OCR Text |
Show and churches, and sing ribald, patriotic and religions songs. Some work in canneries, some in mills, some are iongshorenien, and some fishers and sealers. Tribal divisions are disappearing, and, following the old fur traders' Chiuook terminology, the more common speech calls every male a "Siwash" and every woman a lLKlootch-man." This ope11s an iuteresting part of the India11 qnestion. The general impression of the de1:line of the red meii in numbers is correct, so far as the Indians of Pnget Souud are concerned; but even this statement must be taken with qna1ifioat.ions. Going ba,ck twenty-five or fifty or more years for our first basis of comparison, and accepting the cnrrent figures of those periods, me find a great falling off in the aboriginal pop-ulation. However, it should be remembered that the figures for those early periods were raildou estimates. Then the Indialis mere roving without reservationlimits. Few reservations weredefined nrior to 1850 : ~ ~ - - ~- ~~ but from 1850 to 1870 almost all were fixed, save recent modifications: But even in the nor?ocl from 1850 to 1870 the roving habits continued little broken, and it was well nigh impossible to oofiect accurate data. For the estimates then given large allowance must be made, and even since 1870 and 1880 there has been much difficulty in securing a correct census of the Indians. At ally time some of the tribe axe awiy from homehunting, fishing, or visiting. Epidemics formerly played large havoc in many tribes of this region, and in more recent yearsthey have not whollv esca~ed. I The f o l~~wi n g ' c om~~e h e~taibsliev oef su~nmarieso f populations will illustrate the statemei~tsof the preceding paragraph: Tarno. .. . ~ .. . - ~ . . ~ . It is qnite probable that there was no snch increase from1870 to 1880 as is indicated above, and that the falling off since IS80 is not as great as appears. Since 1880, as already stated, lnihny 111dians forii~erlyo n reservations and within agency control and enumeration have gone away into outlying regions. I was informed by a late agent that four small tribes, once included in the Tolalip Ageucy, have disappeared altogether, probably moving eastward or blending illto other more powerft~l t,r~bes. Some possibly are on the Ha11 Juan Islands, up toward8 tlre British line, and not included ill ally reservation, and some may be ill British Colnmbia. I now ask atteutio~l to another table, covering eight consecutive years, in mbich the population is given by reservations as well as by agencies. A few of these figures will suggest some seeming discrep-ancies, but, as a whole, they indicate carefulness incollecting and tab-ulating, ar~dse em to afford a reliable basis for estimating the tendency of the Indian populatio~in~ tlie Puget Sound country. 7809 I A-25 |