Morals.

The moral degradation of these people is so great that they seem to be
nearly destitute of any sense of wrong-doing, while committing the
grossest social sins imaginable. There is every reason to believe that
before they came in contact with the whites, that they were much given
to licentious practices. Many of their legends and traditions are
filled with vulgarities too great for translation. But with the
opportunities afforded after the influx of whites into their country
for obtaining money by the prostitution of their females, this
practice has prevailed until many of the present generation of young
Indian women seem to regard this mode of serving their kindred as
their legitimate end. Almost incredible as it may appear, fathers and
mothers become procurers for their own daughters, brothers for
sisters, and, in some instances, husbands for their wives. Soon after
my arrival at Skidegate, a Hyda young man called at my cabin to see if
I would not take a rather comely Indian girl, about twenty years of
age, who accompanied him, to live with me, and neither seemed in the
slightest degree embarrassed, either in making the proposition or when
it was declined. Immodesty of speech or action in public places,
however, is rare, even among those women who change their _man_ so
often as it suits their caprice or convenience. Both the married and
unmarried have apparently not neglected their opportunities to improve
upon the native stock by the introduction of foreign blood. There are
Russian, English, Canadian, American, Chinese and Negro Hydas; Hydas
with fiery red hair, tow heads, blue eyes, and all complexions from
black to pale white. Many of these homeless half-breeds are farmed out
with relatives, by their mothers, when single, thus leaving them free
to go and come without incumbrance. Barrenness, disease and early