SECTION III.
Manner of Building the Homes in Nootka Sound.—Inside of them described.—Furniture and Utensils.—Wooden Images.—Employments of the Men.—Of the Women.—Food, Animal and Vegetable.—Manner of preparing it.—Weapons.—Manufactures and Mechanic Arts.—Carving and Painting.—Canoes.—Implements for Fishing and Hunting.—Iron Tools.—Manner of procuring that Metal.—Remarks on their Language, and a Specimen of it.—Astronomical and Nautical Observations made in Nootka Sound.
The two towns or villages, mentioned in the course of my journal, seem to be the only inhabited part of the Sound. The number of inhabitants in both might be pretty exactly computed from the canoes that were about the ships the second day after our arrival. They amounted to about a hundred; which, at a very moderate allowance, must, upon an average, have held five persons each. But as there were scarcely any women, very old men, children, or youths amongst them at that time, I think it will rather be rating the number of the inhabitants of the two towns too low, if we suppose they could be less than four times the number of our visitors, that is, two thousand in the whole.
The village at the entrance of the Sound stands on the side of a rising ground, which has a pretty steep ascent from the beach to the verge of the wood, in which space it is situated.
The houses are disposed in three ranges or rows, rising gradually behind each other, the largest being that in front, and the others less, besides a few straggling, or single ones, at each end. These ranges are interrupted or disjoined at irregular distances, by narrow paths, or lanes, that pass upward; but those which run in the direction of the houses, between the rows, are much broader. Though there be some appearance of regularity in this disposition, there is none in the single houses, for each of the divisions, made by the paths, may be considered either as one house, or as many, there being no regular or complete separation, either without or within, to distinguish them by. They are built of very long and broad planks[1], resting upon the edges of each other, fastened or tied by withes of pine bark here and there, and have only slender posts, or rather poles, at considerable distances on the outside, to which they also are tied, but within are some larger poles placed aslant. The height of the sides and ends of these habitations, is seven or eight feet; but the back part is a little higher, by which means, the planks that compose the roof slant forward, and are laid on loose, so as to be moved about, either to be put close to exclude the rain, or, in fair weather, to be separated, to let in the light and carry out the smoke. They are, however, upon the whole, miserable dwellings, and constructed with little care or ingenuity. For, though the side-planks be made to fit pretty closely in some places, in others they are quite open, and there are no regular doors into them, the only way of entrance being either by a hole, where the unequal length of the planks has accidentally left an opening, or, in some cases, the planks are made to pass a little beyond each other, or overlap, about two feet asunder, and the entrance is in this space. There are also holes, or windows, in the sides of the houses to look out at; but without any regularity of shape or disposition; and these have bits of mat hung before them, to prevent the rain getting in.
On the inside, one may frequently see from one end to the other of these ranges of building without interruption. For though, in general, there be the rudiments, or rather vestiges, of separations on each side, for the accommodation of different families, they are such as do not intercept the sight; and often consist of no more than pieces of plank, running from the side toward the middle of the house; so that, if they were complete, the whole might be compared to a long stable, with a double range of stalls, and a broad passage in the middle. Close to the sides, in each of these parts, is a little bench of boards, raised five or six inches higher than the rest of the floor, and covered with mats on which the family sit and sleep. These benches are commonly seven or eight feet long, and four or five broad. In the middle of the floor, between them, is the fire-place, which has neither hearth nor chimney. In one house, which was in the end of a middle range, almost quite separated from the rest by a high close partition, and the most regular, as to design, of any that I saw, there were four of these benches, each of which held a single family, at a corner, but without any separation by boards, and the middle part of the house appeared common to them all.
Their furniture consists chiefly of a great number of chests and boxes of all sizes, which are generally piled upon each other, close to the sides or ends of the house, and contain their spare garments, skins, masks, and other things which they set a value upon. Some of these are double, or one covers the other as a lid, others have a lid fastened with thongs, and some of the very large ones have a square hole, or scuttle, cut in the upper part, by which the things are put in and taken out. They are often painted black, studded with the teeth of different animals, or carved with a kind of freeze-work, and figures of birds or animals, as decorations. Their other domestic utensils are mostly square and oblong pails or buckets to hold water and other things, round wooden cups and bowls, and small shallow wooden troughs, about two feet long, out of which they eat their food, and baskets of twigs, bags of matting, &c. Their fishing implements, and other things also, lie or hang up in different parts of the house, but without the least order, so that the whole is a complete scene of confusion; and the only places that do not partake of this confusion are the sleeping-benches, that have nothing on them but the mats, which are also cleaner, or of a finer sort, than those they commonly have to sit on in their boats.
The nastiness and stench of their houses are, however, at least equal to the confusion. For as they dry their fish within doors, they also gut them there, which, with their bones and fragments, thrown down at meals, and the addition of other sorts of filth, lie every where in heaps, and are, I believe, never carried away till it becomes troublesome, from their size, to walk over them. In a word, their houses are as filthy as hog-sties; every thing in and about them stinking of fish, train-oil, and smoke.
But, amidst all the filth and confusion that are found in the houses, many of them are decorated with images. These are nothing more than the trunks of very large trees, four or five feet high, set up singly, or by pairs, at the upper end of the apartment, with the front carved into a human face; the arms and hands cut out upon the sides, and variously painted; so that the whole is a truly monstrous figure. The general name of these images is Klumma; and the names of two particular ones, which stood abreast of each other, three or four feet asunder, in one of the houses, were Natchkoa and Matseeta. Mr Webber's view of the inside of a Nootka house, in which these images are represented, conveys a more perfect idea of them than any description. A mat, by way of curtain, for the most part, hung before them, which the natives were not willing, at all times, to remove; and when they did unveil them, they seemed to speak of them in a very mysterious manner. It should seem, that they are at times accustomed to make offerings to them; if we can draw this inference from their desiring us, as we interpreted their signs, to give something to these images, when they drew aside the mats that covered them.[2] It was natural, from these circumstances, for us to think, that they were representatives of their gods, or symbols of some religious or superstitious object: and yet we had proofs of the little real estimation they were in; for, with a small quantity of iron or brass, I could have purchased all the gods (if their images were such) in the place. I did not see one that was not offered to me; and I actually got two or three of the very smallest sort.