property rather than on ability in war, in which respect the
Haidas were more like the people of today than were any of the
other Indian tribes.

* 11th Edition, vol. XXII, p. 730.


Slavery was common among the Haidas. Even as late as 1861, 7800
Tlingits held 828 slaves. Slavery may not be a good institution
in itself, but it indicates that people are well-to-do, that they
dwell in permanent abodes, and that they have a well-established
social order. Among the more backward Iroquois, captives rarely
became genuine slaves, for the social and economic organization
was not sufficiently developed to admit of this. The few captives
who were retained after a fight were adopted into the tribe of
the captors or else were allowed to live with them and shift for
themselves--a practice very different from that of the Haidas.

Another feature of the Haidas' life which showed comparative
progress was the social distinctions which existed among them.
One of the ways in which individuals maintained their social
position was by giving away quantities of goods of all kinds at
the potlatches which they organized. A man sometimes went so far
as to strip himself of nearly every possession except his house.
In return for this, however, he obtained what seemed to him an
abundant reward in the respect with which his fellow-tribesmen
afterward regarded him. At subsequent potlatches he received in
his turn a measure of their goods in proportion to his own gifts,
so that he was sometimes richer than before. These potlatches
were social as well as industrial functions, and dancing and