116 FATHER MORTCE ON 



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If we uow turn oviv attention to the Carriers' heterogeneous neighbours in the west, 

 we are not slow in discovering that, to this A'ery day, in almost all sociological particulars, 

 they have remained what they were one hundred years ago.' Despite reiterated 

 prohibitions and even threats- by the civil authorities, potlaching is going on every year 

 with renewed vigour ; '' old-fashion dancing is the order of the day every successive winter ; 

 the erecting of commemorative or heraldic columns is continued ; in many places the solitary 

 blanket without trousers or shirt is, as of old, the only garment worn by the men when 

 at home ; most of the traditional myths and legends are narrated by the fireside to 

 credulous audiences ; the division of the tribe into noble and common people is religiously 

 preserved, not one of the traditional privileges of the former being overlooked ; the 

 manufacture and use of the ceremonial paraphernalia, masks, rattles, head-dresses, etc., 

 goes on just as if no superior civilization had ever presented its claims to their 

 consideration, and I know even of dead bodies which have been burnt within the 

 last few years by aborigines of Tsimshian parentage ! * And note that most of these 

 Indians have seen modern civilization in all its glory through their periodical trips to 

 Victoria, New "Westminster and Puget Sound, while our Carriers, as a rule, never see more 

 of it than what is offered in the Hudson's Bay Company's forts. 



"When, some twenty years ago, our missionaries visited the latter with the results 

 above recited, they pushed their way into the Kitikson's (a Tsimshian tribe) country.' But 

 when these Indians learnt that to become Christians they would haA^e to sacrifice all their 

 superstitious beliefs and observances, they turned a deaf ear to the appeals of the preacher, 

 who returned without having made a single proselyte. For fully seven years our mis- 

 sionaries likewise resided and arduously laboured among the Kwakwiutl, but absolutely 

 to no purpose, so that they had to leave them to their fate. To-day all the Carriers and 

 Chi^Koh'tin are Roman Catholic, while there is not a single adherent to that faith among 

 the Kitikson, Tsimshian, Haida, Bilqula and Kwakwiutl. 



Now I would ask : " Between such receptive and progressive Indians on the one hand, 

 and such exclusive and conservative tribes on the other, who are likely to have borrowed 

 the other's sociology ? " Evidently to propose the question is to answer it. 



Furthermore, we sliould not forget that the Carriers are but a small fraction of a 

 great nation divided into at least a score of tribes, some of which are several times more 



'It will seem to many that a reservation should be made in favour of some Tsimshian tribes, especially 

 those gathered at Metlkahtlah by Mr. Duncan, a majority of whom migrated a few years since to an Alaskan 

 island. But even these have retained most of their aboriginal social institutions, as is confessed by Dr. Boas 

 through this remark : "They have given up all their old customs, except those referring to their social organization." 

 (.5th Report, page 11.) Moreover, the Tsimshian tribes, whom I claim to have the most influenced Carrier sociology, 

 are not the (-oast, but the inland tribes, who .still adhere to all their original customs. 



- An act was passed against potlaching, with penalties attached to its infraction. 



■' A Coast chief or noble, who wanted to outdo his predecessors, lately made so bold as to send to Queen A'ictoria 

 the sum of |200 as her share of the goods and money distributed. 



' These lines were written when I happened to read in tlie Victoria Colonint (October 9, 1891), that a party of 

 Haidas — and, a few days after, another of Tsimshians — amused the inhabitants of that town by theatrical 

 representations illustrating the most notable among their own native observances, such as dances, medicine men, 

 conjuring, etc., a feat which would now be utterly impossible to any number of Carriers. 



^ The name of that tribe is spelt Gyiksa'n by Dr. F. Boas. I write it as it is pronounced by the whites and 

 our Indians, without any pretension at improving on the Doctor's orthography, which I have no doubt must be the 

 correct one. 



