and the misko-pwahgunahbeck, or red pipe-stone of the Coteau des Prairies. His saw, with which the stone is first roughly blocked out, is made by himself out of a bit of iron hoop, and his other tools are correspondingly rude; nevertheless the workmanship of Pabahmesad shows him to be a master of his art. A characteristic illustration of his ingenious sculpture is engraved here

(Fig. 26), from the original, in the museum of the University of Toronto.

It is impossible that a people manifesting such peculiar aptitude for artistic imitation, should fail to copy some of the novel arts and objects brought under their notice by European traders and settlers. But the unimpressible nature of the Indian, and the dormant state of his mental faculties, appear in the fact of his imitation extending only to the transference of a few novel forms to his carvings, while all the ingenious discoveries. and useful arts of the European remain unheeded or despised. Here and there the manufactures of Europe, bartered by the fur trader for Indian peltries, find acceptance. The copper kettle displaces in part the rude and fragile clay caldron, and the blanket gradually takes the place of the more graceful buffalo robe. But the most characteristic and interesting objects of native workmanship disappear in this process of exchange:

with no other effect on the poor Indian than to make him more dependent on the civilisation which he despises, and to rob him of the few simple arts which he has inherited from his fathers.

The tendency to imitation, within the limited range of native art-manufacture, shows itself more like an unreasoning instinct, where the Indian is now frequently found laboriously reproducing the simple form of the clay pipe in the hardest stones; though here also his taste is seen to break the bonds of fashion, and to superadd incongruous, yet not ungraceful ornaments and devices to the homely European model. But the most elaborate of all the modern specimens of pipe-sculpture are those executed by the Babeen, or big-lip Indians, so called from the singular deformity the females produce by inserting a piece of wood into a slit made in the lower lip. The frontispiece to vol. I. illustrates the characteristic physiognomy of this tribe. It is an accurate portrait of a Chimpseyan chief, from sketches taken by Mr. Paul Kane during his travels in the North-west. The Chimpseyan or Babeen Indians are found along the Pacific Coast, about latitude 54° 40′, and extend from the borders of the Russian dominions eastward arly to Frazer River. Some of their customs are arcely less singular than that from whence their name is derived, and are deserving of minute comparison with the older practices which pertained to the more civilized regions of the continent. This is especially the case in relation to their rites of sepulture, wherein they make another marked distinction between the sexes. Their females are wrapped in mats, and placed on an elevated platform, or in a canoe raised on poles, but they invariably burn their male dead.

The pipes of the Babeen, and also of the Clalam Idans occupying the neighbouring Vancouver's Island,

VOL. II.

B

are carved with the utmost elaborateness, and in the most singular and grotesque devices, from a soft blue claystone or slate found in that region. The form is in part determined by the material, which is only procurable in thin slabs; so that the sculptures, wrought on both sides, present a sort of double bas-relief. From this, singular and grotesque groups are carved, without any apparent reference to the final destination of the whole as a pipe. The lower side is generally straight, and in the specimens I have examined, the pipes measure from two or three to fifteen inches long; so that in these the pipe-stem is included. A small hollow is carved out of some protruding ornament to serve as a bowl, and from the further end a perforation is drilled to connect with this. The only addition made to it, when in use, is the insertion of a quill or straw as a mouth-piece instead of the usual pipe-stem, which would be incompatible with the peculiar form, as well as with the weight, of such elaborate and somewhat brittle works

of art. The woodcut (Fig. 27) illustrates the simpler devices of the Babeen sculptor in decorating one of his smaller pipes. But large and complicated designs are of common occurrence. One of the largest brought back by Mr. Kane measures nearly fifteen inches long. It consists of a grotesque intermixture of figures, in which that of the frog predominates; though accompanied with strange monstrosities intermingling human

and brutal forms, and presenting some analogy to much of the sculpture on the temple-ruins of Central America.

The more elaborate specimen of pipe-sculpture shown in Fig. 28, may be regarded as the conventional repre

entation, by the Babeen artist, of a bear-hunt in the viinity of one of the Hudson's Bay Company's stations or forts; and possibly the swampy nature of the scene of action is indicated by the frogs, though the latter are favourite objects with the Babeen sculptors. The groteque masks imitated here, are executed the size of life, and brilliantly coloured; and furnish a frequent sulgeet repeated in miniature on the claystone carvings. From the costume, it is evident that the man who turns. Lis back on the bear is intended to represent one of the Hudson's Bay Company's trappers. The group constitutes altogether an ingenious and spirited specimen of native art, such as would be regarded as no discreditable product of conventional design if sculptured on a Norman capital of the twelfth century.

Messrs. Squier and Davis conclude their remarks on the sculptures of the Mounds by observing: "It is un

sary to say more than that, as works of art, they are immeasurably beyond anything which the North American Indians are known to produce, even at this day, with all the suggestions of European art, and the

advantages afforded by steel instruments. The Chinooks, and the Indians of the north-western coast, carve pipes, platters, and other articles, with much neatness, from slate. We see in their pipes, for instance, a heterogeneous collection of pulleys, cords, barrels, and rude human figures, evidently suggested by the tackling of the ships trading in those seas. The utmost that can be said of them is, that they are elaborate, unmeaning carvings, displaying some degree of ingenuity." This descriptive comparison of the mound-sculptures with the arts of the Indians of the north-west coast, is based on deductions drawn from exceptional specimens very different from many brought from the same localities, or investigated in the hands of the native sculptors; which obviously constitute the true illustrations of Indian skill and artistic design. In addition to such, however, among a varied collection of Indian relics from the north-west coast, now in the possession of the Hon. G. W. Allan, of Toronto, there is one of the ingenious examples of imitative skill referred to, which was procured on Vancouver's Island. But while this exhibits evidence of the same skilful dexterity as other carvings in the blue pipe-slate of the Clalam and Babeen Indians, it presents the most striking contrast to them, alike in design and style of art. It has a regular bowl, imitated from that of a common clay pipe, and is decorated with twisted ropes, part of a ship's bulkhead, and other objects-including even the head of a screw-nail,—all equally familiar to us, but which no doubt attracted the eye of the native artist from their novelty.

Another example procured by Professor Hind during his command of the exploring expedition to the Assinaboin and Saskatchewan rivers, is a representation of one of the Hudson's Bay Company's forts, with figures in European costume. These cannot for a moment be compared