254 EEPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



orthe most experienced person steers. In the season of hunting fur-bear- 

 ing animals, the women and children (and formerly slaves) take charge 

 of the camps — fishing, drying fish, and gathering and drying berries 

 for winter. Altogether the division of labor is upon equitable and 

 economic principles, and the women by no means do all the drudgery. 

 During the runs of salmon, herring, and eulachon, and in fact at all 

 times during the summer season, special employment is dropped, and 

 all the natives alike engage in the work in hand. In addition to the 

 food supply, materials are collected to be worked up during the winter 

 months, by those specially skilled, into various useful and ornamental 

 objects. Different men and women acquire adeptuess in different arts 

 and industries, and devote their leisure to their trade. Some of the 

 men are exx)ert house-carpenters, canoe builders, basket-makers, tan- 

 ners of hides, hewers of wood, metal workers, carvers of wood, stone, 

 horn, bone, slate, manufacturers of metal implements, ornaments, house- 

 hold utensils, etc., and are regularly paid for their services. This is 

 especially true of the wood-carvers, who make and paint the totemic and 

 mortuary columns. Others enjoy prestige as successful hunters of certain 

 animals or expert fishermen. Some of the women are expert basket- 

 makers, carvers of household utensils, weavers of cloaks and mats of 

 cedar bark and wool, and makers of dance and ceremonial costumes. 

 Generally the men are carvers and the women weavers. Dunn (1834) 

 says of the Tsimshian, and it applies also to the Haida and Tlingit, 

 " Every chief keeps an Indian on his establishment for making and re- 

 pairing canoes and making masks for his religious representations; this 

 man they call the carpenter. " * 



Portlock (1786) says of the Tlingit, "the women are the keepers of 

 their treasures. " t In fact, as before stated, the women are practically 

 on an equality with the men in the industrial organization, and whether 

 her advice in all matters is sought or not, she is quite apt to give it. 

 Cases of "hen-pecked" husbands are not rare. 



Inlieritance. — In this totemic organization some singular features 

 present themselves. Blood relationship is cut across in an arbitrary 

 way, giving rise to peculiar customs and laws. As before stated, 'first 

 cousins may marry, but totally unrelated persons in the same phratry 

 may not. In a war between gentes or phratries, a groom, while cele- 

 brating his nuptials, may be called upon to fight his father-in-law on 

 account of some trivial feud. 



Property is inherited by the brother of the deceased, a sister's son,' a 

 sister, or the mother, in the order named, in the absence of the preced- 

 ing. As a rule the wife gets nothing. She has her own dowry and 

 personal property. Whoever inherits the property of the deceased, if 

 a brother or sister's son, must either take the widow to wife, or pay an 

 indemnity to her relatives in case of failure to do so. In case the heir 

 is already married, the next in succession takes her; for instance, the 



"Dunn, Oregon, p. 291. f Portlock, Voyages, p. 290. 



