Path Finding in the Kootenay Country, &c. 307 



Indians, through whose territory the international boundary line 

 was run, says that " the Kootenays were decidedly the finest race 

 of Indians met with during the progress of the Commission, though 

 but few particulars could be learnt about this very interesting 

 tribe, which, speaking a widely different language and walled in 

 by high ranges of mountains, is entirely isolated." " The 

 Kootenays bear the reputation of being brave, honest, and truthful, 

 and prided themselves on the fact that no white man has ever 

 been killed by them." 



They had one noticeable peculiarity, especially the Lower 

 Kootenays, which I have never remarked in any other North 

 American Indians it was their merry and laughter-loving dis- 

 position, affording a striking contrast to the sullen moroseness 

 usual among most other Indians, especially those in U.S. territories. 

 Each of the two sub-divisions had two chiefs, one elected by 

 themselves, the other chosen by the missionary, to whose teaching 

 they lent an appreciative ear. The Lower Kootenays or Flatbows, 

 to give them their old name, live, as we have already heard, on the 

 Lower Kootenay river, and those of my readers who happen to 

 be acquainted with the quaint drawings of Indian life by De Bry, 

 who illustrated the early travels in Florida and Virginia in the 

 sixteenth century, would, were they to have seen this Lower 

 Kootenay country when I first saw it, no doubt have been as much 

 struck as I was with the similarity in the customs and occupation 

 of the natives of these two widely separated districts of North 

 America. 



As the mountains round Kootenay Lake rise very precipitously 

 from the water's edge, there is on the banks hardly a square rood 

 of ground available for Indian settlements, hence their villages, 

 consisting of teepees, covered with mats made of reeds, called 

 kloosquees, are all confined to the grass-covered flats in the 

 valley between the lake and the boundary. The lake and the 

 mountains were only visited for hunting and fishing. If for 

 the former, they betook themselves in their light pine bark 

 canoes to the upper end of the lake, and, landing at one of the 



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