758 APPENDIX TO COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Declaration of Sheicish. 



Dominion of Canada, Province of British Columbia, to icit : 



I, Sliewisli, of Secbart, and Chief of the Sechart ludian tribe, do 

 solemnly declare tliat: 



1. I am Chief of the Sechart Indians, and am at present residing- in 

 the village of Alberni, in the district of Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island, 

 and am about 36 years of age. 



2. I am a seal hunter and have been so since I was a little boy, and 

 hunt off the west coast of Vancouver Island in Barclay Sound from the 

 shore, and in schooners. Commence hunting from shore about Christ- 

 mas time, and continue two months and then go out in schooner. 



3. In hunting from shore I always use the spear, but from schooner 

 nse gun and spear. I always get the seals with a spear if I can get 

 close enough — if not use the gun. Sometimes I shoot a seal and spear 

 it afterwards to prevent it sinking in the same way the white man uses 

 the gaif. A good hunter will always shoot when seal is close, and 

 loses very few, but some white men shoot Avhen the seal is breeching 

 (jumping), and I think that is how they lose a good many. I was out 

 this year in the "Mischief" and got lost, and was picked ui) by the 

 "C. H. Tupper," which was manned altogether by white men, and I 

 hunted near them and saw some of them miss a good many seals by 

 tiring at them when breeching, and picked up tM o dead on the water 

 that had been shot by them and had not siink. They were both large 

 cows, and one had a pup inside her, and the other had not. I am a 

 good gun-hunter, and only lost 4 out of 40 I shot. The canoe was so 

 full of skins and heavy that we could not i^addle up quick enough, and 

 they sank. Sometimes when wounded they go down and come up again, 

 and another shot is got at them and they are killed. Amongst the 

 natives a good many more guns are used now than a few years ago. 



4. Seals come into Barclay Sound every year, and sometimes come 

 up as far as Nahnimt, a village about 11 miles from here, and are most 

 plentiful along the coast and in the Sound when the herring come in to 

 spawn, and the more the fish the more the seal. All kinds of fish that 

 are got on the coast are found in their stomachs. As long as the white 

 hunters will keep from shooting them in shore they are as thick as 

 they used to be, and there is no danger of their being killed off, and we 

 (the natives) do not mind the white man using the gun hunting with 

 the schooner off shore. 



5. In 1891 my tribe got 1,600 seals with 19 canoes, and in 181)2 (this 

 year) only 750, all off the coast and in the Sound. Last year we hunted 

 two months, and this year we only hunted six weeks, because so many 

 white hunters came around us they drove the seals off shore. There 

 were more white hunters this year than last, and I have seen as high 

 as five schooners at once in sight of one another, and close in shore. 

 Each one of these vessels would have from six to eight boats, with 

 three men to a boat. The natives only have two men to a canoe, and 

 the bow-man is the hunter. Of the 750 got by my tribe 240 were got 

 in Barclay Sound. My canoe got 40 during the six weeks. We could 

 only hunt about fourteen days out of the six weeks because of bad 

 weather. When I got through hunting from shore I went sealing on 

 the schooner "Mischief," Captain Petit, master. 



6. Generally, hunting along the coast, we get of males and females 

 about the same, but this year I got more males than females. I got 

 three very large bulls this year, but most of them were young, about 3 



