Note 78 — Chapter II · HUNTERS AND FISHERS.

4º. Trade and industry are highly developed along the Pacific Coast. Kane speaks of the ioquas, “a small shell found at Cape Flattery, and only there, in great abundance. These shells are used as money, and a great traffic is carried on among all the tribes by means of them”78. Among the Aleuts “whalefishing is confined to certain families, and the spirit of the craft descends from father to son”79. The Koniagas are “adapted to labour and commerce rather than to war and hunting”. They make very good boats and men as well as women excel in divers trades. They got slaves by means of exchange from other tribes80. Among the Tlinkits there are professional wood-carvers, smiths and silversmiths. The women are very skilful in plaiting. Very good canoes are made. Formerly they hunted whales with harpoons. Trade was already highly developed before the arrival of the whites; they traded even with remote parts of the coast and with the tribes of the interior. The trade in slaves was formerly carried on on a large scale81. The large and ingeniously built canoes of the Haidas are widely celebrated; they often make them for sale. They have a standard of value: formerly slaves or pieces of copper, now blankets. Their houses are richly ornamented. They are “noted for their skill in the construction of their various implements, particularly for sculptures in stone and ivory, in which they excel all the other tribes of Northern America”82. The Tsimshian formerly acted as middlemen in the slave-trade. The southern tribes kidnapped or captured slaves, sold them to the Tsimshian, and these again to the Tlinkits and interior Tinneh. “Each chief about Fort Simpson kept an artisan, whose business it was to repair canoes, make masks, etc.”83. The Atnas “understand the art of working copper, and have commercial relations with surrounding tribes”. They buy their slaves from the Koltschanes84. Gibbs states that in W. Washington and N. W. Oregon the Indians of the interior preserve some kinds of salmon, “which after a stay in the fresh water have lost their superfluous oil, and these are often actually traded to those Indians at the mouth of the river or on the Sound. The Dalles was formerly a great depot for this commerce”. Some wild-growing roots “were formerly a great article of trade with the interior”. The slave-trade is carried on here too. “Many of the slaves held here are … brought from California, where they were taken by the warlike and predatory Indians of the plains, and sold to the Kallapuia and Tsinuk.” “Many of them [the slaves] belong to distant tribes”85. The tribes about Puget Sound have canoes, beautifully made, painted and polished. The houses of the rich are made of planks split from trees by means of bone wedges. “In their barter between the different tribes, and in estimating their wealth, the blanket is generally the unit of value, and the hiaqua, a long white shell obtained off Cape Flattery at a considerable depth, is also extensively used for money, its value increasing with its length. A kind of annual fair for trading purposes and festivities is held by the tribes of Puget Sound at Bajada Point.” “Slaves are obtained by war and kidnapping, and are sold in large numbers to northern tribes”86. Of the Nootkas Bancroft says: “Trade in all their productions was carried on briskly between the different Nootka tribes before the coming of the whites.” “The slave-trade forms an important part of their commerce.” Harpooners are a privileged class87. The several divisions of the Ahts mutually exchange the fish that each of them catches. They also sell mats and baskets manufactured by the women. According to Jewitt’s narrative, they made very good canoes. A kind of shell, strung upon threads, formed a circulating medium among them, five fathoms of it being the price of a slave, their most valuable species of property. “The trade of most of the other tribes with Nootka was principally train-oil, seal or whale’s blubber, fish fresh or dried, herring or salmon spawn, clams and mussels, and the yama, a species of fruit which is pressed and dried, cloth, sea-otter skins, and slaves”88. Among the Makah (a Nootka tribe) the whale-oil “is used as an article of food as well as for trade.… The Makah were till lately in the habit of purchasing oil from the Nittinat also, and have traded in a single season, it is said, as much as 30,000 gallons.” A division into different trades also exists among them. “A portion of them only attain the dignity of whalers, a second class devote themselves to halibut, and a third to salmon and inferior fish, the occupations being kept distinct, at least, in a great measure”89. Among the Tacullies hiaqua shells up to 1810 were the circulating medium of the country90. The Chinooks, says Bancroft, “were always a commercial rather than a warlike people, and are excelled by none in their shrewdness in bargaining. Before the arrival of the Europeans they repaired annually to the region of the Cascades and Dalles, where they met the tribes of the interior, with whom they exchanged their few articles of trade—fish, oil, shell and Wapato—for the skins, roots and grasses of their eastern neighbours.” “Their original currency or standard of value was the hiaqua shell.” They obtain their slaves “by war, or more commonly by trade”. According to Swan, the Chinooks “manage, during the course of the winter, to make a great many articles, which are disposed of to the whites”. A species of small shell passes as money among them. “Their slaves are purchased from the Northern Indians, and are either stolen or captives of war, and were regularly brought down and sold to the southern tribes”91.