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displeasure of the traders or runnin^r foul of the white man’s law- 
courts. Often, indeed, the traders appointed new chiefs whom they 
bolstered up with presents and with all the authority at their 
command. In British Columbia the abolition of slavery destroyed 
one of the main pillars in the social and political life, and the new 
standard of wealth enabled commoners and even ex-slaves to hold 
lavish potlatches aiul to usurp titles and jn'ivileges that trarlitionally 
could belong- only to nobles. Every one then became a chief, as an 
old nobleman mourned; there were no longer commoners or slaves. 
The old order received its final death-blow when potlatches also fell 
under the ban of the law, and the Indians were forbidden to perform 
the religious ceremonies or hold the social functions that tradition 
linked inseparably with feasting and the giving of numerous gifts. 
On the plains the military organization of the Indians became useless 
when there were no more buffaloes to hunt, and the strong arm of 
the white man forbade raids on neighbouring tribes. The chiefs 
became chiefs only in name, for the real authority had passed for- 
ever from their hands; and the Europeans who usurped their lands 
recognized no distinctions of rank, but brushed to one side every 
Indian alike with feelings of mingled pity and contempt. 
Ancestor-worship in China, and Zoroastrianism in Persia and 
India, have held together their adherents even in the face of extreme 
social and economic upheavals. But the nature-w'orship of the 
Indians was too vague, too eclectic to withstand the assault of a 
highly organized proselytizing religion like Christianity, or to serve 
as a rallying ground for the bands and tribes that struggled with- 
out guidance to adjust their lives afresh. Taboos and superstitions 
of various kinds hatl formed its buttresses, and when the taboos 
were disregarded with impunity by the white man, and the super- 
stitions aroused only incredulity and ridicule, the entire edifice 
toppled down in ruins. The epidemic of smallpox hastened its 
downfall, for in those days of trial and suffering that would have 
tested the strength of any religion tlie Indians called on their dei- 
ties, their guardian spirits, and their medicine-men in vain. In 
certain places they tried to build uj) their religion anew on foun- 
dations borrowed from Christianity, but except among the Iroquois, 
with whom the doctrines of Handsome Lake still count a few 
adherents, the building could not last. Wlien the missionaries of 
