322 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



ings on tlie rocks are in the nature of drawings, as they appear also in 

 painted figures on the simpler objects, but in the paintings on wood the 

 j)atterns are very much more elaborate than those simple etchings on 

 th« rocks, as shown, for instance, in the carved and painted figures on 

 the chest and box in Plate li. In their i)ain tings the favorite colors 

 used are black, light green, and dark red. Whether produced in paint- 

 ing, tattooing, or relief-carving the designs are somewhat conventional. 

 However rude the outline, there are for some animals certain conven- 

 tional signs that clearly indicate to the initiated what figure is meant. 

 With the brown bear it is the protruding tongue; with the beaver and 

 wolf it is the character of the teeth; with the orca, the fin; with the 

 raven, the sharp beak ; with the eagle the curved beak, etc. Certain 

 groupings or figures are also generally recognized as portraying certain 

 well known legends, such, for instance, as the "bear and the hunter" 

 (Plates XXXV, XLi, and xliv); the " raven and the moon" (Plate xxxv), 

 etc., which will be explained hereafter. In the interweaving of colors 

 to form a totemic pattern or design, as in the Chilkat blankets, the 

 Indians attained the greatest perfection in their art up to their contact 

 with the whites. Since then the carvings of the Haida in black slate 

 may be said to show the height which their art has now attained. 



Draicings and paintings. — In plate xx, and in Figs. 278, 279, 296, and 

 297, the crude sculpturing on the rocks near Fort Wrangell are shown. 

 In Plates iv and v various tattooing devices are illustrated. Indeed, in 

 nearly every plate some form of totemic pictograph is represented, and 

 it only remains to explain the significance of some of the figures. 

 Plate Lii is reproduced from illustrations in the ^' West Shore," August, 

 1884, accompanying an article by Judge J. G. Swan, of PortTownsend, 

 Washington Territory. The drawings were made by Johnnie Kit-Elswa, 

 the 5^oung Haida interpreter, who accompanied Judge Swan on a trip to 

 the Queen Charlotte Islands, in 1883. It may not be out of place here 

 to say that, in the estimation of the writer, there is no more competent 

 authority on the ethnology of the northwest coa^t than Judge Swan, 

 and he is particularly well informed in the matter of coast Indian my- 

 thology and folklore, a branch of which subject the writer can only 

 touch on in this connection. It is to be hoped, however, that a syste- 

 matic Governmental investigation will be undertaken in the next few 

 years, for it will soon be too late to gather the materials needed. Fig. 

 280, Plate li, represents the orca, or whale killer, which the Haida 

 believe to be a demon GnWed'Skana. Judge Swan says tbat, according 

 to the Indian belief: 



He can change into any desired form, and many are the legends about him, One^ 

 which was related to me was that ages ago the Indians were out seal-hunting. The 

 weather was calm and the sea smooth. One of these killers, or black-lish, a species 

 of porpoise, kept alongside of a canoe, and the young men amused themselves by 

 throwing stones from the canoe ballast and hitting the fin of the killer. After some 

 pretty hard blows from these rocks the creature made for the shore, where it 

 grounded on the beach. Soon a smoke was seen, and tlieir cuxiosity prompted tliem 



