340 
trained from childhood in the management of dug-out canoes, and 
did not hesitate to travel almost beyond sight of the stormy coast 
in pursuit of their ocean game. Onl}^ the chief of a clan was allow'ed 
to harpoon a whale, but any man might hunt the seals, sea-lions, 
and sea-otters that frequented the coast in large numbers before the 
days of the European fur trade. Fish, however, particularly salmon, 
halibut, and herring, furnished the main food supply, as it did every- 
where along the British Columbia coast; and roots and berries pro- 
vided the usual variety in the diet. If Nootka men W'On a deserved 
renowui for their daring and skill in liunting sea mammals, their 
W’Omen earned equal praise for their basketry, which even to-day finds 
a ready market among Europeans, although specimens made for the 
tourist trade rarely maintain the quality of the earlier baskets that 
w^ere woven for home use only. 
The northern tribes of British Columbia exerted little influence 
on the Nootka. Their clans wTre nominally exogamous, but inlierit- 
ance could pass through both the mother and the father,^ and a 
man wflio in ordinary life was a member of his father’s clan might even 
marry within it by affiliating himself temporarily wuth his mother’s 
clan and enlisting the help of her kinsmen. Potlatches featured 
every important occasion in life, wfliatever the season of the year; 
but the Nootka reserved their most elaborate potlatches, not for 
marriages or accessions to chieftainship, but for the coming of age 
of their daughters. Various non-hereditary clubs, almost exclusively 
social, gave colour to these festivals with their dances anr! songs. 
Ambitious men secluded themselves in the woods at certain periods, 
and by mimicking the capture of seals and whales, by prayer and 
fasting, sought to increase their success in hunting.- In addition to 
individual medicine-men, wdio gained their status in the same way 
and adopted much the same practices as the medicine-men of 
other tribes, there w^as a medicine society and ritual for curing 
complaints that resisted all other forms of treatment. The shamans 
of the society dramatically cast their guardian spirits into the bodies 
of their patients, “ cooked ” them with the supernatural force, and 
initiated them as members. The highest families owned certain 
1 The eldest son was enrolled in his mother’s clan, if that ranked higher than the father’s; later 
cliildren might belong to either. Privileges, e.g. tlie right to certain dances, descended through both 
parents. 
2 See illustration, p, 172. 
