BULL. 30] 



FU SANG 



479 



ceremony and buffalo chiefs seem to have 

 been elected for duty during the hunting 

 season. The importance of the northern 

 hare, whose skin was used to make coats 

 and tipis by certain Indiansof the Canadian 

 Northwest, is shown in the designation 

 "Hareskins" for one of the Athapascan 

 tribes (Kawchogottine). The Tsattine, 

 another Athapascan tribe, received their 

 name for a like reason. The Iroquois 

 war against the Neutral nation was partly 

 due to the growing scarcity of beavers in 

 the Iroquois country. The recent inroads 

 of the whites vipon the muskox of arctic 

 Canada are having their effect upon the 

 Indian tribes of that region. Bell (Jour. 

 Am. Folk-lore, xvi, 74, 1903) has noted 

 the advance of the free trader on Atha- 

 basca r. and lake, giving rise to a barbarous 

 border civilization, like that of the whaler 

 on the shores of Hudson bay and the 

 rancher and miner on the Peace and other 

 mountain streams, which is having its due 

 effect on the natives: "The influx of fur 

 traders into the Mackenzie r. region, and 

 even to Great Bear lake, within the last 

 two years, has, I believe, very much altered 

 the character of the northern Indians." 

 The effect upon the Indians of the s. At- 

 lantic region of the coming of the white 

 trader was early noted by Adair and 

 others. Here, too, the trader not infre- 

 quently married into thetribe and became 

 an agent in modifying aboriginal culture 

 by the introduction of European ideas 

 and institutions. 



Before the advent of the Europeans the 

 fur trade had assumed considerable pro- 

 portions in various parts of the continent 

 (Mason, Rep. Nat. Mus., 586-589, 1894). 

 In the 16th century the Pecos obtained 

 buffalo skins from the Apache and bar- 

 tered them again with the Zuni. The 

 people of Acoma obtained deerskins from 

 the Navaho. The trade between Ottawa 

 r. and Hudson bay was well known to the 

 Jesuit missionaries in the beginning of the 

 17th century. In the time of Lewis and 

 Clark the Arikara obtained furs from 

 other tribes and bartered theni with the 

 whites for various articles, and the Skil- 

 loot used to get buffalo skins from tribes 

 on the upper Missouri to barter off with 

 other Indian tribes. TheChilkat proper 

 and the Chilkoot even now act as middle- 

 men in the fur trade between the whites 

 and other Indian tribes. The tribes al)out 

 the mouth of the Columbia were also mid- 

 dlemen, and their commerce influenced 

 the conditions of their social institutions, 

 making possible, perhaps, slavery, the 

 existence of a class of nobles, certain 

 changes in the status of women, etc. The 

 trade in furs between the Eskimo of 

 Alaska and the peoples of extreme n. e. 

 Asia existed long before the advent of 

 Europeans. At Kotzebue sd. there is 



still held a summer fair (Nelson in 18th 

 Rep. B. A. E., 229, 1899). Fur-trading 

 voyages are common in this region. 



The development of intertribal com- 

 merce among the Plains Indians was much 

 stimulated by the hunt of the buffalo and 

 its material rewards. By inducing the 

 natives to trap and hunt the wild animals 

 of the northern part of the continent on 

 a large scale for the sake of their valuable 

 skins the fur companies stimulated the 

 aboriginal talent in the production and 

 use of snares and other devices, even if 

 they did not improve the morals of the 

 Indians. The introduction of the horse 

 (q. V. ) and the gun led to the extermina- 

 tion of the buffalo by Plains Indians and 

 whites. In certain parts of the continent 

 skins were a basis of value — primitive 

 money. A Kutenai, when he draws a 

 beaver, produces a picture, not of the 

 animal, but of its cured skin. With the 

 Eskimo of the Yukon, even before the 

 advent of the Russians, the unit of value 

 was "one skin"; that is, the skin of the 

 full-grown land otter, and of late years 

 this has been replaced by the skin of the 

 beaver ( Nelson, op. cit. , 232). Skins of sea 

 otters, beavers, and other animals were 

 the basis of the wealth, also, of many 

 tribes of the n. Pacific coast, until the 

 practical extermination of some of these 

 species made necessary a new currency, 

 provided in the blankets of the Hudson's 

 Bay Company, which were preferred to 

 most other substitutes that were offered 

 by white men. Toward the interior the 

 beaver skin was the ruling unit, and to-day 

 in some parts such unit is the skin of the 

 rnuskrat. Among the Kutenai of s. e. 

 British Columbia the word for a quarter of 

 a dollar is khanko ( 'muskrat'). English 

 traders reckoned prices in skins and 

 French traders in "plus" {pelus, })miLv). 

 Indians counted their wealth in skins, 

 and in the potlatch of some tribes the skin 

 preceded the blanket as a unit of value 

 in the distribution. During the colonial 

 period furs were legal tender in some 

 parts of the country; also at various times 

 and places during the pioneer occupancy 

 of the W. and N. Altogether the fur trade 

 may be considered one of the most impor- 

 tant and interesting phases of the inter- 

 course between the Europeans and the 

 North American Indians. See Buffalo, 

 Commerce, Exchange, Trading posts, Trails 

 and Trade routes, Traveland Transportation. 



Consult Bryce, Remarkable History of 

 the Hudson's Bay Company, 1900; Chit- 

 tenden, American Fur Trade of the Far 

 West, 1902; Laut, Story of the Trapper, 

 1902; 3Iorice, History of Northern British 

 Columbia, 1904; Willson, The Great Com- 

 pany, 1900. (a. p. c. ) 



Fu Sang. ,\ land e. of China which, 

 according to Chinese annals, was visited 



