Shouting, the mountain began gradually to totter and the Haidas ,
who are blessed with big heads and strong voices, caused it to

fall on their side." So they won the Copper mountain, and ever
since that date the other tribes have had to go to them for the
copper needed to make bracelets for their wives and daughters!"

Figure 2 (c) shows a carving on either stone or horn used,
it is believed, as the point of a harpoon, a contribution to the
custom, active in later times, designed to serve two objects:
increased efficiency of the implement itself and as a source of
attraction to the fish.

Figures 3 (a), (b), (c), are selected from a large number
of illustrations of the form of "paddle-shaped" war clubs made
of whalebone with more or less elaborately carved knob and handle.
The type of ancient decoration depicted on the collected specimens
of these whalebone clubs is considered to prove the existence of
a fixed art style on the west coast of Vancouver Island and in
the whole area of the Gulf of Georgia representative of but dif-
fering in character from the styles of tribes farther north.
These clubs were formerly in use on the North Pacific coast of
Alaska to the Columbia River. The majority of surviving speci-
mens have been collected on western Vancouver Island, where,
though the form is virtually similar, the diversity of detail is
as noticeable as in other specimens of Northwest Coast Tribal
art.

Figures 4 and 5 show a type of carved dish found solely in
British Columbia and even there restricted to the area between
Nanaimo (on the east of Vancouver Island)and Kamloops (300 miles
east of Vancouver) but chiefly in the Saanich-Yale area.
Examples unearthed have. been carved in sandstone, gritstone and
dark green sandstone. Their use is undetermined; possibly they
contained ceremonial paints. According to the statements of
Indians living at Yale and Hope they were used in preparing
"charms" to attract salmon to fish-hooks and baits during the
early part of the run. (Smith, 1907.)

These few examples of primitive tribal art in British
Columbia are selected from the large number shown on the 40
plates devoted to this area by Smith (1925). They are included
here because according to this authority "these objects have
beautiful forms, capable of inspiring useful shapes and de-
Signs, representing as they do one of the greatest culture
areas of Canada where the Indians had a highly developed
realistic and conventional art." As the foundation of
Canadian culture these forms of primitive art deserve more
general attention than has hitherto been accorded to then.

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