The Native Races (Vol. 1-5). Hubert Howe Bancroft

a natural death among the medical fraternity is extremely rare. His only chance of escape is to persuade relatives of the dead that his ill success is attributable to the evil influence of a rival physician, who is the one to die; or in some cases a heavy ransom soothes the grief of mourning friends and avengers. One motive of the Cayuses in the massacre of the Whitman family is supposed to have been the missionary's failure to cure the measles in the tribe. He had done his best to relieve the sick, and his power to effect in all cases a complete cure was unquestioned by the natives. The methods by which the medicine-man practices his art are very uniform in all the nations. The patient is stretched on his back in the centre of a large lodge, and his friends few or many sit about him in a circle, each provided with sticks wherewith to drum. The sorcerer, often grotesquely painted, enters the ring, chants a song, and proceeds to force the evil spirit from the sick man by pressing both clenched fists with all his might in the pit of his stomach, kneading and pounding also other parts of the body, blowing occasionally through his own fingers, and sucking blood from the part supposed to be affected. The spectators pound with their sticks, and all, including doctor, and often the patient in spite of himself, keep up a continual song or yell. There is, however, some method in this madness, and when the routine is completed it is again begun, and thus repeated for several hours each day until the case is decided. In many nations the doctor finally extracts the spirit, in the form of a small bone or other object, from the patient's body or mouth by some trick of legerdemain, and this once effected, he assures the surrounding friends that the tormentor having been thus removed, recovery must soon follow.420

Grief at the death of a relative is manifested by cutting the hair and smearing the face with black. The women also howl at intervals for a period of weeks or even months; but the men on ordinary occasions rarely make open demonstrations of sorrow, though they sometimes shed tears at the death of a son. Several instances of suicide in mourning are recorded; a Walla Walla chieftain caused himself to be buried alive in the grave with the last of his five sons. The death of a wife or daughter is deemed of comparatively little consequence. In case of a tribal disaster, as the death of a prominent chief, or the killing of a band of warriors by a hostile tribe, all indulge in the most frantic demonstrations, tearing the hair, lacerating the flesh with flints, often inflicting serious injury. The sacrifice of human life, generally that of a slave, was practiced, but apparently nowhere as a regular part of the funeral rites. Among the Flatheads the bravest of the men and women ceremonially bewail the loss of a warrior by cutting out pieces of their own flesh and casting them with roots and other articles into the fire. A long time passes before a dead person's name is willingly spoken in the tribe. The corpse is commonly disposed of by wrapping in ordinary clothing and burying in the ground without a coffin. The northern tribes sometimes suspended the body in a canoe from a tree, while those in the south formerly piled their dead in wooden sheds or sepulchres above ground. The Okanagans often bound the body upright to the trunk of a tree. Property was in all cases sacrificed; horses usually, and slaves sometimes, killed on the grave. The more valuable articles of wealth were deposited with the body; the rest suspended on poles over and about the grave or left on the surface of the ground; always previously damaged in such manner as not to tempt the sacrilegious thief, for their places of burial are held most sacred. Mounds of stones surmounted with crosses indicate in later times the conversion of the natives to a foreign religion.421

      INLAND MORALITY.

In character and in morals,422 as well as in physique, the inland native is almost unanimously pronounced superior to the dweller on the coast. The excitement of the chase, of war, and of athletic sports ennobles the mind as it develops the body; and although probably not by nature less indolent than their western neighbors, yet are these natives of the interior driven by circumstances to habits of industry, and have much less leisure time for the cultivation of the lower forms of vice. As a race, and compared with the average American aborigines, they are honest, intelligent, and pure in morals. Travelers are liable to form their estimate of national character from a view, perhaps unfair and prejudiced, of the actions of a few individuals encountered; consequently qualities the best and the worst have been given by some to each of the nations now under consideration. For the best reputation the Nez Percés, Flatheads and Kootenais have always been rivals; their good qualities have been praised by all, priest, trader and tourist. Honest, just, and often charitable; ordinarily cold and reserved, but on occasions social and almost gay; quick-tempered and revengeful under what they consider injustice, but readily appeased by kind treatment; cruel only to captive enemies, stoical in the endurance of torture; devotedly attached to home and family; these natives probably come as near as it is permitted to flesh-and-blood savages to the traditional noble red man of the forest, sometimes met in romance. It is the pride and boast of the Flathead that his tribe has never shed the blood of a white man. Yet none, whatever their tribe, could altogether resist the temptation to steal horses from their neighbors of a different tribe, or in former times, to pilfer small articles, wonderful to the savage eye, introduced by Europeans. Many have been nominally converted by the zealous labors of the Jesuit fathers, or Protestant missionaries; and several nations have greatly improved, in material condition as well as in character, under their change of faith. As Mr. Alexander Ross remarks, "there is less crime in an Indian camp of five hundred souls than there is in a civilized village of but half that number. Let the lawyer or moralist point out the cause."

      TRIBAL BOUNDARIES.

      The Columbian Group comprises the tribes inhabiting the territory immediately south of that of the Hyperboreans, extending from the fifty-fifth to the forty-third parallel of north latitude.

      THE HAIDAH FAMILY.

      In the Haidah Family, I include all the coast and island nations of British Columbia, from 55° to 52°, and extending inland about one hundred miles to the borders of the Chilcoten Plain, the Haidah nation proper having their home on the Queen Charlotte Islands. 'The Haidah tribes of the Northern Family inhabit Queen Charlotte's Island.' 'The Massettes, Skittegás, Cumshawás, and other (Haidah) tribes inhabiting the eastern shores of Queen Charlotte's Island.' Scouler, in Lond. Geog. Soc., Jour., vol. xi., p. 219. 'The principal tribes upon it (Q. Char. Isl.) are the Sketigets, Massets, and Comshewars.' Dunn's Oregon, p. 292. 'Tribal names of the principal tribes inhabiting the islands:—Klue, Skiddan, Ninstence or Cape St. James, Skidagate, Skidagatees, Gold-Harbour, Cumshewas, and four others. … Hydah is the generic name for the whole.' Poole's Q. Char. Isl., p. 309. 'The Cumshewar, Massit, Skittageets, Keesarn, and Kigarnee, are mentioned as living on the island.' Ludewig, Ab. Lang., p. 157. The following bands, viz.: Lulanna, (or Sulanna), Nightan, Massetta, (or Mosette), Necoon, Aseguang, (or Asequang), Skittdegates, Cumshawas, Skeedans, Queeah, Cloo, Kishawin, Kowwelth, (or Kawwelth), and Too, compose the Queen Charlotte Island Indians, 'beginning at N. island, north end, and passing round by the eastward.' Schoolcraft's Arch., vol. v., p. 489; and Kane's Wand., end of vol. 'The Hydah nation which is divided into numerous tribes inhabiting the island and the mainland opposite.' Reed's Nar. 'Queen Charlotte's Island and Prince of Wales Archipelago are the country of the Haidahs; … including the Kygany, Massett, Skittegetts, Hanega, Cumshewas, and other septs.' Anderson, in Hist. Mag., vol. vii., p. 74. 'Les Indiens Koumchaouas, Haïdas, Massettes, et Skidegats, de l'île de la Reine Charlotte.' Mofras, Explor., tom. ii., p. 337. My Haidah Family is called by Warre and Vavasour Quacott, who with the Newette and twenty-seven other tribes live, 'from Lat. 54° to Lat. 50°, including Queen Charlotte's Island; North end of Vancouver's Island, Millbank Sound and Island, and the Main shore.' Martin's Hudson's Bay, p. 80.

      The Massets and thirteen other tribes besides the Quacott tribes occupy Queen Charlotte Islands. Warre and Vavasour, in Martin's Hud. Bay, p. 80.

      The Ninstence tribe inhabits 'the southernmost portions of Moresby Island.' Poole's Q. Char. Isl., pp. 122, 314–15.

      The Crosswer Indians live on Skiddegate Channel. Downie, in B. Col. Papers, vol. iii., p. 72.

      The Kaiganies