152 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. ix. 



ments and utensils. The style of this carving, on the one hand, 

 resembles that of China and Japan, and, on the other, that of 

 Mexico and Central America. The Haidas are dexterous and 

 successful fishermen. 



Such is a brief sketch of the Indians of British Columbia ; 

 from which, however, it will be evident that, owing to the phy- 

 sically diversified character of the country, and correspondingly 

 diverse habits of the natives, they required at the hands of 

 the whites a quite special treatment. It was probably owing to 

 want of information that the Dominion government at first pro- 

 posed to apply, unmodified, to the whole area of the new province, 

 the traditional Canadian policy of granting extensive reserves to 

 the natives. This led to a lono- and in some instances acrimo- 

 nious correspondence between the general and local governments; 

 and also to accusations by philanthropic societies, imputing in- 

 justice and indifi"erence toward the natives to the old colonial 

 government. It may be interesting to go over, briefly, the chief 

 points raised in this controversy, which will also in some degree 

 serve to explain the anomalou*^ condition of the British Columbia 

 Indians in respect to material progress. 



Many interesting facts bearing on the first contact of whites and 

 natives on the West Coast are to be found in the volumes of Meares, 

 Portlock and Dixon, Cook, Vancouver and other early explorers ; 

 and various arrangements and treaties were made in these early 

 times, which have long since, however, lost all force, and must 

 be omitted here. Among the official documents relating to more 

 recent times, we first find fourteen treaties concluded with the 

 natives by Mr,, afterwards Sir James, Douglas, acting for the 

 Hudson Bay Company. These apply to Vancouver Island, chiefly 

 to its southern and south-eastern part, and are dated in 1850 

 and 1852, several years before the gold excitement of 1858-59. 

 A lump sum was paid on the conclusion of each treaty, which 

 was looked upon as a sale, under the following conditions, to 

 quote from one of them, viz :— " That our village sites and en- 

 closed fields are to be kept for our own use, for the use of our 

 children, and for those who may follow after us ; and the land 

 shall be properly surveyed hereafter. It is understood, however, 

 that the land itself, with these small exceptions, becomes the en- 

 tire property of the white people for ever ; it is also understood 

 that we are at liberty to hunt over the unoccupied lands, and to 

 carry on our fisheries as formerly." 



