We could only wish that this vile blot upon the character of our fair province were wiped away. But still it continues. Some of the finest tribes on the Coast have for years been following this awful practice, until whole bands have been practically wiped out, and their only monument is a forest of totem poles raised in many cases with the money secured from this dreadful slavery. Recently the provincial press has drawn attention to what they term the “slave traffic in girls” among the Kwa-kwulths of Cape Mudge and surrounding country. From the reports thus circulated we gather that these people have been making the practice of selling their girls to white men and others for immoral purposes. At a recent potlatch, held in January, 1906, a number of girls were sold at prices ranging from $300 to $1,200. The latter figure was paid by an Indian for a particularly attractive girl whom he planned to take with him to the various lumber camps for the purpose of gain. “It is proverbially true,” says one writer, “that the Indians have no convictions or sentiments that cannot be easily overcome by greed of gain or power. Their chief and only object--that is, the men’s--is to become great and powerful amongst their own people, and as the possession of money is the quickest road to power and the assumption of pride, some of these men to secure money, and secure it easily, have for years been selling their women.” “Surely the Government,” continues this same writer, “will not allow this state of affairs to exist any longer. By means of these women diseases are spread amongst our young men, and disasters too terrible to speak of must follow this indiscriminate dealing in the bodies and souls of these Indian women.” With this whole matter are involved the questions of Indian barter marriages and the potlatch, customs which, the missionaries know, are linked with heathenism, and which present some of the greatest difficulties to be met with in Christianizing and civilizing the Indian tribes of the Coast. In our judgment, if a law were enacted similar to one which was put in force in the State of Washington some years ago, compelling any white men living with Indian girls or women to marry them, or else the women must leave and return to their own people, we would to a large extent clear the country, as they did on the other side of the line, of this dreadful evil. The Indians, as well, should be compelled to give up their “barter marriages” and conform, as every one else must, to our Canadian marriage laws, and thus the greatest difficulty in the way of the suppressing of this evil would be removed. On account of the prevalence of this traffic in Indian girls, many of the early missionaries were led to establish “Girls’ Homes” for the rescue and further protection of these poor victims of this awful system. CHAPTER VIII. _FEUDS AND BLOODSHED._