5 o6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



and introduced through the whites are : Cabbage, ' edible leaf plant ' ; 

 cucumber, ' plant that grows on the ground wild ' ; oats, ' horses' food ' ; 

 orange, ' big rose-hip ' (the apricot, peach, pear, tomato, apple, are all 

 named after the hip of the prairie-rose). The daughter of David 

 McLaughlin, of the Lower Kootenay, a metis, who spoke only Kootenay, 

 coined for the writer a new word on the spot. This was a name for the 

 sunflower, which she called TcakadlimiikdwadlldV yit , which seems to be 

 derived from the word for ' light.' The Indian Amelu was not nearly 

 so ready to assign names to new things — it is probably true that women 

 exceed men in this respect among some primitive races. When asked to 

 name a strange plant Amelu would often reply simply, notlukine, ' it 

 is strange (foreign, unknown),' or tsako nana, ' \t is small (a little 

 thing),' or, again, lidlc-a ophane, c l don't know.' Still Amelu did 

 know a great many things, for one evening he reeled off 91 names of 

 birds. On other occasions he had named over 100 species of plants, 

 shrubs and trees, besides a large number of animals, fish, etc. Of 

 every one of all these he was able to give brief descriptions. 



When a scientific investigator first makes his appearance among a 

 primitive people, it is often difficult to convince them that his advent is 

 not connected with the attempts of white men to steal their land or 

 ill use their women — these are the two chief sins laid to the charge of 

 the " superior ' race. The writer once by accident intruded on what 

 might be called the meeting of the ' sewing circle ' of the Kootenays, 

 but the shouts of the women immediately reminded him of breach of 

 primitive etiquette he was committing by peering into the women's 

 tent. One of the chief men of the Upper Kootenays, who was un- 

 friendly to the writer's objects, resurrected a dead-letter law of the 

 tribe by which the women were forbidden to talk English with the white 

 men. When the writer overcame this difficulty by using the Chinook 

 jargon, the same man used his influence to have the women forbidden 

 to talk anything but Kootenay, but by that time he had learned 

 enough Kootenay to make this prohibition of not much avail. Some 

 of the Indians understood very readily the idea of having their language 

 and their legends preserved by means of the white man's records, and 

 took the utmost pains to secure accuracy and completeness. Amelu 

 was so interested in the matter that he suggested a new method of 

 procedure, viz., that the writer, if he really wanted to make the best 

 possible investigations and record everything, should marry the niece 

 of the old chief, who was about to resign office — the inheritance was in 

 the female line — and thus become chief of the tribe, when he would be 

 able to accomplish his heart's desire in the way of scientific knowledge. 

 The ties of his own people, naturally, prevented this consummation, 

 which certainly would have had its advantages for science, for as chief 

 of the Lower Kootenays the writer might have accomplished much. 



