QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS. 103 B 



APPENDIX A. 



ON THE HAIDA INDIANS 



OF THE 



QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS. 



BY GEORGE M. DAWSON, D.S., A.R.S.M., F.G.S. 



The following account of the Haida Indians is chiefly the result of 

 personal observations during the portion of the summer of 1878 spent 

 in the Queen Charlotte Islands, prosecuted daring moments not 

 occupied by the geological and geographical work of the expedition, 

 at the camp fire in the evening, or on days of storm when it was 

 impossible to be at work along the coast. I am also indebted to the 

 Eev. Mr. Collison, of the Church Missionary Society, for various items 

 of information, and largely to Dr. W. F. Tolmie, of Victoria, for com- 

 parative notes on the Tshimsians. Mr. J. G-. Swan has published a brief 

 notice of the Haidas in the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge 

 (Vol. XXI, 1816, No. 267.) This may be consulted with advantage on 

 some points, more particularly on the nature of the tattoo marks of 

 these people. The present memoir is, however, I believe the first 

 detailed account of the Haidas which has been given. 



The Haida nation appears to be one of the best defined groups of Homogeniety 

 tribes on the north-west coast. Its various divisions or bands differ nation, 

 scarcely at all in customs, and speak closely related dialects of the 

 same language. They have been from the earliest times constantly in 

 the habit of making long canoe voyages, and taking into account the 

 ease with which all parts of their country can be reached by water, it 

 would indeed be difficult to explain the slight differences in dialect 

 which are found to exist, but for the knowledge that in former times 

 they carried on, at least occasionally, intertribal wars ; besides con- 

 stituting themselves, by their warlike foreign expeditions and the 

 difficulty of pursuing them to their retreats, one of the most generally 

 dreaded peoples of the coast, from Sitka to Vancouver Island. This 

 warfare, however, partook of the barbarous character of that of the 

 other American aborigines, and consisted more frequently in the 



