THE HUMAN SIDE OF THE INDIAN 507 



The reactions of the Kootenays to the proposal to have their stature, 

 etc., determined were often very interesting. Most of them at first 

 refused altogether, and their prejudices were very difficult to overcome. 

 One Indian told the writer that he could measure him when dead, and 

 another said that he was not a child — others, however, were very un- 

 willing that their children, in particular, should be measured. To 

 measure the women, was, of course, except in rare instances, impossible. 



With the language it was different. The Indians would often come 

 to the writer, without having been asked, and inform him that they 

 had some words which they wanted him to put in his ' book ' of their 

 language, so eager, apparently, were some of them to help in the 

 preservation of their speech. This is a rather common experience with 

 those who have come into sympathetic relations with savage and 

 barbarous peoples. Amelu, after he had told the writer a great many 

 things about himself and his people, would sometimes turn round and 

 catechize his catechizer, asking him all manner of questions about the 

 whites, their manners and customs, etc., showing great interest, and 

 being sometimes much amused. ' What do you call this in your lan- 

 guage ? ' he would often ask, as he came across something new or in- 

 teresting. { Haven't you white people any stories about Coyote ? ' he 

 would say, after relating some of the Kootenay legends. Once, when 

 an Indian was asked to tell the story of the sun and moon, he began to 

 give a version of the Bible account of the creation, as he had it, prob- 

 ably from some priest. He appeared surprised when the writer 

 informed him that that was the story of his people, and after a little 

 while admitted that it wasn't Indian, and began to tell the Kootenay 

 story of how the coyote and the chicken hawk made the sun and moon. 

 Amelu, who was an Indian under mission influence, did not hesitate 

 to shoot a chicken-hawk for the writer, although that bird is one of the 

 chief figures in Kootenay mythology — he had more fear of ' medicine- 

 men ' than he had superstitious views of nrythological personages. He 

 would not eat meat on Frida} r , but would eat the ' saw-bill ' duck, 

 which, he declared, ate so much fish that it was practically fish itself. 

 Another ' religious ' practise of his was wearing the old Indian breech- 

 clout, even when he had adopted the trousers of the whites. In a few 

 other respects also he was a curious mixture of the old and the new. 



The Indians are very prompt to notice any personal peculiarities or 

 idiosyncrasies of speech, action, movement, etc. In climbing into the 

 saddle the Kootenays swing off the right foot, and not off the left, as 

 does the white man. The fact that the writer (amateur in his horse- 

 manship) happened to climb into the saddle ' off-side,' as we say, gained 

 him at once the name, ' The man who rides like an Indian.' This 

 circumstance was a road to the favor of these people, who are always 

 delighted to have one do instinctively as they do. The mastery of the 



