(1955) pp. 33-34. A recent overview is provided by David Andersen American Indian Flood Myths (1970).
4 The original printing of this article had a more extended list. See the Introduction to volume IV of the present edition for a discussion of Hill-Tout’s linguistic theories. His reliance on vague resemblances between word-roots is considered unsound.
5 The classification of Dene nouns is in Morice “The Dene Language" Transactions of the Canadian Institute (1889-90) pp. 181-185. The Dene words used in the list come from Morice’s article in the same journal (1891-92) “Dene Roots" pp. 153-164.
6 The volume by Joseph Edkins referred to is probably China’s Place in Philology (1871), which has a purpose similar to Hill-Tout’s own. The paper on Asian affinities, “Oceanic Origin of the Kwakiutl-Nootka and Salish Stocks of British Columbia" (1898), suffers from flaws in methodology - see the letter to J. W. Powell in volume IV of the present edition.
NOTES ON THE SKQOMIC [SQUAMISH] OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, A BRANCH OF THE GREAT SALISH STOCK OF NORTH AMERICA 1
The following notes on the Skqomic [Squamish], a division of the Salish stock of British Columbia, are a summary of the writer’s studies of this tribe. While he has sought to make them as comprehensive and complete as possible, he is fully conscious that they are far from being exhaustive. There are, indeed, insuperable difficulties in the way of making really exhaustive reports on any of our tribes at the present time. There are, in the first place, many invincible prejudices to be overcome. Then there is the difficulty of communication, and when these have been partially overcome there yet remains the difficulty of finding natives who possess the knowledge you are seeking. Not every Indian is an iagoo, a story-teller; and only the older men and women remember the practices, customs, manners, and beliefs of the tribe, and even these have forgotten much that is important to know. These and other difficulties stand in the way of complete and exhaustive investigation; and I cannot better illustrate the need of pushing on our work among these interesting peoples without further delay than by stating that since my last report was sent in my principal informant among the Ntlakapamuq [Thompson], Chief Mischelle, from whom I secured so much valuable information a year or so ago, has passed away, and can render us no further aid.2 In a few years, all those who lived under the old conditions in pre-missionary days, and who now alone possess the knowledge we desire to gather, will have passed away, and our chances of obtaining any further reliable information of the past will have gone with them. In my work among the Squamish I have been more than usually fortunate, and have been able to bring together much interesting matter not previously known or recorded.
Ethnography
The Squamish constitute a distinct division of the Salish of British Columbia and both in language and customs differ considerably from the coast tribes on the one hand, and the interior tribes on the other. The structural differences of their speech are so great as to shut them off from free intercourse with the contiguous Salish tribes. The tribe today numbers less than two hundred souls, I believe. Formerly they were a strong and populous tribe, numbering, when the white men first came into contact with them, many thousands. Some of their larger okwumuq, or villages, contained as many as seven hundred people, and that less than fifty years ago. We gather this from the early white settlers themselves.
The original home and territory of the Squamish seems to have been on the banks of the river which gives them their tribal name, and along the shores of Howe Sound, into which the Skuamish runs. Their settlements on the river extended for upwards of thirty miles along the banks. Their northern neighbours were the Lillooets, and the Tcilkotin [Chilcotin] division of the Dene stock. Their southern neighbours were the Lower Fraser tribes. According to one of my informants the Indian villages that used to exist on English Bay, Burrard Inlet, and False Creek were not originally true Squamish. They were said to be allied by speech and blood to the Lower Fraser tribes. How far this is correct seems impossible to say.3 Squamish is everywhere spoken throughout this territory, and has been as far back as our knowledge of it goes; and the Squamish villages, according to my informants, extend to and include Mali, at the mouth of the Fraser, which place Dr. Boas was informed by the River Indians belonged to them, and which he has accordingly included in their territory.4 It was probably the dividing line, and, like Spuzzum, farther up the river, was composed partly of the one division and partly the other.
Our first knowledge of the Squamish dates back to rather less than a century ago. The first white man to sail into English Bay and Howe Sound and come into contact with them was Captain Vancouver. He recorded briefly his impressions of them in the diary of his voyage to this coast, a short extract from which may be of interest in this first formal account of the tribe. He writes thus:
Friday, June 15, 1792
But for this circumstance we might too hastily have concluded that this part of the Gulf was uninhabited. In the morning we were visited by nearly forty of the natives, on whose approach from the very material alteration that had now taken place in the face of the country we expected to find some difference in their general character. This conjecture was, however, premature, as they varied in no respect whatever, but in possessing a more ardent desire for commercial transactions, into the spirit of which they entered with infinitely more avidity than any of our former acquaintances, not only bartering amongst themselves the different valuables they had obtained from us, but when that trade became slack in exchanging those articles again with our people, in which traffic they always took care to gain some advantage, and would frequently exult on this occasion. Some fish, their garments, spears, bows and arrows, to which these people wisely added their copper garments, comprised their general stock-in-trade. Iron in all forms they judiciously preferred to any other article we had to offer.5
They have not altered much in these points of their character since Vancouver’s visit, and many of them have today, I am told, snug little sums judiciously invested by their good friend and spiritual director, the late Bishop Durieu, in safe paying concerns. It is only fair to say, however, that they deserve to be prosperous. They are probably the most industrious and orderly band of Indians in the whole province, and reflect great credit upon the Roman Mission established in their midst.
I obtained the following list of old village sites, not ten per cent of which are now inhabited. The list is not perfectly complete. There were a few more villages at the upper end of Burrard Inlet which have been long abandoned, and whose names my informants could not recall. My enumeration contains in all some ninety-three villages, each of which, according to Chief Thomas of Qeqios and others, was formerly a genuine Squamish okwumuq, containing from fifty to several hundred inhabitants.6
On Squamish River. Right Bank: (1) Cotais; (2) Ncaitc;(3) Tktakai ‘vine-maple’; (4) Sqaqaiek; (5) Kwanaken ‘hollow in mountain’; (6) Yukuts [Yookwitz]; (7) Stotoii ‘leaning over’ (a cliff); (8) Komps; (9) Slokoi; (10) Nkukapenatc ‘canoes transformed to stone’ (see story of “Qais,” below); (11) Kwolan ‘ear’; (12 Kauten [Kowtain] ; (13) Qeqios; (14) Sietcem ’sandy' [Seichem, Brackendale]; (15) Npokwis [Omega Mountain] ; (16) Ekuks [Ainwucks] ; (17) Tciakamic [Cheakamus] ; (18 Toktakamai ‘place of thimble-berries’; (19) Spapak; (20) Etleuq; (21) Skauican [Skowishin]; (22) Poiam [Poyam].
Left Bank: (1) Sklau ‘beaver’; (2) Stamis [Stawamus]; (3) Smok; (4) Qaksine (on Mamukum Creek) [Memsquum, Mamquam River] ; (5) Kiaken; (6) Ikwopsum [Yekwaupsum] ; (7) Qekwaiakin; (8) Itlioq; (9) Pokaiosum ’slide' [Poquiosin]; (10) Skumin ‘keekwilee-house’; (11) Cemps; (12) Tcimai; (13) Tcuktcukts [Chuckchuck].
Howe Sound. West Side: (1) Tcewas; (2) Swiat [Woodfibre] ; (3) Cetuksem [White Beach]; (4) Cetusum [Potlatch River]; (5) Kwitctenem (McNab Creek]; (6) Kekelun [Kaikalahun, Port Mellon] ; (7) Koekoi; (8) Stcink (Gibson’s Landing).
East Side: (1) Kukutwom ‘waterfall’ [Shannon Falls]; (2) Cetsaken; (3) Cicaioqoi; (4) Qelketos
