32 THE INDIANS OF CAPE FLATTERY 



off considerable quantities of dried halibut and whale oil to the Clallams and the 

 Victoria Indians receiving in return from these Indians blankets, guns, beads, 

 &c., and from the whites either blankets, flour, hard bread, rice, and molasses, or 

 money, which they usually expend before their return, in the purchase of those 

 articles either at Victoria or at the villages on the Sound. 



Blankets are the principal item of wealth, and the value of anything is fixed 

 by the number of blankets it is worth. In the early days of the Hudson s Bay 

 Company, and until within the past ten years, a blanket was considered equal in 

 trade to five dollars ; but since so many different traders have settled on the Sound, 

 with such a variety of qualities and prices, the Indian in naming the number of 

 blankets he expects to receive (as for a canoe), will state what kind he demands. 

 Thus, if the price is to be twenty blankets, he will say, &quot; how many large blue 

 ones,&quot; which are the most costly, &quot; how many red, and how many white ones 1&quot; 

 and the purchaser must be acquainted with the value of the several kinds before 

 he can tell what the canoe will really cost. Also in their trades among themselves 

 they will pay for a slave, for instance, from one to two hundred blankets, but the 

 number of each quality is always stated. They are very shrewd in their bargains, 

 and from their long intercourse with the white traders are as well informed of the 

 money-value of every commodity they wish to purchase, as most white people are. 



I have no trustworthy statistics from which to derive information respecting the 

 amount of their yearly barter ; for, as I before remarked, only a portion of their oil 

 is sold to the traders in the bay, the remainder being carried to Victoria, or the 

 saw-mills ; nor have I any means of ascertaining the value of the oil and dried fish 

 they trade to other Indians I think, however, I am not far from the truth when 

 I assert that their yearly produce of oil of all kinds will amount, on an average, 

 to five thousand gallons. I have seen it stated in some reports of the Indian De 

 partment that the Makahs sold to the whites annually about sixteen thousand gallons 

 of oil. They may possibly have done so in former years, but since my residence 

 among them, I doubt if their sales have ever reached that amount. They, never 

 theless, produce more than any other tribe I know of in the Territory, not of oil 

 alone, but of the various products of the ocean ; and were they a little more in 

 dustrious, and more capable of realizing the advantage of taking care of their earn 

 ings, they would not only be a self-supporting tribe, completely independent of any 

 assistance from the Government, but might actually become a wealthy community in 

 the sense in which we employ the term. But they are, like all Indians, careless, 

 indolent, and improvident, seeking only to obtain a temporary supply of food, or 

 to get oil enough to purchase a superfluity of blankets, hard bread, rice, and 

 molasses ; and then have a big feast and give everything away. By judicious 

 management on the part of the Government and its agents, these Indians might 

 easily be taught to improve their fisheries of all kinds, so as to reap more lucrative 

 returns; but as far as the Makahs are concerned, there are two very serious 

 obstacles which will forever prevent them from being an agricultural people ; and 

 these two obstacles are soil and climate. 



I have already shown that the whole of the reservation is a rocky, mountainous, 

 forest-covered region, with no arable land except the low swamp and marsh, extend- 



