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of the most genial, shrewd, and daring of fur-traders, gave me many axioms regarding my conduct in dealing with the Indians, and I afterwards found how valuable they were ever to keep in my mind. They read, as Kohl* said of a similar code, "like a Machiavelli discoursing on diplomatic intercourse with mankind." 1st. Never trust an Indian. Always appear to trust him; it flatters his vanity. 2nd. Trust in the honour of most Indians regarding your property, and you are safe. Trust in an Indian's honesty, and he will steal your ears. 3rd. Never draw a weapon unless you intend to use it, and if there is going to be any shooting, have the first of it. Never shoot unless you cannot avoid it, for by so doing you create a long line of blood-avengers. 4th. Never give presents to the common people; please the head-men, and the rest don't matter much. 5th. If you apprehend trouble in an Indian village, sleep in the lodge of the head-man, if possible; or if not, in a lodge in which there are many women and children. An Indian knows that if a white man is attacked there will be shooting going on, and a bullet might strike a woman or child. 6th. Never pass a portage or a suspicious village in the dark, because the Indians will be sure to know it, and then, like all bullies, will take advantage of your fear of them so manifested. Pass in broad daylight, and then you will see what you are about. 7th. Never attempt to give them medicine, for you will get no credit by the cure, and if the patient die you will be accused of killing him. Besides, it offends the medicine-man, and incurs his professional hatred. Always keep friends with these rogues, they are the sharpest men in the tribe. 8th. Never make any promise that you are not quite certain of being able to fulfil; Indians are like children, and will hear of no excuse. Though they will lie themselves, yet they are quick to detect it in others.

The Indians are very cruel to aged people, and when they get too old to work, will either kill them or leave them to starve on some desert island. The poor creatures will go on, getting clams and berries as long as they can stand, or making themselves useful in any way, knowing that their lives are not worth much if once they cease to work. Captain Mayne, from whom I quote this, thinks that probably it is this fear of their days being abruptly shortened which induces old women to start as dreamers, "second-sight" people, &c. These old wretches will claim the gift of prophecy, and say that they can prevent people they dislike from obtaining success. On a morning old witches can be seen communicating their dreams to their tribe, "men and women standing by with open mouths and wonder-stricken faces."

Though the Indian is markedly deficient in foresight, and considers treachery a most venial offence, if an offence at all, yet this vice, as well as ingratitude, may be the effect of circumstances, suspicion and reserve being ever so constantly before him as to prevent him feeling gratitude to those who may benefit him. But the same excuse cannot be pleaded for his cold-bloodedness and cruelty, which are engrained in him from his youth upwards. In December, 1864, my informant, Mr. Sproat, described one of their cold-blooded rites. A woman of the Seshaaht tribe was put to death by an old man, whose slave she was, at the commencement of a celebration of a peculiar character, which lasted several days, and is called the Klooh-quahn-nah. Doubtless, this murder was only a part of the celebration. The body was exposed on the beach for two days, but even after the removal further

"Kutchi-Gami" (English Translation by Wraxell, London, 1860), pp. 131-133, where may be found a very interesting and valuable account of the Lake Superior tribes.

rites took place over the very spot where the body had been exposed. Apart from the murder, the chief feature of the celebration was a pretended attack on the Indian village by Indians representing wolves, while the rest of the population, painted, armed, and with furious yells, defended their houses from attack. On this occasion they had their hair tied out from their head so as to represent a wolf-head and snout, and the blanket was put on so as to show a tail, the motion of the wolf in running being imitated. Many acted like crows, having on a large wooden bill, and with the blankets so arranged as to look like wings, they really appeared like large ravens hopping about in the dusk. It is said that this celebration arose from the son of a chief having been seized by wolves, but as it is to some extent a secret institutionchildren not being acquainted with it until they are regularly initiated-Mr. Sproat's idea, that it is intended to destroy the natural human feeling against murder, and to form, in the people generally, and especially in the rising generation, hardened and fierce hearts, is not unreasonable. Perhaps it may be allied to certain superstitions once existing among other nations-the Lycanthropia of the Greeks, the Loup-garou of the French, the Persian Ghoule, the Teutonic Wehrwolfe, &c. The wolf figures much in Indian tradition and superstition. The possession of the miney-okey-ak, an instrument which could be flung from an unseen hand, bringing sickness and death to the person struck, is, or was until recently, a strange article of their belief. No one now knows how to make the miney-okey-ak; the last family (among the Ohyat tribe) who knew how to make this dire weapon having, in self-defence, been exterminated by their tribesmen, four of the brothers being murdered by four friends, who separately invited them to go out hunting, the other four being stabbed to death by those who sat next to them at a feast. The women were sold into slavery, and their houses and property destroyed: the whole story is one of Indian superstition, murder, and treachery. The Indian's evil qualities, excesses, and defects come up more readily before our mind than any good qualities he may possess ; "his virtues do not reach our standard, and his vices exceed our standard A murder, if not perpetrated on one of his own tribe, or on a particular friend, is no more to an Indian than the killing of a dog, and he seems altogether steeled against human misery, when found among ordinary acquaintances or strangers. The most terrible sufferings, the most pitiable conditions, elicit not the slightest show of sympathy, and do not interrupt the current of his occupation or his jests for the moment." When we add that the Indian is vindictive in the extreme, cherishing revenge for years until he can gratify it; that, indeed, the satiation of revenge is one of his moral canons-paradoxical as it may seem-we have summed up the more salient vices of the aboriginal American. A writer on the Indians once observed that their faces expressed "a character in ambush." The phrase exactly expresses the tout-ensemble of that furtive eye, different, and yet of much the same nature as the snaky eye of some of the Asiatic races, and ever-suspicious face, yet shielding the present thought from the observer, though in time the standard vices of anger, cunning, and pride are all stereotyped there and shown to all who know how to read them, much more plainly than in the countenance of a European of not much better character.

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They believe greatly in their own consequence, and of their skill in war, and so on. When Rear-Admiral Denman attacked a tribe on the coast, who had murdered the crew of a trading vessel, an Indian remarked to me, that if he had been the admiral, he would have done so and so, and even the great Washington was not above censure. Thanachrishon,

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a chief of the Seneca tribe, judging him by their own rules, used to say that "he was a good-natured man, but had no experience." The Tsimseans have a tradition of their first meeting with whites on the coast, which shows these characteristics forcibly.* Indians

Mayne's "British Columbia," p. 279.

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