References:

Plate 20, Figure 1. Stone Mortar Beaver Design. Haida Area.
Plate 20, Figure 2. (a) Bone wristilet. Salish area.
(b) Copper Hair Ornament Lytton.
(c) Harpoon Point. Bone or

Antler. Salish Area.
Plate “0, Figure 3. Paddle-shaped Whalebone
Clubs.
(a) Nootkan.
(b) Tsimsyan.
(c) Shuswap.
Plate <0, Figure 4. Carved Figure on Stone
Dish. Cowichan Area.

(Vancouver Island)

Plate 20, Figure 5. Carved figure on dark
green soap-stone dish Thompson area.

(Yale; B: GC.)

Plate 20, Figure 1 gives an example of a carved stone mortar
of which the exact use is undetermined. The illustration shows
both front and rear views of this interesting design of a Beaver,
which emphasizes the characteristic large incisor teeth gnawing
a stick and the conventionalized spiral nostrils. The ears are
indicated by human faces and the tail, shown on the reverse side,
is also replaced by a face placed between the two hind paws.

This use of human faces in unusual parts of an animal's body is
said to indicate ability of each such part to direct its own
activity or possibly to serve as reminder of power to assume
human form at will.

Figure 2 (a) shows what is believed to have been a carved
bone wristlet attached to the arm by leather thongs. It was
found near a skeleton in a shell heap at Eburne, B. C.

Figure 2 (b) possesses much interest, for this specimen was
dug from a grave at Lytton in the Interior of the Province, while
a duplicate specimen was found.in a shell heap as distant as Fort
Rupert, Vancouver Island. Copper as used in these ornaments was
rare and highly valued. Father A. G. Morice, who travelled
widely among the tribes in the Interior of this Province, re-
ports (1888) that the Carriers, belonging to the Déné Race, had
a tradition that in very remote times all the tribes assembled
at a certain place on the coast "around a tower-like copper moun-
tain emerging from the depths of the water." Which tribe was to
possess this great mass of copper? "When all had united in

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