QUEEN CHARLOTTE'S ISLANDS, BRITISH COLUMBIA 11 



"This door, the threshold of which is about a foot and a half above the ground, 

 is of an elliptical figure ; the great diameter, which is given by the height of the 

 opening, is not more than three feet, and the small diameter, or the breadth, is not 

 more than two. This opening is made in the thickness of a large trunk of a tree 

 which rises perpendicularly in the middle of one of the fronts of the habitation, 

 and occupies the whole of its height; it imitates the form of a gaping human 

 mouth, or rather that of a beast, and it is surmounted by a hooked nose about two 

 feet in length proportioned in point of size to the monstrous face to which it 

 belongs. * * * * Over the door is the figure of a man carved, in a crouching 

 attitude, and above this figure rises a gigantic statue of a man erect, which termi- 

 nates the sculpture and the decoration of the portal. The head of this statue is 

 dressed with a cap in the form of a sugar-loaf, the height of which is almost equal 

 to that of the figure itself. On the parts of the surface which are not occupied by 

 the capital subjects, are interspersed carved figures of frogs or toads, lizards, and 

 other animals." 



This description by Marquand is that of the houses of the present inhabitants. 

 The hooked nose mentioned is the Skamsquin or eagle ; and the sugar-loaf hat is 

 the Tadn sMUih. 



If Marquand had been able to procure the services of a skilled interpreter, 

 he. and his officers could have ascertained the true meaning of these emblems as 

 easily as I have done; but not being able to exchange ideas with the natives, they 

 came to their conclusions, and framed their theories by a series of guesses ; and as 

 all the early explorers formed their theories of the Indians upon the same lucid 

 basis, it is not to be wondered at that so' much of error has found place in all their 

 narratives. It is, however, a source of surprise, that, since the time of those old 

 voyagers, a lapse of nearly a century, no one has attempted to give a description 

 of those islanders, or to explain the simple meaning of their devices. The Queen 

 Charlotte's group presents to-day as fresh a field for the ethnologist and archseolo- 

 gist as if no explorers had ever set foot upon their shores. 



Of the extent and nature of these carvings, Marquand adds: — 



" These works of sculpture cannot undoubtedly be compared in any respect to 

 the master-pieces of ancient Greece and Eome. But can we avoid being astonished 

 to find them so numerous on an island which is not, perhaps, more than six 

 leagues in circumference, where population is not extensive, and among a nation 

 of hunters 1" The writer was alluding to North Island, one of the smallest of the 

 group; and when it is remembered that in every village on every one of the islands 

 of the group these sculptures are quite as abundant, some idea can be formed of 

 the number to be seen on Queen Charlotte's Islands. "Is not our astonishment 

 increased," adds Marquand, "when we consider the progress these people have 

 made in architecture 1 What instinct, or, rather, what genius, it has required to 

 conceive and execute solidly, without the knowledge of the succors by which 

 mechanism makes up for the weakness of the improved man, those edifices, those 

 heavy frames of buildings of fifty feet in extent by eleven in elevation ! Men who 

 choose not to be astonished at anything will say, the beaver also builds his house; 

 yes, but he does not adorn it ; nature, however, has given the beaver the instru- 



