20 The Ottawa Naturalist. [May 



What would the coast Indian be without the Cedar? Liter- 

 ally lost. Out of the mighty logs he chipped, hewed and burnt 

 his great war canoe, often sixty feet long, and in which he did 

 not hesitate to brave the wild waters of the Pacific, when he 

 went off on a foray on some of the other weaker or less prepared 

 tribes, after which he brought back the spoil, and sometimes 

 captives, to the great potlatch house, sometimes one hundred 

 and fifty feet long by fifty feet wide, all built of cedar even 

 the great totem pole that stood in front, telling maybe of 

 the owner's pedigree, or perhaps the story of some adventure 

 that he had had. And then the dance, which would be sure 

 to succeed the successful foray. Why, the dancers themselves 

 were ornamented with ceremonial masks of grotesquedooking 

 animals, and these again had been cut out of cedar wood, while 

 the clothes they wore were for the most part made from the 

 inner bark of the tree. And while the dance was going on an 

 old crone might be seen spinning a fishing line from the same 

 material. A great tree the cedar. Thuja plicata, Donn. 



Three different plants were smoked before the Indians had 

 access to T. & B. or Old Chum. Among the Kootenays the inner 

 bark of the Red Willow, Cornus stolonijera Michx., was used 

 sparingly, and very probably the custom was borrowed from 

 the Indians of the plains when they went through the passes 

 to hunt the buffalo. 



The leaves of the Arciostaphyios uva ursi (L.) Sprengel, were 

 smoked under the name kinnikinnick ; the name certainly was 

 borrowed from the east. 



The third plant was a veritable tobacco albeit of poor 

 quality, Nicotiana attenuata Torr. This was gathered in bundles 

 and dried, and so smoked; it mu-t have been very hot smoking. 



Of the medicinal plants I shall only mention one, and not 

 attempt to write the name that the Squamish Indians call 

 it. It is difficult enough to pronounce. The plant I refer to 

 is "Cascara," Rhamnus Purshiana DC The bark of this tree 

 has been known to the Indians for ages as a medicine, and from 

 the Indians it was adopted by the old miners and prospectors. 

 No "old man of the mountains" would think of being without 

 a bottle of the decoction made-f^om barberry bark and Oregon 

 grape when far from a drug store. It is less than thirty years 

 since Cascara became such a popular medicine among the 

 whites. Usually a clump of Rhamnus may be noticed near an 

 Indian village. It will be seen that though strips of bark have 

 been removed that they have been taken vertically, and the 

 tree is never entirely girdled, but is treated, in a crude way, 

 very much the same as the Cinchona is treated in Ceylon and 

 Java. And yet the trees grow vigorously. 



