THE INDIANS OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. 34? 



spirits is squandered in the most reckless dissipation about the various 

 settlements in the winter months. Jealousy being unknown amongst 

 the Indians, and sanctioned prostitution a common evil, the woman who 

 can earn the greatest number of blankets or the largest sums of money 

 wins the admiration of others for herself, and a high position for her 

 husband by reason of her wealth. It is not an uncommon thing for 

 whole families to resort to the settlements for the winter, and return to 

 their villages in the spring to give grand potlatches with their ill gotten 

 gains. The influence of the missionaries and of the respectable element 

 in the settlements has, from the first, been used against the extension 

 and growth of this evil, but it can not be said that, until in the last few 

 years, much progress has been made in stemming this tide of reckless 

 physical and moral debasement. Its effects are seen in the alarming 

 number of deaths due to dissipation, and the great decrease in the ralio 

 of births to deaths throughout this whole northern region. The part 

 which rum has played in causing this havoc is not to be underestimated, 

 and it is fortunate that a steadily growing sentiment is making itself 

 felt towards the suppression of these two alarming evils. 



SUMMARY. 



The native vices of these Indians are simply those due to savagism. 

 Contact with the whites has, through the greed for wealth operating on 

 both sides, produced an abnormal departure from primitive ways. 

 Gambling is found almost universally amongst savage tribes, and with 

 progress in civilization, the first steps are always in the direction of the 

 aggravation of primitive and the adoption of foreign vices. Eum drink- 

 ing has been nowhere so disastrous as in this region. With the smok- 

 ing of tobacco by the Indians of the Atlantic coast region, and the 

 chewing of it by those on the northwest coast, it has remained for our 

 civilization only to invent the snuffing of it. Peculiar marriage cus- 

 toms and the greed of wealth have here contributed more to the alarm- 

 ing increase of immorality than any inherent love of vice on the part of 

 the Indians. 



