BULL. 30] 



HAIDA 



521 



peoples should be grouped together. 

 Language and social organization indicate 

 still closer atfinities l)et\veen the Haida 

 and Tlingit. 



According to tlieir own traditions the 

 oldest Haida towns stood on the e. shore, 

 at Naikun and on the broken coast of 



Moresby id. Later a jjortion of the jieople 

 moved to the w. coast, and between 150 

 and 200 years ago a still larger section, the 

 Kaigani, drove the Tlingit from part of 

 Prince of Wales id. and settled there. 

 Although it is not impossible that the 

 Queen Charlotte ids. were visited by Span- 

 iards during the 17th century, the first 

 certain account of their discovery is that 

 by Ensign Juan Perez, in the corvette 

 SauflcKjo, in 1774. He named the n. point 

 of the islands Cabo de Santa Margarita. 

 Bodega and Maurelle visited them the 

 year after. In 1786 La Pe rouse coasted 

 the shores of the islands, anil the follow- 

 ing year Cajit. Dixon spent more than a 

 month around them, and the islands are 

 named from his vessel, the Queen Char- 

 lotte. After that time scores of vessels 

 from England and New England resorted 

 to the coast, principally to trade for furs, 

 in which business the earlier voyagers 

 reaped golden harvests. The most im- 

 portant expeditions, as those of which 

 there is some record, were by Capt. Doug- 

 las, Capt. Jos. Ingraham of Boston, Capt. 

 Etienne Marchand in the French ship 

 Solide, and Capt. Geo. Vancouver (Daw- 

 son, Queen Charlotte Ids., 1880). 



The advent of whites was, as usual, dis- 

 astrous to the natives. They were soon 

 stripped of their valuable ' furs, and, 

 through smallpox and general immorality, 



they have been reduced in the last 60 

 years to one-tenth of their former strength. 

 A station of the Hudson's Bay Company 

 was lijng established at Masset, hut is now 

 no longer remunerative. At Skidegate 

 there are works for the extraction of dog- 

 fish oil, which furnish employment to the 

 people during much of the year; but in 

 summer all the Indians from this place 

 and ]Masset go to the mainland to work in 

 salmon canneries. The Masset people 

 also make many canoes of immense cedars 

 to sell to other coast tribes. The Kaigani 

 still occupy 3 towns, but the population of 

 2 of them, Kasaan and Klinkwan, is incon- 

 siderable. Neighboring salmon canneries 

 give them work all summer. 



Mission stations are maintained by the 

 Methodists at Skidegate, by the Churi'h 

 of England at Masset, and by the Pi-esby- 

 terians at Howkan, Alaska. Nearly all 

 of the people are nominally Christians. 



The Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian seem 

 to show greater adaptability to civilization 

 and to display less religious conservatism 

 than many of the tril)es farther s. They 

 are generally regarded as sui)erior to them 

 by the white settlers, and they certainly 

 showed themselves such in war and in the 

 arts. Of all peoples of the N. W. coast the 

 Haida were the best carvers, painters, and 

 canoe and house buildei-s, and they still 

 earn considerable money by selling carved 

 objects of wood and slate to traders and 



HAIDA WOMAN. (aM. MUS. NAT. HIST.) 



tourists. Standing in the tribe depended 

 more on the possession of property than 

 on a))ility in war, so that considerable in- 

 terchangeof goods took place and the peo- 

 ple l)ecame sharp traders. The morals of 

 the people were, however, very loose. 



