The American Museum Journal 
VoL. X FEBRUARY, 1910 No. 2 

A VISIT TO THE INDIAN TRIBES OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. 
N an expedition along the northwest coast of America, between 
Seattle and Skagway, I was able to resume during the past 
summer the archeological reconnoissance which I began on 
the Jesup North Pacific Expeditions of 1897-8—9, and continued on 
that of the American Museum in 1903. I carried this reconnoissance 
onward from the northern end of Vancouver Island, where work stopped 
on the previous expeditions, to Kluckwan, Alaska, some twenty-five 
miles above Haines on the Chilkat River; obtaining also photographs 
and other data regarding the ethnology of the region and securing speci- 
mens not already represented in the Museum collections. I was accom- 
panied by Mr. Will S. Taylor, mural artist, who made color sketches of 
the Indians and their natural and_ artificial environments. ‘These 
sketches, together with the photographs and the actual ancient cos- 
tumes and other specimens available in the Museum, will form the basis 
upon which Mr. Taylor will build up mural decorations for the Hall 
of Northwest Coast Ethnology, to illustrate the home country, character- 
istic occupations and social customs of the seven great groups of north- 
west coast natives. 
The scientific results of the trip are interesting because the archeeol- 
ogy of the entire coast north of Vancouver Island as far as Mt. Mclinley 
has been unknown to the scientific world. In the Bella Coola valley 
about midway along the British Columbia coast I saw chipped imple- 
ments, marking the farthest north of the art of chipping stone in British 
Columbia. Evidences were also found here of the relation of the early 
people to those of the interior. The Bella Coola Indians have appar- 
ently pushed down from the interior and crowded in between the peoples 
already firmly established on the Coast, taking up the coast customs 
and ways of living very completely. Their language, however, has 
remained distinct from those of their new neighbors, the nearest peoples 
speaking the same type of language being found in the interior. 
Although the Indians have given up much of their old life and seem 
31 
