102 



The Ottawa Naturalist 



[Vol. XXXII. 



made at Masset itself. Both of these were de- 

 scribed by Dr. A. T. Joyce in the Journal of the 

 Anthropological Institute, Vol. XXXIII, 1903, Pis. 

 xix, XX. The model was sent to the Museum in 

 1898 and the original in 1902 or 1903. 



The first mention of totem poles on the north- 

 west coast of America, so far as the writer knows, 

 is that contained in Coof^'s Third Voyage (Vol. II, 

 p. 317, PI. 42). Two short squat posts are de- 

 scribed and illustrated as standing mside a house 

 at Nootka. Cook was unable to find out the mean- 

 ing of these poles, of which there were numerous 

 examples in the village, owing to want of knowledge 

 of the language of the owners. This was in 1 778. 



Some years later the Spaniards, who had long 

 occupied Nootka, came to the conclusion that these 

 carvings were simply ornamental and only of 

 significance in respect to the man whose supporters 

 had contributed to the raising and putting in place 

 of such timbers. The writer has purchased many 

 such objects, and in each case it was explained by 

 the seller that the carving represented either an 

 ancestor of his family or some incident where real 

 or mythical animals of supernatural power showed 

 some favor to such an ancestor. (Relacion del 

 viage por los Goletas Sutil y Mexicana, etc., etc., 

 Madrid, 1802, pp. 128, 129.) 



The next reference, and this time to poles of 

 Haida make, is contained in Meares Voyages 

 (London, 1790, p. 367). Here, while recounting 

 the experiences of Captain Douglas in the "Iphi- 

 genia" at the north-west end of the Queen Charlotte 

 Islands, he speaks of "the great wooden images of 

 Tartanee" but gives no further description of them. 

 Fortunately, two years later, this place was visited 

 by a French ship, the Solide, and many pages of 

 the journal of the voyage are devoted to an account 

 of this region. (Marchand, Voyage Autour du 

 Monde; Paris, Tome I, 288-362). On pages 

 299-300 is a passage, too long to quote in full, which 

 states that the door of the houses was elliptical, 

 about three feet high and two wide and passed 

 through the base of a large high trunk placed 

 vertically in front of the centre of the houses. The 

 door took the form of a gaping mouth, and was 

 surmounted by a hooked beak about two feet long, 

 proportioned in size to the monstrous figure to 

 which it belonged. Above this was a squatting 

 human figure and above this again a gigantic statue 

 of a man in an erect position, wearing a hat of sugar- 

 loaf shape, the height of which was almost equal to 

 that of the man himself. On those parts of the sur- 

 face not occupied by the principal subjects there 

 were scattered here and there carvings of frogs or 

 toads, lizards and other animals and the limbs of 

 the human body. It was explained by a chief that 



the erect human figure represented a man of high 

 rank who was venerated in this country. 



It was learned independently, both by Dr. 

 Swanton and the writer, that in the early days in- 

 stead of poles the Haida used large cedar planks 

 for the display of their crests, etc., in front of their 

 homes, and that the doorway often passed through 

 the centre of these planks. That the use of this flat 

 form overlapped that of the cylindrical one is in- 

 dicated by the fact that the writer was able to 

 procure a very old specimen at Skidegate for the 

 Provincial Museum at Victoria, B.C. This form 

 was also in use up to a late date at nearly all of 

 the Haida villages to show the crest of the oc- 

 cupants of large mortuaries. The only specimen 

 still in existence known to the writer was procured 

 from Skedans by the writer for the Field Museum 

 of Natural History at Chicago. The mortuary 

 form closely resembled that of the large carved 

 chests showing the head of some animal in bold 

 solid work while the limbs are shown on each side 

 of the central head outlined by deep incised work, 

 and all painted in the usual colors. It is clear that 

 Marchand's description of two tablets seen by his 

 party at the west end of what is now called Lucy 

 Island, close to Dadens (Tartanee of Douglas), 

 applies to carvings of this kind. These were eight 

 or nine feet long by five in height, and were made 

 of two planks joined together. Represented on them 

 in red, black and green colors were seen the different 

 parts of the human body covering the whole surface. 

 (Marchand, I.e., p. 295). 



Respecting the antiquity of the style of totemic 

 display afforded by the vertical poles, the older 

 Haida say that they are of comparatively recent 

 origin, and that tradition says that they were not 

 made until iron chisels came into use. It is believed 

 that iron tools were unknown to the inhabitants of 

 the north-west coast before the Russians made their 

 appearance in what are now Alaskan waters. This 

 would be about the year 1741. In 1774, when the 

 coast of British Columbia was first discovered, iron 

 tools were noticed by the Spaniards under Perez in 

 the possession of the natives both of the Queen 

 Charlotte Islands and of Nootka. (Documents 

 from the Sutro Collection, Historical Soc. of South- 

 ern California, Los Angeles, 1891, pp. 121, 132, 

 203.) Iron tools were more plentiful, apparently, 

 when Cook visited Nootka in 1 778, as he speaks of 

 seeing at this place iron ornaments, arrow points, 

 chisels and knives vsath thin curved blades. (Cook's 

 Third Voyage, II, pp. 271, 330.) Cook was of 

 the opinion that iron was too common, in too many 

 hands, and its use too well known for the natives to 

 have had the first knowledge of it quite recently or 

 by an accidental supply from a ship. Nevertheless, 



