[Illustration: BASKET-WORK HAT: WHALING SCENE INWOVEN. WOOTKA SOUND, N. W. AMERICA.] Some drawings of animals are provided with human, or almost human faces. This is done, not because the worker is unskilful, but because he believes that spirits of his ancestors may dwell in animals. Therefore the human and animal features are combined in sketches, tattooing, and masks. Very different from British Columbia is a vast stretch of country from the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains to the shores of Hudson Bay. Here are to be found many branches of the Déné Indians under the names of “Beavers,” “Dog Ribs,” and “Yellow Knives,” who have figured in many a story of breathless adventure; and it is with this snow-clad trappers’ country that Jack London has dealt in several of his novels. On the southern shore of Hudson Bay the Algonkin Indians have come into contact with Eskimo peoples, but nowhere are the two very friendly. To the south of the Algonkins are the Lakes Superior, Erie, and Ontario, in which region live the remnants of such important tribes as the Huron, Iroquois, and Mohawks; the last named have been the heroes of many a story book. In the year 1858 all Indian tribes came under the charge of a special department of the Dominion Government, which set aside certain localities for their use. Naturally the natives changed very rapidly when in contact with Europeans, so that to-day they are not the wild people described by such travellers as Fraser, Vancouver, and Mackenzie, who explored the North-West Territories between the years 1793 and 1808. Indian dress, weapons, canoes, carving, religious songs, and dances are still extremely common, and in the United States there is a special department of the Government concerned with the publication of books describing the lives of Indian tribes. Mr. C. Hill-Tout, who has spent much time in observing the Indian tribes of the Pacific Coast of British North America, says: “There is no doubt in my mind that the present Salish population of about 12,000 does not represent nearly a fifth of the population of this stock at the time of Simon Fraser’s visit to them. One tribe alone, the ‘Lukungen,’ whose settlements are at the south-eastern end of Vancouver’s Island, was estimated in 1859 to number 8500. To-day they could not muster 200, or less than one-fortieth of their former numbers.”... “That dying race the Haida of Queen Charlotte’s Islands numbered, in 1840, 8328. Twenty years ago that number had dwindled to 2000, and to-day the native population of these small islands is about 700.” Perhaps it is safe to say that the total native population of British North America is only one-tenth part of what it was a hundred years ago. Alcohol, small-pox, and pneumonia have caused a heavy death rate, in addition to which the easier lives, and the adoption of a good deal of European clothing, have made the natives less robust, and therefore an easy prey to all forms of sickness. CHAPTER II