132 
a single new element of culture can produce upon a primitive people, 
an effect comparable, on a small scale, with the tremendous evolu- 
tion of Japan after she threw open her doors to European commerce. 
It suggests, further, that in the early history of mankind some of the 
greatest and most rapid advances may often have resulted from 
solitary discoveries even less outstanding than the smelting of metal, 
the domestication of animals and cereals, or the invention ot the 
wheel. 
The Kootenay and some of the Salish Indians of southern British 
Columbia, who often crossed the Rocky mountains to hunt buffalo 
on the prairies, closely resembled the plains’ tribes in their political 
organization, but lacked the semi-military societies. ^ The broken 
character of their country, too, and their dependence on fish for much 
of their food supply, kept the bands more separate, and, even after 
the introduction of horses (which the Kootenay obtained earlier than 
the Blackfoot ), prevented their coalescence into the compact tribal 
units that were so characteristic of the })lains’ Indians from the begin- 
ning of the nineteenth centurv. So they were unable to offer serious 
resistance to European penetration, as did the Blackfoot across the 
mountains. 
1 C/. the proprrhire before fioin" to vrar, which resembled that cf the plains' tribes before they 
were revolutionized by liorses and firearms. Tliomrison: 0|). eit., ]i, 462 f. 
