330 



COMI AKIN— COMMERCE 



[b. a. e. 



a hot day it is by no means uncommon 

 to see them weltering in the mud like 

 pigs. ' ' They were of medium stature, and 

 were regarded by Hardy as excessively 

 poor, having no animals except foxes, of 

 which they had a few skins. The dress 

 of the women in summer was a short 

 bark skirt; the men appear to have been 

 practically without clothing during this 

 season. Both sexes practised facial paint- 

 ing, from which they were likened to the 

 cobra de capello. The practice of selling 

 children seemed to have been common. 

 Their subsistence was fish, fruits, vege- 

 tables, and the seeds of grass, and many 

 of the tribe were said to have been 

 dreadfully scorbutic. Their weapons 

 were bows, arrows, a few lances, and a 

 short club like a round mallet. Whipple 

 described the Comeya in 1849 (School- 

 craft, Ind. Tribes, ii, 116, 1852) as occupy- 

 ing the banks of New r. , near Salt ( Sal ton ) 

 lake, and as distinguishable from the 

 Cuchan (Yuma) " by an oval contour of 

 the face." The names of but few Co- 

 meya bands or rancherias are known. 

 These are Hamechuvva, Hatawa, Hepow- 

 woo, Itaywiy, Quathlmetha. 



(h. w. h. f. w. h. ) 

 Axua.— Hardy, Trav. in Mexii'O, 36<<, 1829 (also 

 Axiia). Camilya, — Bonrke in Jour. Am. Folk- 

 liire, II, 176, 1889 (probably the same). Co-mai- 

 yah.— Wliipiile in Pac. K. R. Rep., ill, pt. 3, 16, 1856. 

 Comedas. — FroclM'l, Seven Years' Travel.s,.511, 1859. 

 Comeya.— Bartlett, I'ers. Narr., II, 7,1854. Co-mo- 

 yah,— Whipple (l,s49) in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, 

 II, 116, 1852. Comoyatz.— Whipple, Par. R. R. Rep., 

 in, pt. 3, 16, map, 1856. Comoyee.— Whipple,- 

 Exped. San Diego to the Colorado, 28, 1851. Co- 

 mo-yei.— Whipple (1849) in Schoolcraft, op. cit. 

 I'-um O'-otam. — Zeitschr. f. Ethnol., 86, 1886 

 (Pima name of Come.va and Diegiuiio). Kamia- 

 akhwe. — Kroeber, inf'n, 1905 ( = ' foreign Kamia,' 

 i. e., foreign Dieguenos; Mohave name for 

 Yuman Inds. near head of gulf, who are not 

 Dieguenos; cf. Axua, above). New River In- 

 dians.— Heintzelman in H. R. Ex. Doc. 76, 34th 

 Cong., 3d sess., 53, 18.57 (Y'um, or). Q,uathl- 

 met-ha. — Thomas, Y'uma MS. vocab., B. A. E., 1868 

 (on New r.). Quemaya. — Carets (1775-76) , Diary, 

 166, 4-50, 1900. Serranos.— Ibid., 196. Yum. — 

 Heintzelman, op. eit., 42 (or New River Indians; 

 cf. I'-um O'-otam, above). 



Comiakin (Quinie^qEn). A Salish tribe 

 speaking the Cowichan dialect and in- 

 habiting part of Cowichan valley, s. e. 

 Vancouver id.; pop. 67 in 1904. 

 Comea-kin,— Can. Ind. Aff., 269, 1889. Comiaken,— 

 Whvmper, Alaska, 62, 1869. Comiakin.— Can. Ind. 

 Aff.", 417, 1898. Ko-ne-a kun.— Ibid., 1880, 316. 

 Xume'xen.— Boas, MS., B. A. E., 1887. 



Comitre. Mentioned with San Felipe 

 by Oiiate in 1598 (Doc. Ined., xvi, 114, 

 1871) as a pueblo of the "Castixes," 

 which is identified with Katishtya, the 

 aboriginal name of the inhabitants of San 

 Felipe (q. v.), and, evidently through 

 misunderstanding, given also as a ' ^ Trios ' ' 

 village. The name, according to Bande- 

 lier (Arch. Inst. Papers, iv, 189, 1892), is 

 a corruption or misprint of Tamita, the 

 name of the mesa at the base of which 

 San Felipe stood, and not of the settle- 

 ment itself. 



Commerce. Evidences of widespread 

 commerce and rude media of exchange 

 in North America are found in ancient 

 shell-heaps, mounds, and graves, the ob- 

 jects having passed from hand to hand 

 often many times. Overland, this trade 

 was done on foot, the only domestic ani- 

 mal for long-distance transportation being 

 the dog, used as a pack beast and for the 

 travois and the sled. In this respect the 

 nortli temperate zone of America was in 

 marvehjus contrast with the same lati- 

 tudes of the Old World, where most of 

 the commercial animals originated. 



The deficiency in the means of land 

 commerce was made up by the waters. 

 Natural conditions in the section of the 

 New World along the Arctic circle and 

 on Hudson bay, continuously inhal)ited 

 by the homogeneous Eskimo, in the inlets 

 of the Atlantic coast, in the neighboring 

 Caribbean area, and in the archipelagoes 

 of British Columbia and s. e. Alaska, en- 

 couraged and developed excellent water 

 craft for commerce. Better still by far 

 for the trader were the fresh-water rivers, 

 navigable for canoes, of the Yukon-Mac- 

 kenzie, St Lawrence, Atlantic, Mississippi, 

 and Columbia systems, in which neigh- 

 boring waters are connected for traffic 

 by easy portages, a condition contrasting 

 with that of Siberia, whose great rivers all 

 end in frozen tundras and arctic wastes. 



The North American continent is 

 divided into culture areas in a way con- 

 ducive to i)rimitive commerce. Certain 

 resources of particular areas were in uni- 

 versal demand, such as copper, jade, 

 soapstone, obsidian, mica, paint stones, 

 and shells for decoration and money, as 

 dentalium, abalone, conus, olivella, and 

 clam shells. 



The Eskimo, to whom the Arctic area 

 belonged, carried on extensive commerce 

 among themselves and with the western 

 Athapascan tribes and the Algonquian 

 tribes to the e. They knew where soap- 

 stone for lamps, jade for blades, and drift- 

 wood for sleds and harpoons could be 

 found, and used them for traffic. They 

 lived beyond the timber line; hence the 

 Athapascans brought vessels of wood and 

 baskets to trade with them for oil and 

 other arctic products. 



The Mackenzie-Yukon tribes were in 

 the lands of the reindeer and of soft fur- 

 bearing animals. These they traded in 

 every direction for supplies to satisfy 

 their needs (see Fur trade). The Rus- 

 sians in Alaska and the Hudson's Bay 

 Co. stimulated them to the utmost and 

 taught them new means of capture, in- 

 cluding the use of firearms. Remnants 

 of Iroquois bands that were employed in 

 the fur trade have been found on Rainy 

 lake, on Red and Saskatchewan rs., 

 even as far n. as the Polar sea and as 



