The lofty chains of the Rocky Mountains extend from north to south,
leaving a narrow coast line seamed with deep and fertile valleys along
the Pacific from Mt. St. Elias to the Gulf of California. In spite of its
great extent in latitude--from the 30th to the 60th degree--there is less
difference in climate than one would suppose from analogy in any other
part of the world. The warm ocean current which bathes the northern coast
mitigates the cold of the winter to such an extent that the isothermal
lines on the Pacific are fifteen degrees of latitude more northerly than
on the Atlantic border of the continent.
A few of the eastern stocks, the Athabascan and the Shoshonian, have sent
out colonies who have settled on the banks of the Pacific; but as a rule
the tribes of the western coast are not connected with any east of the
mountains. What is more singular, although they differ surprisingly among
themselves in language, they have marked anthropologic similarities,
physical and psychical. Virchow[118] has emphasized the fact that
the skulls from the northern point of Vancouver’s Island reveal an
unmistakable analogy to those from the southern coast of California;
and this is to a degree true of many intermediate points. Not that the
crania have the same indices. On the contrary, they present great and
constant differences within the same tribe;[119] but these differences
are analogous one to the other, and on fixed lines.
There are many other physical similarities which mark the Pacific Indians
and contrast them with those east of the mountains. The eyes are less
oblique, the nose flatter, the lips fuller, the chin more pointed, the
face wider. There is more hair on the face and in the axilla, and the
difference between the sexes is much more obvious.[120]
The mental character is also in contrast. The Pacific tribes are more
quiet, submissive and docile; they have less courage, and less of that
untamable independence which is so constant a feature in the history of
the Algonkins and Iroquois.
Beginning at the sixtieth degree of north latitude and extending to the
fifty-fifth, are the _Tlinkit_ or _Kolosch_. They dwell on the coast
of Alaska and the adjacent islands. Physically they are a strong and
often tall people, light in color, with black or slightly reddish hair,
eyes horizontal, nose aquiline. The Russians spoke of them as the most
intelligent tribe they encountered on the coast. They certainly seem to
have developed an uncommon appreciation of property, which is supposed to
be a sign of a high order of intellect. Thus they have a gentile system
with descent in the female line, but their aristocracy and the selection
of their chiefs are entirely on a property basis. The richest obtain the
highest places.
The Tlinkit villages are permanent, the houses solidly constructed of
wood, sometimes with the additional protection of a palisade. The carving
and painting upon them are elaborate, the subjects being caricatures
of faces, men, and animal forms. The chiefs erect at one side of their
doors carved and painted “totem posts,” some of which are nearly fifty
feet high. These are also found among the Haidahs and Tshimshians to
the south. The arts are correspondingly developed. Seaworthy canoes
are hewn from the trunks of the red cedar, hides are dressed and the
leather worked into a variety of articles; lamps, mortars and utensils
were chipped or ground out of stone, and they are handy in beating out
ornaments of silver and copper. The Tlinkits have always been active
merchants, and when the first navigators visited their villages in 1741,
they were surprised to find them in possession of iron knives and other
articles obtained by trade over East Cape or from the south. The usual
currency were the dentalium shells found along the coast. One of the
staple articles of trade were slaves, a custom not in existence on the
Atlantic. They were bought from the neighboring tribes, and treated with
great cruelty.
Tlinkit mythology is rich, having a coherent creation and deluge
myth, the principal figure in which is _Jelchs_, the raven. He is the
Promethean fire-bringer, and sets free the sun, moon and stars from their
prisons. The religious rites are in the hands of priests (shamans), who
as usual exert a great and injurious influence.[121]
The _Haidahs_, who dwell on Queen Charlotte Islands and Prince of Wales
Archipelago, are probably a distant branch of the Tlinkit, though the
affinity has not been clearly established, so they are officially classed
as the _Skittagetan_ stock, from the Skidegate dialect of the coast.
In culture and appearance they resemble the Tlinkits, having similar
mechanical skill. Their canoes and their intricate carvings, especially
totem-posts and pipes of black slate, are celebrated products of the
northwest coast.
The above and other tribes of British Columbia and Washington, the
Tshimshian, the Kwakiutl, the Nootka, Salish, Chinook, etc., are so much
alike physically that Dr. Boas, who has carried out the most recent and
thorough examination of them, observes that no physical distinctions can
be drawn between them.[122] In some the hair is slightly wavy; in others
the nose is aquiline or flatter; the heads of several are artificially
deformed, etc.; but these differences do not characterize whole stocks.
All have a great respect for wealth, and consider its accumulation
the chief object of life. Among them all, women are honored for their
chastity and industry, men for their skill in hunting and fishing, and
for their bravery in war. Their character is generally sombre, and vanity
and servility are prominent faults. The animal totemic system generally
prevails, the child among the Salish and Kwakiutl following the father’s
gens. The communities are divided into social strata, as common people,
middle class and chiefs. A favorite method to obtain popularity is to
give a _potlatch_--a great feast, at which the host makes expensive
presents to the guests, and thus becomes as it were their creditor to the
amount of his disbursement.
The _Salish_, who are distinctively known as Flatheads, though the custom
of deforming the cranium is not confined to them, occupied a large tract
in northern Washington and British Columbia.
The principal contribution of the Chinooks to modern life has been the
“Chinook jargon” which has become the trade language of the coast. It is
a curious medley of words, and has been recently made the subject of an
interesting study by Mr. Horatio Hale.[123]
The _Sahaptins_ or _Nez Percés_, with their affiliated tribes, occupied
the middle and upper valley of the Columbia and its affluents, and also
the passes of the mountains. They were in contiguity with the Shoshonees
and the Algonkin Blackfeet, thus holding an important position,
intermediate between the eastern and the Pacific tribes. Having the
commercial instinct of the latter, they made good use of it, and every
summer carried the various products of the coast, as shells, carved
pipes, hammered copper, etc., far down the Missouri, where they exchanged
them for the wares of the tribes there situate.
Of the numerous other linguistic stocks on the coast it will be
sufficient for me to append the classification adopted by the Bureau of
Ethnology at Washington.