QUEEN CHARLOTTE S ISLANDS, BRITISH COLUMBIA 9 



The Haidah Indians have another custom which I have not observed among any 

 of the tribes of the northwest coast, with the exception of these people. It is the 

 practice of cremation or burning the bodies of any of their friends who may die 

 while absent from their homes. An instance of this kind came under my obser 

 vation at Port Townsend, W. T., on Sunday, March 29th, 1874. A large party of 

 men, women, and children, numbering about one hundred and fifty persons, had 

 been encamped for a couple of weeks on the beach. One of the men who had 

 been at work at the saw-mill in Port Discovery, some seven or eight miles distant 

 from Port Townsend, had died there, and his body had been brought around to 

 Port Townsend. On the morning of the day named, the party broke up their 

 camp and moved in slow procession in six large canoes to Point Wilson, near 

 Port Townsend, where a pile of drift logs was formed into a sort of altar and 

 the body placed upon it, and the whole reduced to ashes; the women singing 

 their death songs, amid howlings, beating of tambourines, and other savage dis 

 plays. When the whole Avas burned, one old woman gathered the charred bones 

 and placed them in a box, and the whole party left for Victoria, British Columbia, 

 on their way home to Queen Charlotte s Islands. 



I asked one of the Indians why they burned the body. lie replied that if they 

 buried it in a strange land their enemies would dig it up and make charms with 

 it to destroy the Haidah tribe. This is the only instance of the kind which has 

 come under my own immediate observation, but I have been informed by other 

 persons that they have observed the same practice on other occasions, but I am 

 not prepared to say whether cremation is a general custom among the Ilaidahs, 

 or only confined to particular cases like the one I have described. 



The Haidahs are one of the most interesting tribes I have met with on the 

 northwest coast. Their insular position and the marked difference in their manners 

 and customs from the Indians of the mainland give me reason to think that very 

 interesting and valuable results in ethnology can be had by a thorough investigation 

 among the villages on the islands. Their carved images, their manufactures in 

 wood and stone, and in silver ornaments, and other evidences of their present 

 skill, and the rich stores of material of a former age to be found in the shell 

 heap remains, are matters Avell worthy of the careful consideration of those who 

 desire to make up a history of the coast tribes of the northwest. British 

 Columbia is, as it were, sandwiched between Alaska and Washington Territory, 

 and a description of the coast Indians from the Columbia lliver to the Siberian 

 borders, cannot be complete without including the Indians of Vancouver s Island, 

 Queen Charlotte s Islands, and the adjacent mainland. 



I am of the opinion that it will be found more economical and attended with 

 better and more satisfactory results, to have such investigations pursued by persons 

 resident on the northwest coast, rather than to entrust them to the very limited 

 visits of scientific expeditions. Investigations of this kind require time and care 

 ful study before correct results can be arrived at. 



A knowledge of the habits, manners, and customs of the natives, and a general 

 understanding of the language, is of the first importance. The person making 

 the investigation should be his own interpreter, and these requisites can be 



Ma/, 1874. 



