Survey of Canada Hill-Tout submitted his full-scale account of the Thompson (item #9 below). The secretary’s report states: “The important studies of Mr. Hill-Tout have been prosecuted under considerable difficulties, but with the most painstaking care. They represent, for the most part, material which is altogether new, while those which cover ground previously worked over embody results in such a way as to preserve their value as contributions to our knowledge of these people. One of the principal difficulties met with by Mr. Hill-Tout has been the reluctance of the Indians to submit themselves to the process of measurement, or even, under satisfactory conditions, to the camera.”19
The following year (1900) Hill-Tout submitted his Squamish work (item #12 below); the Committee Report, presumably written by the Secretary, G. M. Dawson, states: “Much attention has been given to the language, which has not heretofore been seriously investigated, and which shows numerous grammatical and other peculiarities. Mr. Hill-Tout’s work, in fact, constitutes a very important local contribution to the ethnology of the native races of the west coast.”20
During 1901 Hill-Tout finished and wrote up his Fraser Valley Halkomelem notes, and submitted them; but they were held over till the year following for publication (see items #14 and 17), the Committee Report being abbreviated by the death of G. M. Dawson on 2 March 1901. The Committee recommended that Hill-Tout be appointed Secretary to fill the vacancy.21
Loading Pack Horses, photographer probably Hill-Tout at Lytton.
The Report of the Ethnological Survey of Canada for 1902 includes the following statement: “Mr. Hill-Tout has continued to carry on his investigations among the Salish of British Columbia under greater difficulties than usual during the past year. Two of the three tribes which he has at present under observation were quarantined on account of an outbreak of small-pox among them just at the season when it was most convenient for him to be examining them. This and the shortness of the funds with which he was provided to prosecute the work have proved most serious obstacles to the completion of his report appended, and which is to be taken as a 'report of progress’ only. The work has been carried out on similar lines to those followed last year, and much labour and care have been given ungrudgingly to it. His studies have been directed in particular to the Nutsak [Nooksack], the Macqui [Matsqui], and the Siciatl [Sechelt]. Those last are a coast people differing in speech and in many of their old customs from the contiguous Salish bands. The study of their dialect promises to add to our knowledge of the Salish tongue, and to reveal many interesting grammatical features. Within their boundaries they have also peculiar archaeological remains in the form of stone enclosures, an account and full description of which will be found in the report appended hereto.” The Nooksack and Matsqui reports are not extant. The Sechelt report was “read” at the 1903 meeting of the British Association, but nothing more from the Ethnological Survey of Canada was to be published by them. The Sechelt and Hill-Tout’s subsequent reports were published by the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (see item #22 etc. below). The 1902 report ends: “It is encouraging to report that the Government of British Columbia has recognised the value and importance of Mr. Hill-Tout’s work, and has this year assisted him by a grant of $150 towards his field expenses.”22
“In order to get the material for these reports, Professor Hill-Tout had often to live among the Indians and gather first hand information about them and their past, customs, habits and totemic beliefs. … I recall that upon one occasion a young chief of the Chehalis Indians, who had been recently married, and his wife gave up their bedroom to me and also their bedding while they slept upon the floor of the kitchen for two weeks,' observed the professor. There are eleven linguistic divisions of the Salish stock, and from time to time as the years went by, I visited each of these and gathered all possible information that could be secured from the oldest of the Indians. It is a fact that, if this had not been done at the time, much interesting knowledge about our Indians would have been lost to us, for almost all the elderly people of that period have passed away and the young Indians of today — with a few exceptions — take no interest in their past. … In the matter of language I pointed out the linguistic difference of the various tribes, elaborated their grammar and collected their vocabulary terms. In some instances, over 2000 words were in common use. My method was to write down the stories they told me, phonetically, then give the interlinear literal translation of it, and afterwards a free translation because the literal translation was too brief and bald, as so much of the significance of their language lay in the tone of voice and gesticulation. I lived among the Indians in order to gain their confidence and goodwill and I found them willing to impart the information I desired" (University of British Columbia typescript).
In the period 1902–06, Hill-Tout did field work among the Chehalis, Scowlitz, Lillooet, the Lekwungen of Victoria, the Island Halkomelem (Cowichan), and the Okanagan. These reports, with the Sechelt, constitute the five major contributions published by the Royal Anthropological Institute (see items #22, 23, 24, 27, 29 below). As the letter from E. Sidney Hartland (printed below) indicates, Hill-Tout was not in good health at this time; and the Okanagan proved to be his last field work (1906). The report was written up for the Winnipeg meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1909) and finally published in 1911.
In the midst of all this, Hill-Tout was appointed Justice of the Peace in Abbotsford on 20 April 1903 (certificate in Vancouver Museum).
This period of intense ethnological activity was capped by three major items of public recognition: (1) Hill-Tout was invited to give a paper at the meeting of the American Anthropological Association in San Francisco on 29 August 1905, subsequently published in the American Anthropologist (item #25); (2) he was invited to contribute the article on the Coast Salish in the ethnological survey of all Canada, edited by Franz Boas for the Ontario Ministry of Education (see item #26); and (3) Constable & Co. of London commissioned him to write one of their series on The Native Races of the British Empire (see item #28). In addition, he was made a fellow of the American Ethnological Society on 9 November 1908.
1909–1925
“As a lecturer upon Anthropology and cognate subjects Professor Hill-Tout has been in frequent demand for many years past, and his lecture tours have carried him to many parts of the American continent. He possesses the happy faculty of being able to appeal in a popular way to a general audience, no matter how complicated and scientific his subjects. This is notably apparent in his lecture upon The Origin and History of our Alphabets.' His musical and cultured voice and admirable choice of words have added to his popular appeal. One of his most successful lectures was delivered on May 27th 1915, to an audience of 500 people in the ballroom of the Chateau Laurier, Ottawa, when the Duke of Connaught, then Governor-General of Canada, was one of the audience. His subject was The Antiquity of Man in the Light of Modern Discoveries.' Upon that occasion an Ottawa newspaper in the course of its report observed, The lecturer dealt fascinatingly with his subject and proved that sometimes a study which is popularly supposed to be “dry” can be made exceedingly absorbing.' One of his most popular lectures is that upon the buried city of Quirigua in Central America. He is one of the leading authorities upon Totemism' and was quoted several times by Frazer in the latter’s monumental work upon that subject. Occasionally he has broken away in his lecturing from his scientific subjects, as in his lecture ‘Shakespeare, the Age, the Man and the Poet’" (University of British Columbia typescript).
In this period of public exposure, Hill-Tout’s major lectures and/or publications are as follows:
(a) February 1910, lecture to Vancouver Art, Historical and Scientific Society on “History of Totemism.”
(b) Lecture at the meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Pittsburgh, 27–29 December 1911 (for abstract, see item #30); elected Vice-President of the Institute’s Canadian Department.
(c) March 1912, lecture to Vancouver
