In speaking of their regulations, I have omitted mentioning that, on attaining the age of seventeen, the eldest son of a chief is considered as a chief himself, and that whenever the father makes a present, it is always done in the name of his eldest son, or, if he has none, in that of his daughter. The chiefs frequently purchase their wives at the age of eight or ten, to prevent their being engaged by others, though they do not take them from their parents until they are sixteen.
With regard to climate, the greater part of the spring, summer, and autumn is very pleasant, the weather being at no time oppressively hot, and the winters uncommonly mild for so high a latitude, at least, as far as my experience went. At Tashees and Cooptee, where we passed the coldest part of the season, the winter did not set in till late in December, nor have I ever yet known the ice, even on the freshwater ponds, more than two or three inches in thickness, or a snow exceeding four inches in depth; but what is wanting in snow, is amply made up in rain, as I have frequently known it, during the winter months, rain almost incessantly for five or six days in succession.
FOOTNOTES:
[124] Ayhuttisaht, also in Nootka Sound.
[125] This is the custom if the visit of the strangers has not been announced in advance.
[126] Ooshyuksomayts is another expression meaning much the same thing.
[127] Kloosmit is "herring" (Meletta cærulea) generally. Klooshist is dried salmon, a more common article of food.
[128] Jewitt's marriage was less ceremonious than is usual with Indians of any rank, and the ten days' probation was not according to modern customs.
[129] Kutsak, or kotsack, or kootsick, or cotsack, for all these forms occur, was the blanket worn cloakwise, rendered familiar to Europeans in so many pictures and sketches.
[130] Human sacrifices are quite common among the Northern tribes. But in Vancouver they were very rare in my time, and are now still less frequent. In 1863 the burial of a chief was celebrated by the heads of several tribesmen being fixed about his grave. These were not taken by force, but surrendered by the trembling tribesmen, the victims being most likely slaves. In 1788, Meares affirms, on what we believe to be insufficient evidence, that Maquina (Moqulla) sacrificed a human being every new moon, to gratify "his unnatural appetite" for human flesh. The victim was a slave selected by the blindfolded chief catching him in a house in which a number were assembled. Meares even declares that Maquina acknowledged his weakness, and that though Callicum, another chief, avoided cannibalism, he reposed on a pillow filled with human skulls. If so, the practice has ceased. Yet cannibalism was undeniably practised at times among the Indians of both the East and West coasts. There were in 1866 Indians living in Koskeemo Sound, who still talked of the delights of human flesh. Many years ago, the Bella-Bellas ate a servant of the Hudson Bay Company, and the Nuchaltaws of Cape Mudge are affirmed by old traders to have paid the same doubtful compliment to a sailor who fell into their clutches.