NATIVE TRIBES. 17.

(4.) WHENCE DID THESE PEOPLE DERIVE THEIR CUSTOMS AND
THEIR ARTS?

Bold and remarkable as was the artistic skill of the Coast tribes, which had
reached its zenith when it first came under the observation of explorers and
traders, ingenious and effective as were their industries, few clues exist as to the
origin of these peoples’ customs or to the phases through which their arts and
industries had passed before attaining the standard which astonished all those
who saw its finest examples. The tribes of the Interior showed little artistic
ability, and their customs, obviously influenced by those of the Coast, were
definitely simpler in detail. To this fact the customs of the Kootenay tribe
formed the exception, for they were derived from those of the Plains people
among whom they lived before they crossed the Rockies in the eighteenth century.
It is possible that the “ coiled’ basketry, characteristic since that date among the
divisions of the great Salish tribe in the Interior, may have come from the same
source, though it had not reached the high standard by which it became dis-
tinguished among the Thompson, Lillooet, and Chilcotin people.

Thus, for the present, efforts to penetrate the prehistoric past of these earliest
occupants of British Columbia are in great measure unsuccessful. It is fortunate,
therefore, that a wealth of detail is available on their mode of life when their
prolonged period of isolation was closed by the arrival, in swift succession, of
explorers and traders; Russians via Alaska, and Spanish, English, and French by
the southern ocean route. Perez, in 1774; and Mozino, 1789; Captain Cook,
1778; Captain Meares, 1788; Captain Vancouver, 1790; Sir Alexander Mac-
kenzie, 1789; and Etienne Marchand, in 1790, were predecessors of a long train
of interested investigators whose work is still incomplete.