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back again to their own land, Queen Charlotte’s Islands, on the Pacific 
Coast. I make these remarks, in connexion with what 1 read on the second 
page, that “when and how they came here, and where they came from, 
are questions which are not satisfactorily answered.” Again, many of the 
customs are so similar to what we see in Asia. ‘his is another striking 
fact. For instance, what the Red Indians on the Pacific Coast call deyil- 
dancing, the healing of the sick by devil priests, is exactly what I have 
seen among the Cingalese people in Ceylon. The Indians on Queen Char- 
lotte’s Island, in order to drive out the evil spirit from the sick person, 
make little images of the person, on which they operate; and that is what 
the deyil-dancers do in Ceylon, and among the Tamils of the South of 
- India, and I have no doubt in many other parts of India. Then, the customs 
of the inhabitants are so much like those which I have heard described 
as existing amony the New Zealanders. That is another striking fact. 
Then, on page 297, we are tuld that “the Twanas, or Skokomish Indians of 
Puget Sound, believe in a great being, not the Saghalie Tyee, or Wis 
Sowulus or Chief above, of whom they have learned of the whites, but one 
whose name is Do-ki-batl, the Changer.” The word “Saghalie Tyee ” is 
not in the native language, but in what we call the Chénook jargon, 
which is partly made up of English, Canadian-French, and Indian words, 
and was introduced by the Hudson’s Bay traders. That word “ Saghalie 
Tyee” is the exact rendering of the Northern Pacific Indian 
for the chief who lives above; but the “Saghalie Tyee” of the 
Chénook, of course, came later than the Indians’ own language. 
Therefore, the Indians had known of the “chief above” before the 
white man came there at all. Again, on page 301, the writer says, “The 
Nass Indians around Fort Simpson, British Columbia, carry the images of 
their godsin a box.” Now, I have lived amongst these Indians, and I have - 
never seen anything in the shape of a god. They do not worship gods as 
images. I showed them, several times, small images of Buddha, which I had 
got from Ceylon, and they laughed at the idea of worshipping such a thing as 
that. The things the author refers to as being kept in a box are the insignia 
of office of the chief. For instance, they keep in a box a piece of copper. 
Now, copper was in former times among the Indians very valuable, and the 
chiefs especially had a right to possess it, and the greater the chief the 
greater his piece of copper. But I am not aware that they worship copper 
in any other way than many a white man worships gold. They call these 
things “ nlthoduksha,” that is, anything valuable or sacred to the person who 
keeps it. They are handed down from one chief to his successor. They are 
a kind of heirloom, but not images or gods which they worship. They 
believe in evil spirits certainly, and I was struck by the description the 
writer gives of a spirit in the shape of a bird. Now, the Niskah Indians 
believe in a spirit-bird, and they say thunder is caused by the flapping of his 
wings, and lightning by the flashing of its eyes. Thunder out there is so 
rare, that for twenty-five years it may not be heard more than three or four 
times. When the Indians do hear it they are exceedingly frightened, and 
