File:Image from page 538 of "Bulletin" (1901).jpg

English: Title: Bulletin

Identifier: bulletin3011907smit Year: 1901 (1900s) Authors: Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology Subjects: Ethnology Publisher: Washington : G. P. O. Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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Text Appearing Before Image: BULL. 30] HAIDA 521 peoples should be grouped together. Language and social organization indicate still closer atfinities l)et\veen the Haida and Tlingit. According to tlieir own traditions the oldest Haida towns stood on the e. shore, at Naikun and on the broken coast of

Text Appearing After Image: Moresby id. Later a jjortion of the jieople moved to the w. coast, and between 150 and 200 years ago a still larger section, the Kaigani, drove the Tlingit from part of Prince of Wales id. and settled there. Although it is not impossible that the Queen Charlotte ids. were visited by Span- iards during the 17th century, the first certain account of their discovery is that by Ensign Juan Perez, in the corvette SauflcKjo, in 1774. He named the n. point of the islands Cabo de Santa Margarita. Bodega and Maurelle visited them the year after. In 1786 La Perouse coasted the shores of the islands, anil the follow- ing year Cajit. Dixon spent more than a month around them, and the islands are named from his vessel, the Queen Char- lotte. After that time scores of vessels from England and New England resorted to the coast, principally to trade for furs, in which business the earlier voyagers reaped golden harvests. The most im- portant expeditions, as those of which there is some record, were by Capt. Doug- las, Capt. Jos. Ingraham of Boston, Capt. Etienne Marchand in the French ship Solide, and Capt. Geo. Vancouver (Daw- son, Queen Charlotte Ids., 1880). The advent of whites was, as usual, dis- astrous to the natives. They were soon stripped of their valuable' furs, and, through smallpox and general immorality, they have been reduced in the last 60 years to one-tenth of their former strength. A station of the Hudson's Bay Company was lijng established at Masset, hut is now no longer remunerative. At Skidegate there are works for the extraction of dog- fish oil, which furnish employment to the people during much of the year; but in summer all the Indians from this place and ]Masset go to the mainland to work in salmon canneries. The Masset people also make many canoes of immense cedars to sell to other coast tribes. The Kaigani still occupy 3 towns, but the population of 2 of them, Kasaan and Klinkwan, is incon- siderable. Neighboring salmon canneries give them work all summer. Mission stations are maintained by the Methodists at Skidegate, by the Churi'h of England at Masset, and by the Pi-esby- terians at Howkan, Alaska. Nearly all of the people are nominally Christians. The Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian seem to show greater adaptability to civilization and to display less religious conservatism than many of the tril)es farther s. They are generally regarded as sui)erior to them by the white settlers, and they certainly showed themselves such in war and in the arts. Of all peoples of the N. W. coast the Haida were the best carvers, painters, and canoe and house buildei-s, and they still earn considerable money by selling carved objects of wood and slate to traders and

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