Food of the Haida
"Although game is plentiful, the Haidas are not a race of hunters, but derive their food chiefly from the innumerable multitude of fish and sea-animals, which, each variety in its…
From: 1878 C.E. To: 1874 C.E.
Location: Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Canada
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
Although game is plentiful, the Haidas are not a race of hunters, but derive their food chiefly from the innumerable multitude of fish and sea-animals, which, each variety in its season, fill the coast waters. Most of the coast tribes, and all who live inland, kill the deer and other animals, particularly since the introduction of firearms, but it is generally the skin and not the flesh that is sought.
Some tribes about the Bentinck Channels, at the time of Mackenzie's visit, would not taste flesh except from the sea, from superstitious motives.
Birds that burrow in the sand-banks are enticed out by the glare of torches, and knocked down in large numbers with clubs. They are roasted without plucking or cleaning, the entrails being left in to improve the flavor.
Potatoes, and small quantities of carrots and other vegetables, are now cultivated throughout this territory, the crop being repeated until the soil is exhausted, when anew place is cleared.
Wild parsnips are abundant on the banks of lakes and streams, and their tender tops, roasted, furnish a palatable food; berries and bulbs abound, and the inner tegument of some varieties of the pine and hemlock is dried in cakes and eaten with salmon-oil.
The varieties of fish, sent by nature to the deep inlets and streams for the Haida's food, are very numerous; their standard reliance for regular supplies being the salmon, herring, eulachon or candle-fish, round-fish, and halibut.
Salmon are speared; dipped up in scoop-nets; entangled in drag-nets managed between two canoes and forced by poles to the bottom; intercepted in their pursuit of smaller fish by gill-nets with coarse meshes, made of cords of native hemp, stretched across the entrance of the smaller inlets; and are caught in large wicker baskets, placed at openings in weirs and embankments which are built across the rivers. The salmon fishery differs little in different parts of the Northwest.
The candle-fish, so fat that in frying they melt almost completely into oil, and need only the insertion of a pith or bark wick to furnish an excellent lamp, are impaled on the sharp teeth of a rake, or comb. The handle of the rake is from six to eight feet long, and it is swept through the water by the Haidas in their canoes by moonlight.
Herring in immense numbers are taken in April by similar rakes, as well as by dip-nets, a large part of the whole take being used for oil.
Seals are speared in the water or shot while on the rocks, and their flesh is esteemed a great delicacy.
Clams, cockles, and shellfish are captured by squaws, such an employment being beneath manly dignity.
Fish, when caught, are delivered to the women, whose duty it is to prepare them for winter use by drying. No salt is used, but the fish are dried in the sun, or smoke-dried by being hung from the top of dwellings, then wrapped in bark, or packed in rude baskets or chests, and stowed on high scaffolds out of the reach of dogs and children. Salmon are opened, and the entrails, head, and back-bone removed before drying. During the process of drying, sand is blown over the fish, and the teeth of the eater are often worn down by it nearly even with the gums.
The spawn of salmon and herring is greatly esteemed, and besides that obtained from the fish caught, much is collected on pine boughs, which are stuck in the mud until loaded with the eggs. This native caviare is dried for preservation, and is eaten prepared in various ways; pounded between two stones, and beaten with water into a creamy consistency; or boiled with sorrel and different berries, and moulded into cakes about twelve inches square and one inch thick by means of wooden frames.
After a sufficient supply of solid food for the winter is secured, oil, the great heat-producing element of all northern tribes, is extracted from the additional catch, by boiling the fish in wooden vessels, and skimming the grease from the water or squeezing it from the refuse. The arms and breast of the women are the natural press in which the mass, wrapped in mats, is hugged; the hollow stalks of an abundant seaweed furnish natural bottles in which the oil is preserved for use as a sauce, and into which nearly everything is dipped before eating.
When the stock of food is secured, it is rarely infringed upon until the winter sets in, but then such is the Indian appetite—ten pounds of flour in the pancake-form at a meal being nothing for the stomach of a Haida, according to Poole—that whole tribes frequently suffer from hunger before spring.
Bancroft, Hubert Howe. Native Races of the Pacific States. Vol. 1, Appleton, 1874.
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