444- REPOET— 1902. 



is quite intelligible to their kindred of the mainland, while that of the 

 contiguous tribes is strange and practically unintelligible to them. The 

 tribes of the Lower Eraser border upon the Sk-qo'mic settlements, whilst 

 over a hundred miles divide them from the upper bands of the Fraser ; 

 yet the speech of both upper and lower is practically alike, while that of 

 the neighbouring Sk-qo'mic (a non-Halkome'lEm division) is so different 

 as to be unintelligible. There can be but one explanation of this. The 

 Halkome'lEm were formerly less scattered, and lived in closer contact 

 with each other ; in other words, occupied a more compact territory than 

 their present one. It is a significant fact, too, I think, that in no case do 

 we find their genealogical records extending beyond nine or ten genera- 

 tions at most. In regard to this I cannot forbear thinking that if the 

 names of nine or ten lineal chiefs can be handed down orally from father 

 to son, then the names of twice or thrice that number might have come 

 down in the same way. It is so among the different Polynesian tribes. 

 Their genealogical list extends back for twenty or thirty generations, in 

 some instances even further, and the record with them as with the Halko- 

 me'lEm is wholly oral. This uniform limitation of their genealogical 

 records to nine or ten generations among the Halkome'lEM tribes I regard 

 as significant : to my mind it indicates that their separation into distinct 

 tribes, with chiefs of their own, and their settlement in their present 

 territories took place no longer than nine or ten generations ago, and this 

 is about the period which on analogy would be required to bring about 

 such differences as we now find in the speech of the upper and lower 

 tribes. It seems clear, then, that the Halkome'lEm tribes could not have 

 formed these old refuse heaps. Whether these tribes displaced other 

 Salish tribes who preceded them in these parts or whether they succeeded 

 the ancient midden makers themselves, and subdued, absorbed, or exter- 

 minated them, it is impossible at this stage of our investigations to say. 

 There is, however, one feature in the beliefs of the Kwa'ntlEn tribe which 

 seems to favour the latter view. For according to a Kwa'ntlEn tradition, 

 at the time of the creation of their ancestor the KwikwitlEm tribe was 

 also brought into being to be the slaves and servants of the Kwa'ntlEn. 

 That this tribe was held in servitude by the Kwa'ntlEn, and despised by 

 them and other tribes, is historically certain. It is told also in the 

 Kwa'ntlEn traditions that one of their chiefs looking across one day from 

 the slope on which the city of New Westminster now stands to the level 

 marshy flats on the other side of the river, which the village of Brown- 

 ville now occupies, conceived the idea of turning them into a fishing camp, 

 and forthwith compelled the KwikwitlEm to convey there in their canoes 

 immense quantities of rock and earth until the flats Avere raised sufficiently 

 high to be suitable for a camping ground. 



Whether we see in the KwikwitlEm a broken and subdued remnant 

 of the predecessors of the Halkome'lEm tribes I do not take upon myself 

 to say, though I regard it as by no means improbable. But I find no 

 hesitation at all in saying that these older middens were not the ancient 

 camping grounds of the tribes now settled in their vicinity. Indeed 

 I seriously question whether the Salish stock was broken up into groups 

 and tribes, as we now find it ; or that the Salish language of British 

 Columbia had been differentiated into its present numerous dialects at the 

 time of the formation of the old middens of British Columbia. Nay, 

 I will go further, for the linguistic evidence I have gathered from my 

 studies of the Salish and Kwakiutl-Nootkan tongues warrants the assump- 



