Mr Catlin premises by telling us that the scene occurred when on a visit with the chief of the Klah-o-gnats, of whom he says that he knew at first sight by his actions that he was “a chief, and by the expression of his face that he was a good man,” and whom his companion described as “a very fine old fellow; that man is a gentleman; I’d trust myself anywhere with that man.” Of their religion, the chief himself told Catlin that on that western coast of Vancouver’s Island “they all believed in a Great Spirit, who created them and all things, and that they all have times and places when and where they pray to that Spirit, that he may not be angry with them.”
One day came the startling announcement that a whale was ashore.
“The sight was imposing when we came near to it, but not until we came around it on the shore side had I any idea of the scene I was to witness. Some hundreds, if not thousands of Indians, of all ages and sexes, and in all colours, were gathered around it, and others constantly arriving. Some were lying, others standing and sitting in groups; some were asleep and others eating and drinking, and others were singing and dancing.” The monster was secured by twenty or thirty harpoons, to which ropes were attached. “These were watched, and at every lift of a wave moving the monster nearer the shore, they were tightened on the harpoons, and at low tide the carcass is left on dry land, a great distance from the water.... The dissection of this monstrous creature, and its distribution amongst the thousands who would yet be a day or two in getting together, the interpreter informed us, would not be commenced until all the claimants arrived.”
Several immense baskets had been brought in which to carry away the blubber. The possession of these baskets made all the difference in the scene which followed. To some this will be a sufficient explanation. How, then, did the others come to know nothing of baskets? Truly there are people who cannot be made to see the effect of “character upon clover.” I rely, however, upon the broad lines of the contrast. The absence in this latter scene of the disgusting sights above so graphically described—their quick use of the harpoons—and the general order and equity of the distribution. “A whale ashore,” Mr Catlin says (“Last Rambles,” p. 105), “is surely a gift from heaven for these poor people, and they receive it and use it as such.”
Whilst quoting from Catlin, I must be allowed to refer my readers to the very striking proof (p. 248) he incidentally affords of the theory of degeneracy in his comparative illustration of the heads of the alto and bas Peruvian, and of the Crow and modern Flathead:—
“The Crow of the Rocky Mountains and the alto-Peruvian of the Andes, being the two great original fountains of American man, to whom all the tribes point as their origin, and on whom, of course, all the tribes have looked as the beau ideals of the Indian race. The Flathead (letter c), aiming at the Crow skull (like the copyists of most fashions), has carried the copy into a caricature; and the Bas-Peruvian (d), aiming at the elevated frontal of the mountain regions, has squeezed his up with circular bandages to equally monstrous proportions.” Also vide Prescott’s “Mexico,” ii. 493, 6th ed., 1850. “Anatomists also have discerned in crania disinterred from the mounds, and in those of the inhabitants of the high plains of the Cordilleras an obvious difference from those of the more barbarous tribes. This is seen especially in the ampler forehead, intimating a decided intellectual superiority.... Such is the conclusion of Dr Warren, whose excellent collection has afforded him ample means for study and comparison.”
Before quitting this subject I must revive a question which I think Sir John Lubbock will admit, if he turns to the evidence dispersed in his pages, is at present involved in some obscurity. It is simply this, “How did the savage come by the knowledge of fire?” Sir John Lubbock suggests (p. 473) “that in making flint instruments sparks would be produced; in polishing them it would not fail to be observed that they became hot, and in this way it is easy to see how the two methods of obtaining fire may have originated.... In obtaining fire two totally different methods are followed; some savages, as for instance the Fuegians, using percussion, while others, as the South-Sea Islanders, rub one piece of wood against another.... Opinions are divided whether we have any trustworthy record of a people without the means of obtaining fire” (p. 453). To this point I shall recur. I will now give Sir John’s quotation from Mr Dove: “Although fire was well known to them (the Tasmanians), some tribes at least appear to have been ignorant whence it was originally obtained, or how, if extinguished, it could be relighted. In all their wanderings,” says Mr Dove, “they were particularly careful to bear in their hands the materials for kindling a fire. Their memory supplies them with no instances of a period in which they were obliged to draw upon their inventive powers for the means of resuscitating an element so essential to their health and comfort as flame. How it came originally into their possession is unknown. Whether it may be viewed as the gift of nature or the product of art and sagacity, they cannot recollect a period when it was a desideratum” (“Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science,” i. 250, apud Lubbock, p. 355).[264]
Now, if it is a tenable opinion—and at least these are the statements of Father Gobien, and of Alvaro de Saavedra, and of Commodore Wilkes, to whose testimony I shall revert, that there are some tribes who are unacquainted with fire—that there are some who have and some who have not the art of rekindling fire, then arises the question whether those who have it not have lost the art, or whether those who now possess it invented it. If they did not invent it, they must have held it as a tradition, until, reaching a lower point of degradation still, they lost it. Mr Dove’s testimony to this effect is very strong. What an emblem that never-extinguished torch of primitive tradition! We find the same tradition among the American Indians. “The Chippeways and Natchez tribes are said to have an institution for keeping up a perpetual fire, certain persons being set aside and devoted to this occupation” (Lubbock, p. 421). Freycinet certainly declares that Peré Gobien’s statement, that the inhabitants of the Ladrone were totally unacquainted with fire until Magellan burnt one of their villages, to be “entirely without foundation.” “The language,” he says, “of the inhabitants contains words for fire, burning, charcoal, oven, grilling, boiling, &c.” Again, as against Commodore Wilkes’ assertion as an eye-witness, that he saw no appearance of fire in the island of Fakaafo, and that the natives were very much alarmed when they saw sparks struck from flint and steel, we are told that “Hale gives a list of Faakaafo words in which we find asi for fire” (Lubbock, p. 454). However, Sir John does not attribute to this argument the same force that Mr Tylor does, as asi is evidently the same word as the New Zealand ahi, which denotes light and heat as well as fire.[265] If, then, we have positive evidence that they have not the thing (Wilkes), and also evidence that they have the word (vide [note]), does not this prove that it is a tradition which they have lost? and is there not the presumption that they have lost it through degeneracy?