once and the necessity of getting a higher opinion than my own upon the matter, and I shall look forward with much pleasure to meeting you in May next. If I might venture to offer a suggestion to one whose experience is so much wider than my own I would suggest a comparison with ancient Algonquian skulls. I am not familiar with the characteristics of these. I suggest comparison with them because it seems to me to be quite possible that these longheads may belong to the Algonquian or Iroquoian stocks. As you are aware there is a widely circulated tradition among the Eastern families of these stocks that their ancestors once lived west of the Rockies. This is but a vague conjecture of mine, and much more exploration and excavation must be done before one can do more than offer it as a simple suggestion. To do this more funds than I can command are needed. I am, therefore, very gratified to learn from your kind letter that you feel interested in my work and are inclined to help me. I should be glad and grateful if you could interest the B.A.A.S. in my undertaking, which is, in brief, to do for B.C. what Dr. Cyrus Thomas has done for the States.1 I am convinced from my experience of the past few years that B.C. is archaeologically as interesting as any part of this continent and considerably more important than some areas which have received far greater attention, seeing that it has been in the past in the direct line of the great migrations from N.E. Asia. I am exceedingly enthusiastic over the whole question and would like nothing better than to devote the next ten years of my life to the work in this district; but being a married man with a large growing family I cannot afford the time unless some of the learned Societies see fit to employ my services. I shall await your arrival here with considerable impatience.
You ask me what were the copper implements taken from the tumuli. Just four articles, and no more, viz. an awl or possibly a spindle about nine inches long and a quarter inch in diameter, a small finger ring wrapped in a piece of skin and the whole enclosed in a wad of cedar bark, and two pairs of bracelets apparently — possibly one pair was not bracelets as the wrist orifice is very small. They are figured in a plate which will appear (with the other illustrations) with my article mentioned before.
It seems hardly worth while to give you additional information as my paper must shortly be at hand, which will possibly give you all you want. May I then ask you to write a few notes for me on this Hatzic skull which I may add to my paper without any modification as a supplemental note from yourself? I will at any rate ask Dr. Dawson to forward it to you. I think I told you in my former letter that with the exception of a piece of the frontal bone of another skull this is the only one taken from the whole series of mounds there. The preservation of it was due without doubt to the presence of a large cedar tree which had grown out of and over the mound and which was in the last stages of decay when the mound was opened. You know something of the durability of B.C. cedar, so these mounds are of considerable age.
Hoping the skull will reach you safely and you will be able to comply with my request2
I remain
very truly
yours
Charles Hill-Tout
P.S.
You did not say if you had spare copies of your reports to B.A.A.S. other than those I have, 5th and 6th. If you have and can spare me one of each I shall find them interesting and useful and shall be grateful to you for them. I am indebted to Dr. Dawson for those I possess of yours. C. H-T.
Letter to J. W. Powell, Bureau of Ethnology 1
Buckland College
Vancouver B.C.
Feb 1st. 96
To Colonel Powell
Director Bureau of Ethnology etc.
Washington.
Dear Sir,
May I ask you if you have any linguistic material you can place at my disposal. I shall be grateful even for loans. I have been engaged upon the B.C. stocks this winter, and the result of my labors has been to bring out beyond question the radical unity of the whole group. Nor is this unity confined to the limits of B.C. tho’ my work has mainly and primarily been directed toward these. I find myself hampered by the imperfection and crudeness of my material. I can hear of only a very few grammars. I possess Hall’s on the Kwakiutl and have been promised Father Morice's. I have also a copy of Dr. Boas’ 6th Report on the Northwest Tribes of Canada, a copy of the 8th in which Dr. Chamberlain has treated of the Kitonaga, and the Comparative Vocabularies of Dawson and Tolmie. These with Father Morice’s list of Dene roots, which I only acquired a few days ago, constitutes the whole of my material. In these vocabularies the Tlinkit are represented by one poor and partial list only. And as this stock is of importance to another side of my work I feel its poverty very much. Can you help me in any way by putting me in the way of obtaining other vocabularies and grammars? I expect help from the Canadian Institute, but at present I do not know how far they can aid me.
Another and perhaps more important result of my work has been to disclose the existence of radical and structural relations with the Japo-Peninsular group of languages. The Japanese affinities with the northern tongues are very striking and far-reaching, and I am convinced from my long inquiry that with more perfect materials I can still further bring this out. I hope too to establish to the satisfaction of philologists a Law of Consonantal Equivalency which will be found workable outside the limits of my own inquiry. I drew the attention of Dr. John Campbell of Montreal to the affinities of the B.C. stocks with the Indo-Chinese group some time ago, that being the first Asiatic group with which I compared them, and he was of the opinion that I should find them connecting thro’ the Malay-Polynesian if there existed any relation at all. That a relation exists is certain but it is thro’ the Japo-Peninsulas I think rather than thro’ the Malay-Polynesian. How ever, this is a secondary consideration. That they are an undoubted member of his “Klictan” family there can be no two opinions when the evidence is examined. I shall venture to send you a few characteristic radicals that you may judge for yourself. I hope to have a paper ready shortly, setting forth at length the results of my work. I had hoped to have sent you before this my paper on “Later Prehistoric Man in B.C.” but it has not yet left the printer’s hands.2 I wanted by its means to enlist your sympathies and assistance in the work with which it deals. My own efforts are the first and only systematic attempt to deal with the B.C. mounds; and alone, and at my own expense, I can do but little. My heart is wrapt up in the work, in this and in linguistics, and I envy the opportunities which the members of your staff enjoy. I would ask nothing better of fortune than to give me such an opportunity and this broad, almost untouched, field to work in.
Moreover, myself apart, I cannot help thinking that this region is too important and valuable to Anthropology to be left so much alone. I have shown in my paper how important are the prehistoric monuments of this region, such as they are, in treating of the question of American origins. There can be no doubt that this northern coast has seen the coming and going of more than one great division of the pre-Columbian races. Dr. Boas has promised to aid me all he can. He agrees with me upon the importance of the work. Our own government, while sympathising, is too poor to render any effective aid.
Can you put me in the way of getting a copy of Horatio Hale’s “Ethnology and Philology of the U.S. Exploring Expedition”? This will be useful in tracing out Malay-Polynesian affinities. I hope you will find yourself able to help me.3
I am very truly yours
Chas. Hill-Tout
Letters to the B.C. Provincial Secretary 1
Buckland College
