TE NATIVE TRibES OF
BRITISH COLUMBIA.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.

The subject-matter of the following pages while of unsuspected interest is
also one of exceptional intricacy. “The fact that very strict limitations are
imposed on space adds to the difficulties of an undertaking where accuracy of
presentation hinges upon ever-present recognition of great diversity of details.
It is therefore advisable briefly to state the objects which prompted the writer to
face the risks incurred.

WHY THESE PREHISTORIC PEOPLE ARE OF INTEREST.

It seems timely to arouse greater interest in the people who preceded the present
inhabitants of British Columbia, and to make known more widely to their fellow-
members of the British Empire the ingenuity with which these early pioneers
overcame the difficulties of their surroundings. In a period when comfort and
convenience are measured by ability to pay for their provision unrelated to the
exercise of individual resourcefulness; when every detail of daily life is supplied
on a large scale by mechanized methods; when distance is annihilated by modern
devices of transport, the achievements of a people isolated for many centuries
from contact with others are apt to be overlooked and depreciated. Yet it is
these people who “ broke the trail ” in many unsuspected ways for their successors,
and while doing so exhibited qualities it is advisable to recall.

Because they were still in the “Stone Age” when first brought in contact
with Captain Cook, Alexander Mackenzie, and other explorers and early traders,
their manual skill, artistic gifts, and other endowments are undervalued.
Neither, until quite recent years, has much thought been given to the reasons
why these people were three thousand years behind the standard of European
culture at the close of the eighteenth century.

SOME CAUSES OF THEIR BACKWARD CONDITION.

In a Bulletin recently published by the National Museum of Canada at
Ottawa (‘‘ The Indian Background of Canadian History”), the writer,
Diamond Jenness, traces some of the causes for their backward condition.

(1.) The physiographic formation of the continent, which cuts off the Pacific
Coast from the main body of both North and South America by great ranges of
high mountains. “hese not only isolated the occupants of the western coast for
many centuries from the resources, discoveries, and inventions of the Old World,
but prolonged this disadvantage by the people’s own failure to devise adequate
methods of transportation either on land or by sea.

(2.) Remarkably intelligent as some of these tribes showed themselves to be
in their adaptation to their environment and in the development of their creative
artistic gifts, they lacked mechanic instincts. “Thus, they failed to discover the

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