Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/365

Rh give away more than a thousand blankets, and will strive as soon as possible to be in a position to do so.

The nominal excuses for giving a potlatch are numerous, the most common being, however, the wish to assume a new and more honorable name. The name proposed to be taken passes by common consent, if the potlatch shall have been successful and on a sufficient scale.

Should an Indian wish to humiliate another for any reason, he may destroy a great number of blankets or much other valued property. This, according to custom, leaves his adversary in debt to the amount of the property made away with. It then behooves the debtor to bring out and destroy a like or if possible a greater amount of property. If he is not able to do this, he lies under the reproach of having been worsted by his foe.

The difficulties attendant on any effort toward the improvement of the condition and mode of life of the coast tribes of British Columbia are very grave; and the actual results of missionary labors, such as those carried on by Mr. Hall among the Kwakiool, and other self-sacrificing persons elsewhere, are in most cases, to all appearance, small.

It is difficult to induce individuals to abandon their old customs and bad habits, and nearly impossible to prevent them from relapsing, from time to time, owing to the fact that they still live promiscuously among and herd together with the mass of the tribe. Since the arrival of the whites, the Kwakiool, equally with other tribes, have become, in a word, "demoralized." They have lost, to a great extent, their pride and interest in the things which formerly occupied them, losing at the same time their spirit and self-respect, and replacing it by nothing. It is comparatively easy at all times to obtain a sufficiency of food, and food is at some seasons—as during the salmon-run—to be had in the greatest abundance with very little effort. Beyond this, there is nothing more to occupy their time fully and to keep them out of mischief. They are restless and unhappy. In some seasons, good wages are to be obtained by picking hops in the vicinity of Puget Sound, and it has thus become customary for many of the tribes to go south in the autumn, nominally for this purpose, but in reality with no great prospect of obtaining work. They may then be seen leaving their villages in bodies in their large and well-built traveling-canoes, whole families together with their household effects and children, and three, four, or five paddlers to each canoe, setting out cheerfully enough on their voyage of two hundred miles or more. They may obtain a little money while away, which they invest in goods and whisky, if they can obtain it (and in this there is unfortunately very little difficulty). They live, however, in the vicinity of Victoria and other large towns in a