href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@38010@[email protected]#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[20] Harbour, off the Alberni Canal; they had also a fishing camp on Henderson Lake, and two or three lodges on the rapid or stream flowing out of that sheet of water, which was discovered and named by me. But they were "bad to deal with."

OHYAHT INDIAN.

The You-clul-ahts of Ucluelt Inlet, ruled by Ia-pou-noul, a wealthy man in blankets and other Indian wealth, numbered about one hundred. The chief of the Toquahts in Pipestem Inlet was Sow-wa-wenes, a middle-aged man, who had an easy task, as his lieges numbered only eleven, so that they were thirty years ago on the eve of extinction. The Ohyahts of Grappler Creek were estimated in 1863 to be about one hundred and seventy-five in fighting strength—which, multiplied by four for women and children, would make them, for that region, an unusually strong community. These figures are probably correct, since the man who made the statement was, after living for years amongst them, eventually murdered by the savages,[21] whom he had trusted too implicitly. Kleesheens, a notorious scoundrel, was their chief. In Clayoquat Sound were the Klahoquahts, Kellsmahts, Ahousahts, Heshquahts, and Mamosahts—the last a little tribe numbering only five men. Indeed, with the exception of the Klahoquahts (who numbered one hundred and sixty men) and the Ahousahts (who claimed two hundred and fifty), these little septs, all devoured by mutual hatred, and frequently at war with each other, were even then dwindling to nothingness. But the Opetsahts, though marked on the Admiralty Chart[22] as a separate tribe, are—or were—only a village of the Ahousahts.

In Nootka Sound, the Muchlahts and Mooachahts lived. In Esperanza Inlet were the villages of two tribes—the Noochahlahts and Ayattisahts, numbering forty and twenty-two men respectively, and chiefed at that time by two worthies of the names of Mala-koi-Kennis, and Quak-ate-Komisa, whom we left in the delectable condition of each expecting the other round to cut his and his tribesmen's throats.

North of this inlet were Ky-yoh-quahts, of the Sound of that name (Kaioquat), numbering two hundred and fifty men. To us they were exceedingly friendly, though a trader whom we met had a different tale to tell of their treatment of him. Kanemat, a young man of about twenty-two, was their chief, though the tribe was virtually governed by his mother, a notable lady named Shipally, and at times by his pretty squaw, Wick-anes, and his lively son and heir, Klahe-ek-enes. The Chaykisahts, the Klahosahts, and the Neshahts of Woody Point are the other Aht tribes, though the latter is not included among them by Mr. Sproat. But they speak their language, of which their chief village is its most northern limit.

Everywhere their tribes showed such evident signs of decadence that by this time some of them must be all but extinct. Still, as the whites had not come much in contact with them—though all of them asked us for "lum" (rum), but did not get it, it is clear enough what had been the traders' staple—the "diseases of civilisation" could not be blamed for their decay. Even then the practical extermination of two tribes was so recent that the facts were still fresh in their neighbours' memory. These were the Ekkalahts, who lived at the top of the Alberni Canal, but were all but killed off in the same massacre by which the Opechesahts were decimated. The only survivor was a man named Keekeon, who lived with the Seshahts, most of whom had forgotten even the name of this vanquished little nationality. The other tribe was the Koapinahts (or Koapin-ah), who at that time numbered sixty or seventy people, but at the period to which I refer they were reduced to two adults—a man and a woman—all the rest having been slaughtered a few years earlier by the Kwakiools from the other side of the island, in conjunction with the Neshahts of Woody Point. In after days I learned to know these tribes very familiarly, crossing and recrossing the island with or to them, hunting and canoeing with them, in the woods, up the rivers, or on the lakes, and gathering from their lips

At first sight these "tinkler loons and siclike companie" were by no means attractive. They were frowsy, and, undeniably, they were not clean. But it was only after penetrating their inner ways, after learning the wealth of custom and folk-lore of which they, all unconscious of their riches, were the jealous custodians, that one began to appreciate these primitive folk from a scientific point of view. Even yet, as the writer recalls the days when he was prone to find men more romantic than is possible in "middle life forlorn," it is difficult not to associate the most prosaic of savages with something of the picturesqueness which, in novels at least, used to cling to all their race. For, as the charm of such existence as theirs unfolded itself to the lover of woods and prairies, and lakes and virgin streams, the neglect of soap and of sanitation was forgotten. As Mr. Leland has remarked about the gipsies: "When their lives and legends are known, the ethnologist is apt to think of Tieck's elves, and of the Shang Valley, which was so grim and repulsive from without, but which, once entered, was the gay forecourt of Goblin-land."

In those days little was known—and little cared—about any of the Western tribes, except by the "schooner-men," as the Indians called the roving traders. Their very names were strange to the majority of the Victoria people, and I am told that very few of the colonists of to-day are any better informed. It has therefore been thought fitting that I should go somewhat minutely into the condition of the Indians, at a period when they were more primitive than now, as a slight contribution to the meagre chronicles of a dying race. For if not preserved here, it is likely to perish with almost the last survivor of a little band with whom, during the last two decades, death has been busy.