wT 346 THE BELLA COOLA INDIANS these accounts seemed to be exaggerations, and the casualties were probably few. The Bella Coola did not have the same admiration for the successful warrior as for the man who gave many potlatches, while everything indicates that their raids were on a small scale, rendered singularly ineffective by lack of discipline. SpEciIFIC ACCOUNTS Active warfare has been so long discontinued on the coast that none of the living Bella Coola can describe conditions as they existed during hostilities. It was possible to collect the following accounts of raids and adventures which, though indi- vidually of small value, illustrate tactics and strategy, and recount incidents which throw light on the frame of mind of the participants. KITKATLA WAR For many years there was animosity between the Bella Coola and the Kitkatla who, with the advantage of strong government, used to sweep down from the north for salmon and slaves. Bella Coola itself was comparatively immune from attack, but the Kimsquit people suffered severely. The attack- ers were not always successful; one old man related how, when his mother’s mother was an infant, they were driven off with the loss of four canoes and many men. The fact that this incident had been remembered for so many years indicates that it was unusual. Slaves captured in this way were traded from tribe to tribe and rarely escaped. When an elderly Bella Coola was a lad, there was considerable excitement in the community owing to the return of Stukwala, a woman who had been carried off when agirl. She had been traded to a northern tribe among whom, she said, it was customary to crush captives beneath totem- poles and house-posts. Her diligence saved her from this fate, and she was passed on until she reached the far north, on the