and animal features are combined in sketches,
tattooing, and masks.
Very different from British Columbia is a vast stretch of country from
the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains to the shores of Hudson Bay.
Here are to be found many branches of the Déné Indians under the names
of “Beavers,” “Dog Ribs,” and “Yellow Knives,” who have figured in
many a story of breathless adventure; and it is with this snow-clad
trappers’ country that Jack London has dealt in several of his novels.
On the southern shore of Hudson Bay the Algonkin Indians have come into
contact with Eskimo peoples, but nowhere are the two very friendly. To
the south of the Algonkins are the Lakes Superior, Erie, and Ontario,
in which region live the remnants of such important tribes as the
Huron, Iroquois, and Mohawks; the last named have been the heroes of
many a story book. In the year 1858 all Indian tribes came under the
charge of a special department of the Dominion Government, which set
aside certain localities for their use. Naturally the natives changed
very rapidly when in contact with Europeans, so that to-day they are
not the wild people described by such travellers as Fraser, Vancouver,
and Mackenzie, who explored the North-West Territories between the
years 1793 and 1808. Indian dress, weapons, canoes, carving, religious
songs, and dances are still extremely common, and in the United States
there is a special department of the Government concerned with the
publication of books describing the lives of Indian tribes.
Mr. C. Hill-Tout, who has spent much time in observing the Indian
tribes of the Pacific Coast of British North America, says: “There
is no doubt in my mind that the present Salish population of about
12,000 does not represent nearly a fifth of the population of this
stock at the time of Simon Fraser’s visit to them. One tribe alone,
the ‘Lukungen,’ whose settlements are at the south-eastern end of
Vancouver’s Island, was estimated in 1859 to number 8500. To-day
they could not muster 200, or less than one-fortieth of their former
numbers.”... “That dying race the Haida of Queen Charlotte’s Islands
numbered, in 1840, 8328. Twenty years ago that number had dwindled to
2000, and to-day the native population of these small islands is about
700.” Perhaps it is safe to say that the total native population of
British North America is only one-tenth part of what it was a hundred
years ago. Alcohol, small-pox, and pneumonia have caused a heavy death
rate, in addition to which the easier lives, and the adoption of a
good deal of European clothing, have made the natives less robust, and
therefore an easy prey to all forms of sickness.