Some of the
savages wore brightly painted wooden masks as part of their gala
attire. Others carried totems--pieces of wood carved in the likeness
of bird or beast to typify manitou of family or clan. By way of
showing their prowess, some even offered the white men human skulls
from which the flesh had not yet been taken. By this Cook knew the
people were cannibals. Some were observed to be wearing spoons of
European make as ornaments round their necks. What we desire to
believe we easily accept. The white men did not ascribe the spoons to
traders from New Spain on the south, or the Russian settlements to the
north; but thought this place must be within trading distance of Hudson
Bay, whence the Indians must have obtained the spoons. And so they
cherished the hope of a Northeast Passage from this slim sign. In a
few days fifteen hundred beaver and sea-otter had been obtained in
trade, sixty-nine sea-otter--each of which was worth at that time one
hundred dollars in modern money--for a handful of old nails.
To these deep-sea wanderers of Cook's crews, the harbor was as a
fairy-land.
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