7 
Field Work 
The division had five parties in the field during the summer: one in 
Newfoundland, one in Quebec, one in northeastern Manitoba, and two in 
British Columbia. 
Mr. D. Jenness spent the field season in Newfoundland searching for 
remains of the extinct Beothuk Indians in order to trace their connexion 
with the Indians of Canada. A detailed account of his work and its 
results is appended. He left Ottawa early in June and returned in Sep- 
tember. 
Mr. C. M. Barbeau continued his Tsimshian investigations in July, 
August, and September, 1927, both among the Niska tribes of Nass river 
and the Tsimshian proper of Port Simpson. His study on the Nass cov- 
ered the social organization, the heraldry and privileges, the hunting 
grounds, and the oral traditions of part of the Niska tribes. These tribes 
are now gathered in four modern villages, but formerly belonged to twelve 
tribes located at various points along the river, from Giteeks to Gitlarh- 
damks. It was impossible to conclude the work among them in one short 
season, owing to the size of the undertaking. Niska songs, 137 in all, were 
also collected both in text form and on the phonograph; they are mostly 
ancient and belong as exclusive privileges to the various families under 
observation. A close study of native rhythms and melodies was made on 
the spot, during a fortnight, with the collaboration of Dr. Ernest McMillan, 
Director of the Toronto Conservatory, and about fifteen of these songs 
are now available in transcribed form. Niska carvings and totem-poles 
were studied with particular care; it became clear as a result that the 
lower Nass river was in the early nineteenth century the main centre of 
diffusion of North West Coast art as we now know it — -Fishery bay, on 
the Nass, being a spring gathering place for ulachen fishing of the Tlingit, 
the Haidas, the Tsimshian, the Gitksan, and the Niska. The origin and 
recent absorption of two D6nd (Tsetsaut) families among the lower Niska — - 
one of which, that of Danjalee, now of Kincolith, lived on Portland canal — ■ 
was also recorded in detail. The war traditions and migrations of two or 
three more Tsimshian tribes (in particular the Ginarhangeek, the Gillodzar 
and the Gidestsy — the last being on the southern frontier of the Tsimshian, 
next to the Kwakiutl) were studied by William Beynon, Mr. Barbeau’s 
assistant. Several hundred photographs were taken of the activities of 
the Niska, their totem-poles, dances, costumes, and their country. Moving 
pictures of ancient life were also made by Dr. J. S. Watson, of Rochester, 
N.Y., in collaboration with Mr. Barbeau; some of the activities among 
the Niska were pictorially recorded, for instance: men’s and women’s 
songs and dances, the carving of masks, the games of rhsan and lahal, the 
totem-poles, the treatment of patients by medicine-men, the recording of 
songs, and the life at the canneries. Specimens were collected on the Nass 
and the Skeena, first for the National Museum, and then, with special 
permission, for the Royal Ontario Museum, of Toronto. Some private 
collections of West Coast and Tsimshian art were inspected in Prince 
Rupert, Vancouver, and Victoria, and the collection of the Provincial 
Museum at Victoria was rapidly examined. 
Mr. Harlan I. Smith left in April for Hazelton, Skeena river, B.C., to 
continue the direction of the interdepartmental work on the conservation 
of totem-poles along the line of the Canadian National railways. At 
