Nak'azdl oral history of the introduction of iron

Figure 2

Oral traditions of the Nak'azdli pertaining to the introduction of iron tools were recorded in the late 20 th century by Rev. Adrian Morice. It is important to look at the details of this information to gain an understanding of the timing of the introduction of iron utensils into northern British Columbia.

Morice was told that a man named Na'kwoel from Stuart Lake was the first person to acquire an iron blade for a woodworking adze. His grandson Kwah was the first person to acquire an iron knife.

Na'kwoel (c. 1660-1765), obtained his adze about 1730 at the village called Tsechah - located close to what is now Hazelton on the Skeena River. Tsimshian traders - who were said to have received it from ships on the North Pacific - brought the knife up the River. However, there are presently no documented activities of non-aboriginal traders off this part of the coast until the end of the 1700s.

The Nak'azdli told Morice that Na'kwoel's iron adze blade was acquired at a ceremonial feast, where it was hung from one of the lodge rafters for the guests to view. It's possession served to enhance Na'kwoel's prestige among people of the region.

[Iron objects have been found in archaeological excavations at the Chinlac Village site near the confluence of the Stuart and Nechaco Rivers (Borden 1952). Could these objects be the same age as Na'kwoel's adze?]

Morice was told that Chinlac village was attacked and devastated by the Chilcotin about 1745. The chief of the village Khadintel, was absent during the attack. Khadintel set out on a revenge raid three years later with a few survivors from the old Chinlac village and allied villages at the north end of Stuart Lake , Stony Creek and Fraser Lake .

The Nak'azdli told Morice how they attacked and devastated the Chilcotin village at Anahem. The survivors of the Chinlac massacre later settled among relatives at Tache, at the north end Stuart Lake , and at Lheitl near Fort George (see End Note).

Kwah and his Dagger

After the Chinlac massacre, about 1780, the Nazko from Blackwater River attacked and killed most of the people at a village above Hay Island on the upper Stuart River . The chief's 15-year-old brother Nathadlhthoelh (Mal-de-gorge) escaped. Two of his sons on a hunting expedition at the time were Kwah, about 25 years old, and Oehulhtzoen about 22. Kwah's mother was the daughter of Na'kwoel, the owner of the first iron adze.

The Nak'azdli told Morice that when Kwah became a duneza (nobleman) he chose the title of his maternal uncle A'ke'toes (1 st son of Na'kwoel). Kwah was known as the first man to own an iron dagger among the Nak'azdli. Kwah held a potlatch to pay for the dagger, which he received from a duneza living at Hagwilget on the lower Bulkely River about 1775 (Morice, 1904).

About 1782, Kwah took revenge on a Nazko village. He chased a man named Ts'oh Dai and killed him with his iron dagger. Morice, recording the story in the 1890s, pointed out that the dagger used by Kwah was “still in the possession of one of his sons at Stuart Lake ” (Morice 1904:25). Morice has the same drawing of “Kwah's dagger” in his 1894 (p.142) and 1904 (p.25) publications.

Morice recorded that Kwah had a friend whose father (Utzi-lla-e'ka) possessed an iron axe which, at the time, was “still exceedingly precious” in the Stuart Lake area. Kwah's friend lost his father's iron adze in a gambling game at Tache village. Kwah later killed Utzi-lla-e'ka who blamed him for losing the iron adze. I would suggest that Kwah would be at least 20 years old at this time and lacking his own iron dagger. Utzi-lla-e'ka may have had his iron adze about 1760 – 1770.

Kwah’s Dagger and James Douglas

Kwah's dagger became famous in the Euro-American community because of an incident that involved Sir James Douglas, when he was a young clerk at the Hudson 's Bay trading post at Stuart Lake .

In 1828 an aboriginal man named Zulth-nolly, who was involved in the killing of two Hudson Bay employees five years earlier, was found visiting the local village while chief Kwah was away. Douglas 's men killed Zulth-nolly. This resulted in Kwah and his men coming into the fort where they disarmed and tied-up James Douglas until he promised to provide trade goods that were required to appease Zulth-nolly's relatives. Under local custom, Kwah, as the village head, was responsible for protecting Zulth-nolly.

Several exaggerated versions of the incident suggest that Kwah's dagger was about to be used by one of his men to kill Douglas, but Kwah intervened and saved Douglas 's life. There are a number of versions of the incident between Kwah and Douglas. The history and relationship of these stories is presented in Appendix I.

The recent history of Kwah’s Dagger

Figure 3

The oral tradition states that Kwah passed the dagger to his fourth son, Daya or Moise, who turned it over to his brother Uts'oolh (also named Gooznal and Augustine). It then came into the possession of chief Louie Billy.

Lizette Hall, daughter of chief Louie Billy, sent a letter to the Royal B.C. Museum on June 22, 1998 explaining the more recent history of the dagger:

“Towards the end of his life Gooznal gave the dagger to my father, with these words. ‘I believe you will be able to look after your grandfather's dagger, so I am putting it in your hands'. Later, the dagger was loaned, I believe to the Hudson's Bay Company in Winnipeg . After this, my father became friends with Dr. J. B. Munro the Deputy Minister of Agriculture from Victoria . Dr. Munro helped my father get the dagger back. Sometime later, Mr. Munro came around for a visit. He and my father made a verbal agreement (in my presence) that Mr. Munro take the dagger back to Victoria to guard it. They agreed that if he (Mr. Munro) died first it would be returned to dad, should my dad die first, the dagger would stay in Mr. Munro's keeping.

Waiting a reasonable length of time after Mr. Munro's death, and not hearing anything, I wrote for my father to a mutual friend, Mr. Bruce McKelvie about this dagger and the agreement. Mr. McKelvie answered and he presumed it was in safekeeping and sent us Mrs. Munro's address, and so I wrote for dad to the lady [Lillian Munro] regarding the dagger and the agreement with her late husband. She wrote on January 25, 1957 that everything was in storage. She said the terms of the agreement would be carried out when she got the dagger out of storage. This is the last we heard of K'wah's dagger”

John Munro first met Chief Louie Billie Prince in 1926 and visited him on many occasions. Munro had probably read Morice's 1904 account of Kwah's dagger and was interested in seeing it. An anonymous photograph of Chief Louis Billy (Figure 3) shows him holding Kwah's Dagger in July of 1926 – possibly this photograph was taken as a result of Munro's visit.

Chief Louie Billie Prince visited Winnipeg in 1920, when the Hudson 's Bay Company celebrated the 250 th Anniversary of their establishment. A photograph of First Nations chiefs in Winnipeg - that includes Chief Louie Billie Prince - is shown on page 2 in Lizette Hall's book (1992). I located a related photograph in the Royal B.C. Museum collections, accessioned as PN11953. It is a copy of an original that has written on the front: “Indian Chiefs from Northern British Columbia visiting Head Office Union Bank of Canada , Winnipeg ”. The chiefs from different areas of eastern central B.C. include “Louis Billie” and “George Prince”.

Lizette Hall was correct - the records provided to me by Katherine Pettipas of the Manitoba Museum shows that the dagger was loaned to the Hudson 's Bay Archives in Winnipeg . The information with HBCA accession No. 2283 states:

“The Kwah Dagger borrowed from Robert Watson in June 1928 from Chief Louis Billy Prince for the Company's Historical Exhibit – returned in 1937”.

I knew that Robert Watson had acquired the dagger because on November 4, 1934, The Daily Colonist of Victoria had a feature article titled “Kwah's Dagger”. It shows a fanciful First Nations wearing a Plains style ceremonial headdress and holding a dagger. Below this is a drawing labeled “Kwah's Deadly Dagger”. I knew that the author of the article, Robert Watson, had been to Ft. St. James in September of 1928, because he wrote a first hand account about the Sir George Simpson Centennial held at the Fort. Watson must have visited the Fort earlier in the spring and confirmed his acquiring of the dagger in this article:

“On a visit several years ago to Fort St. James, the writer saw and held is his hand the famous Kwah dagger …and after a persuasive conversation with Chief Louis Billy Prince, who possessed it, he had the satisfaction of bringing it back with him”.

Figure 4

The drawing of the dagger shows a similar shaped blade to the 1894 and 1904 knife drawings in Morice's publications, and a later photograph of the one once in the possession of John Munro - but the end of the handle in the Morice drawing is knob shaped and the 1934 drawing has a rounded piece at the end of the handle. I would suggest that the drawing in Morice was meant to represent the dagger, as it once was – not as the one then in the possession of one of Kwah's sons. Morice states:

“Below, the reader will also find figured a steel dagger which came into the possession of the Carriers some 110 or 120 years ago …It was …originally much larger. The handle was also of a different description, the knife being one of a class of steel daggers called in the dialect of the Babines t'jak-nanist'ser, or ‘rounded at the end' (of the handle). It probably resembled the instrument represented by fig. 108 e of Niblack's”.

This figure in Niblack shows a round disc-like end on the handle – I think there is an attempt to copy this into the design of the dagger drawn for the 1934 newspaper account.

KWAH’S DAGGER                          
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