46 ALEXANDER MACKENZIE ON CERTAIN 



character of their inhabitants, with the fact that the islands lay to the west of the main 

 route of communication along the coast, caused them to be but seldom visited. This was 

 even the case in 18*78 when the writer undertook his exploration of the islands. Since 

 that time the Tlingit peoples of the southern coast-strip of Alaska have been somewhat 

 fully reported on by various writers, while considerable attention has also been devoted to 

 the littoral of the southern part of British Columbia. As a result of these investigations, 

 the arts and knowledge common to the coast peoples generally have been described 

 and attached by description to various tribes in which both were less fully developed 

 than they are among the Ilaida. When this difference came to be appreciated, a tendency 

 arose to afhrm that the Haida had borrowed and more fully developed the arts and cus- 

 toms of neighbouring tribes. In some cases this is true, but as a general statement it 

 must be accepted with the utmost reserve Articles formed of copper and blankets woven 

 of the hair of the mountain goat are known to have been obtained by the Haida from the 

 Tlingit to the north ; circumstances explained by the fact that the materials employed in 

 both do not occur in the Queen Charlotte Islands. Some customs and dances are also 

 known to have been adopted from the Tshimsian of the adjacent mainland, but further 

 than this the proof does not go. 



The fact remains that the arts of the Ilaida, with those of their neighbours the 

 Tshimsian, had reached a stage of development, tending toward an incipient civilization, 

 higher than that found in any other people of the west coast of North America. To the 

 north, as well as to the south of the Queen Charlotte Islands, and to some extent in cor- 

 respondence with the distance from these islands, are found ruder and more barbarous 

 people, living in dwellings of inferior construction and surrounded by fewer and less 

 artistically fashioned implements. The comparatively isolated position of the Haida and 

 the relative immunity which this afforded against attack, may have been important in 

 producing this result ; while their occupation of a region upon all sides of which (save 

 that of the ocean) different peoples with habits and traditions more or less varied bordered, 

 may have rendered the Haida more Catholic in their beliefs. These, however, are but cir- 

 cumstances which may explain, while they do not detract from the premier position of this 

 tribe ; a position which was largely shared by the Tshimsian, though in consequence of 

 the greater accessibility of the Tshimsian country, their primitive condition had suffered 

 more change before it began to be intelligently studied. 



Many collections which have been made are now to be found in museums credited 

 vaguely to the Northwest Coast, a designation justified to a certain extent by the similarity 

 of the character of the objects met with on this coast as a whole ; but where the means 

 are still available for analysing these miscellaneous collections and assigning them to the 

 various tribes, it is found that a great proportion of the best fashioned and most artistic- 

 ally finished objects come from the Queen Charlotte Islands. The writer is pleased to 

 note that Mr. Niblack, in the remarks made in his memoir above cited, appears fully to 

 appreciate and admit the superior culture and dexterity of the Haida, of which people the 

 Kaigani of the southern part of Alaska are but a modern colony. Speaking from his own 

 somewhat extended opportunities of knowing the tribes of the Pacific Coast, and referring 

 particularly to their mental capacity, the writer has no hesitation in recording his opinion 

 that the Haida and Tshimsian are the most intelligent and capable. 



