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Show ipoo] NORTHERN INTERIOR INDIANS 123 The northern Athapascans are among the most primitive of all American stocks. They make a rude pottery and weave the hair of the mountain goat. Agriculture is unknown, and their livelihood is precarious and difficult. The advent of the Hudson Bay Company has affected the life of this group to a great extent, and much of their native manufacture has now given place to articles obtained from the posts in return for furs. The Salishan tribes of British Columbia are somewhat more advanced. The former houses of these Indians were underground lodges covered in with roofs of beams, mats, and dirt. The excavation was three or four feet deep and eighteen to thirty feet in diameter; and from the edges four beams were inclined towards the centre, supported by posts and covered by cross- poles, woven mats, brush, and dirt. A hole was left at the apex, which served as the door and in which a ladder stood. The larger houses would be occupied by several families. These underground lodges were used only in winter, and in summer the people lived in tents of bark or mats woven of rushes. The household utensils were usually of basketry or bark. 1 Of late years these Indians, who are much in contact with whites, have given up most of their old industries, live in log huts, and have adopted the clothing and utensils of civilization. ^ eit, " The Thompson Indians of British Columbia" ( Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., Memoirs, II., 192 ff.). |