INDIAN DOGS, SO CALLED. -217 



natives, is not by any means clear. Traditions 

 still exist amongst the Indians, near the mouth of 

 the Columbia, of strangers having once been 

 amongst them, long before they had seen Euro- 

 peans ; and still more confirmatory of the story's 

 probability, words undoubtedly of Japanese 

 origin are still used in the jargon spoken on the 

 coast called Chinook. If this is true, then I 

 can see nothing very extraordinary in dogs 

 having been on board the ship or junk visiting 

 the coast, that they became the property of the 

 natives, and that the art of weaving was 

 learned from those who brought the dogs. More 

 than this, the first possessors of these white dogs 

 were, as far as it is possible to trace it, Chinook 

 Indians, a tribe once very numerous, and living- 

 near the entrance to the Columbia river ; thence 

 the dog reached Puget's Sound, and eventually 

 must have been carried to Nainimo across the 

 Gulf of Georgia. Supposing it not to have been 

 brought from Japan, the only other way it 

 could have come must have been from the north, 

 which is far from likely. That the dog was not 

 indigenous, I am quite sure. 



An immense variety of dogs are at present 

 called ' Indian dogs,' but nearly all of them, 

 wherever the Indians have been in trading com- 



