374 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 42 



metal tools facilitated woodworking, and not only chiefs, but ex-com- 

 moners and even ex-slaves began to build enormous houses, to set up 

 lofty totem poles, and to wear at ceremonies elaborately carved wooden 

 masks. Rivalry among the more prosperous Indians increased the 

 frequency and magnificence of the potlatches ; men toiled and saved for 

 years merely for the glory of entertaining 3,000 or 4,000 guests for 

 7 or 8 days. Finally, in some districts, the old custom of giving away 

 presents at these potlatches — which was really a primitive banking 

 system, since the presents were redeemable — degenerated into reckless 

 squandering and even the wanton destruction of property. Naturally, 

 this only increased still further the jealousy and strife, besides threat- 

 ening widespread destitution. Accordingly, the government inter- 

 vened and strictly prohibited all potlatches, including under that term 

 every ceremony, religious or secular, at which the giving of presents 

 had been customary. The turmoil in the villages then died down; 

 but the measure was purely negative and had an unfortunate psycho- 

 logical effect. It destroyed the ambition of the natives by depriving 

 them of their traditional means of social advancement without helping 

 them to improve their economic and social position vis-a-vis the white 

 population. Very few of them had successfully taken up farming. 

 The majority worked for the fishing canneries, where the men had 

 now to compete with well-organized Japanese fishermen; or they 

 gathered fruit and hops, worked as dock hands in places like Vancou- 

 ver, Victoria, and Nanaimo, or found employment in lumbering and 

 similar occupations, for the most part seasonal, that provided only the 

 barest subsistence. Civilization had burst upon them so suddenly that 

 they were bewildered and unable either to avoid its evils or to see and 

 grasp its opportunities. European diseases decimated their ranks and 

 the population dropped at an appalling rate. Some of the girls mar- 

 ried white men, or, in rare cases, Chinese; here and there a man broke 

 away from his fellows and merged with the whites; but the greater 

 number clung to their old settlements (which the government finally 

 converted into reserves) , and watched with hopeless, uncomprehending 

 eyes the growth of industry and commerce around them. Scattered 

 in tiny communities without any semblance of union, they could de- 

 velop no leaders to guide them out of the morass. Their regenera- 

 tion seems possible only from outside stimulus and leadership, such as 

 is now meeting with success in Bella Bella and a few other villages. 



It is interesting to notice that Japan, on the opposite side of the 

 Pacific, was caught in the same maelstrom as our Pacific coast Indians, 

 and at precisely the same time. Japan, however, was a densely popu- 

 lated nation with an ancient civilization grounded on the intensive 

 cultivation of the soil. She possessed the tradition at least of unity, 

 her political freedom was unimpaired, and her ruling nobles were able 

 to pool their efforts and work out their country's salvation on a definite 



