QUEEN CHARLOTTE'S ISLANDS, BRITISH COLUMBIA. 13 



I feel a great confidence that in the shell heap remains to be found on those 

 islands, as well as in the caves and the mausoleums of the dead, may be discovered 

 relics of antiquity which will well repay the archaeologist for exploring them ; and 

 that on these islands may be discovered those evidences which will form the miss- 

 ing link in the chain of testimony which will add to the history of the origin of 

 the North American Indians, and perhaps enable us to trace with greater certainty 

 those ancient annals which are now hidden in mist and obscurity, and only darkly 

 hinted at in the shadowy legends and mythological lore crooned over by the ancient 

 men and women, and handed down to after generations, who add to every fresh 

 recital an additional sprinkling of the dust of obscurity. 



I have already, in my former writings on the Indians of the northwest coast,^ 

 alluded to the Mexican terminal tl, as occurring in the vocabularies of the Chi- 

 nooks, Chihalis, Quenaiiilt, and Makah Indians of the west coast of Washington 

 Territory, a fact noticed by Anderson — who compiled the vocabulary of the Nootkan 

 language, which is in the Journal of Cook's Third Voyage, and in that of Mar- 

 quand and others. A reference to my vocabulary of the Makah Indians (Smith- 

 sonian Contributions to Knowledge, 220) will show it to be rich in words having 

 that terminal. Hence the supposition that while the Selish retained their identity 

 as separate and distinct from the Asiatic tribes, they did receive an influx from the 

 hordes of Mexico, and from them obtained words which have become engrafted 

 into their language during a lapse of centuries, just as we can now perceive the 

 use of English words already among those Coast Indians, who for many years have 

 had intercourse with the traders of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the use of 

 certain Russian words among the natives of Alaska, from their intercourse with 

 the traders of the Russian American Fur Company. 



But the vocabularies of the early voyagers are not correct. No two of them are 

 alike, a fact which is to be attributed, in part, to there being at that time no 

 recognized standard for spelling Indian words, and in part to the difiiculty of 

 understanding the natives. I will illustrate this by a remarkable error. The 

 word Nootka, as it is usually spelled, or Ntitka, as it should be spelled, is not the 

 name of a place or a people ; and it is surprising to me how the intelligent per- 

 sons who, for so long a time, made " Nootka" their head-quarters, and named the 

 tribe Nootka Indians, and even the authors of the treaty (the Nootkan Treaty), 

 between Great Britain and Spain, should not have discovered the error. 



The mistake arose jn this way. The Indians have a custom of forming a ring, 

 taking hold of each other's hands, and running or dancing in a circle. This is 

 termed '■'■Nootka,^' and was explained to me by a Clyoquot Indian who resides near 

 Nootka, and who could speak English. He said, if you run round your house, or 

 round a canoe, or dance round in a circle, we say "Nootka,-" and he remarked that, 

 probably the Indiaiis were dancing on the beach at the time the ethnologist of 

 Cook's Expedition was asking the name of the country, or the people ; and the 

 Indian, thinking he asked wliat the people were doing on the beach, said Nootka, 



' "The Northwest Coast, or Three Years in Washington Territory," Harper & Bros., 1857 ; and 

 "The Indians of Cape Flattery," Smithsonian Institution (220). 



3 



