i6o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A CKUISE AMONG HAIDA AND TLINGIT VILLAGES 

 ABOUT DIXON'S ENTRANCE.* 



By GEORGE A. DOESEY, Ph. D., 



FIELD COLUMBIAN MUSEUM, CHICAGO. 



ON May lltli of this year, accompanied by Mr. E. P. Allen, tlie 

 museum pliotographer, I left Chicago for a four months' tour 

 among tlie Indians of the far West. The object of the journey was 

 to secure material for the Department of Anthropology, more espe- 

 cially to get such objects as could be worked into groups to illus- 

 trate the culture history of the Western Indians, and also to secure 

 material to represent the physical characteristics of certain of these 

 races. 



Between Chicago and the Pacific coast we visited three great 

 families of Indians: the Blackfeet of Montana and Canada, the 

 Elatheads of Montana, and the Kootenays of British Columbia and 

 Idaho. When we reached Victoria, on June 19th, we had before us 

 two groups of Indians on the northwest coast to visit — the Haidas 

 and the Tsimshians. 



As may be seen on an ethnographical map of the Northwest, the 

 Haidas and Tsimshians are only two of five great stocks which are 

 to be found on this coast. Beginning with the north are the Tlin- 

 gits, who occupy the islands and coast of southern Alaska. Just to 

 the south come the Haidas, who live on Dall and the Prince of 

 Wales Islands of Alaska and the Queen Charlotte Islands of British 

 Columbia. Next come the Tsimshians of the Nass and Skeena 

 Pivers and the neighboring coast and islands. Below them are the 

 Kwakiutls, inhabiting the coast from Gardiner Channel to Cape 

 Mudge on the mainland and the west coast of Vancouver Island. 

 The fifth and last group is the Salish, inhabiting the eastern half 

 of Vancouver Island, the southwestern corner of the mainland of 

 British Columbia, and parts of Washington, Idaho, and Montana. 



It is not an easy matter to reach the Queen Charlotte Islands. 

 The Victoria steamers touch at the town of Skidegate once a month, 

 but remain for a few hours only, and the facilities for getting away 

 from Skidegate are limited to Indian canoes. Furthermore, Skide- 

 gate and vicinity have been pretty thoroughly investigated by an- 

 thropologists, and we were especially desirous of visiting Masset, a 

 remote Haida village on the northern shore of Graham Island, the 

 largest of the Queen Charlotte group. This village is visited by 

 steamers but once or twice a year, when the supplies are taken over 



* From a lecture delivered in the Field Columbian Museum, November 6, 1897. 



