Annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution . Indians are based to a great extent on theoccurrence of the yellow and red cedars. The wood of the red cedar,which is easily split, is worked into planks, which serve for building 46 TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY [BTH. ANN. 31 houses, and which are iit ilized in a great variety of ways by the nativewoodworker. The bark of the red cedar is also used extensively formaking matting, baskets, and certain kinds of clothmg. Strong ropesare made of twigs of the cedar, while others are made of twisted cedarbark. F
Annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution . Indians are based to a great extent on theoccurrence of the yellow and red cedars. The wood of the red cedar,which is easily split, is worked into planks, which serve for building 46 TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY [BTH. ANN. 31 houses, and which are iit ilized in a great variety of ways by the nativewoodworker. The bark of the red cedar is also used extensively formaking matting, baskets, and certain kinds of clothmg. Strong ropesare made of twigs of the cedar, while others are made of twisted cedarbark. Formerly blankets were woven of the inner bark of the yellowcedar, which was sliredded and softened by careful beating, and thenwoven by a simple method of twining. The wool of mountain goatswas also spun and woven. It may be said that the salmon and cedar are the foundations ofNorthwest coast culture. Part of the year the Indians live in permanent villages. Thesevillages consist of large wooden houses built of cedar planks andarranged in a row facing the sea. A street is leveled in front of the. ^/^////^/Pp:y7/Z7P^^^^ FjG. 1. Rear elevation of house. houses, and the canoes are placed on runways on the beach in frontof the village. Tradition tells of villages of several rows of olden times the houses of the Tshnshian were of moderate size,probably about tliirty feet square. The following description is basedon the observation of a few houses seen in the village of the Glt-qxalain 1894: Wliile the house of the Haida ^ generally has on each side ofthe central Ime three heavy beams which support the roof, the houseof the Tsimshian and of the Kwakiutl has only one pair of heavybeams, one on each side of the doorway. In the Kwakiutl housethese two beams, which rest on heavy posts, stand no more than sixfeet apart.* In the houses of the Tsimshian and Nlsqa^ (figs. 1-3)they stand about halfway between the central line and the lateral Boas 1,1806, pp. £80-£83. 2 See G. M. Da
Size: 2125px × 1175px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectindians, bookyear1895
