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Scala for Machine Learning Second Edition Patrick R.
Nicolas Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Patrick R. Nicolas
ISBN(s): 9781787122383, 1787122387
Edition: 2
File Details: PDF, 9.08 MB
Year: 2017
Language: english
Scala for Machine Learning Second
Edition
Table of Contents
Scala for Machine Learning Second Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
eBooks, discount offers, and more
Why subscribe?
Customer Feedback
Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Downloading the example code
Downloading the color images of this book
Errata
Piracy
Questions
1. Getting Started
Mathematical notations for the curious
Why machine learning?
Classification
Prediction
Optimization
Regression
Why Scala?
Scala as a functional language
Abstraction
Higher kinded types
Functors
 Monads
Scala as an object oriented language
Scala as a scalable language
Model categorization
Taxonomy of machine learning algorithms
Unsupervised learning
Clustering
Dimension reduction
Supervised learning
Generative models
Discriminative models
Semi-supervised learning
Reinforcement learning
Leveraging Java libraries
Tools and frameworks
Java
Scala
Eclipse Scala IDE
IntelliJ IDEA Scala plugin
Simple build tool
Apache Commons Math
Description
Licensing
Installation
JFreeChart
Description
Licensing
Installation
Other libraries and frameworks
Source code
Convention
Context bounds
Presentation
Primitives and implicits
Immutability
Let's kick the tires
 Writing a simple workflow
Step 1 – scoping the problem
Step 2 – loading data
Step 3 – preprocessing data
Immutable normalization
Step 4 – discovering patterns
Analyzing data
Plotting data
Visualizing model features
Visualizing label
Step 5 – implementing the classifier
Selecting an optimizer
Training the model
Classifying observations
Step 6 – evaluating the model
Summary
2. Data Pipelines
Modeling
What is a model?
Model versus design
Selecting features
Extracting features
Defining a methodology
Monadic data transformation
Error handling
Monads to the rescue
Implicit models
Explicit models
Workflow computational model
Supporting mathematical abstractions
Step 1 – variable declaration
Step 2 – model definition
Step 3 – instantiation
Composing mixins to build workflow
Understanding the problem
Defining modules
 Instantiating the workflow
Modularizing
Profiling data
Immutable statistics
Z-score and Gauss
Assessing a model
Validation
Key quality metrics
F-score for binomial classification
F-score for multinomial classification
Area under the curves
Area under PRC
Area under ROC
Cross-validation
One-fold cross-validation
K-fold cross-validation
Bias-variance decomposition
Overfitting
Summary
3. Data Preprocessing
Time series in Scala
Context bounds
Types and operations
Transpose operator
Differential operator
Lazy views
Moving averages
Simple moving average
Weighted moving average
Exponential moving average
Fourier analysis
Discrete Fourier transform (DFT)
DFT-based filtering
Detection of market cycles
The discrete Kalman filter
The state space estimation
 The transition equation
The measurement equation
The recursive algorithm
Prediction
Correction
Kalman smoothing
Fixed lag smoothing
Experimentation
Benefits and drawbacks
Alternative preprocessing techniques
Summary
4. Unsupervised Learning
K-mean clustering
K-means
Measuring similarity
Defining the algorithm
Step 1 – Clusters configuration
Defining clusters
Initializing clusters
Step 2 – Clusters assignment
Step 3 – Reconstruction error minimization
Creating K-means components
Tail recursive implementation
Iterative implementation
Step 4 – Classification
Curse of dimensionality
Evaluation
The results
Tuning the number of clusters
Validation
Expectation-Maximization (EM)
Gaussian mixture model
EM overview
Implementation
Classification
Testing
 Online EM
Summary
5. Dimension Reduction
Challenging model complexity
The divergences
The Kullback-Leibler divergence
Overview
Implementation
Testing
The mutual information
Principal components analysis (PCA)
Algorithm
Implementation
Test case
Evaluation
Extending PCA
Validation
Categorical features
Performance
Nonlinear models
Kernel PCA
Manifolds
Summary
6. Naïve Bayes Classifiers
Probabilistic graphical models
Naïve Bayes classifiers
Introducing the multinomial Naïve Bayes
Formalism
The frequentist perspective
The predictive model
The zero-frequency problem
Implementation
Design
Training
Class likelihood
Binomial model
 Multinomial model
Classifier components
Classification
F1 Validation
Features extraction
Testing
Multivariate Bernoulli classification
Model
Implementation
Naïve Bayes and text mining
Basics information retrieval
Implementation
Analyzing documents
Extracting relative terms frequency
Generating the features
Testing
Retrieving textual information
Evaluating text mining classifier
Pros and cons
Summary
7. Sequential Data Models
Markov decision processes
The Markov property
The first-order discrete Markov chain
The hidden Markov model (HMM)
Notation
The lambda model
Design
Evaluation (CF-1)
Alpha (forward pass)
Beta (backward pass)
Training (CF-2)
Baum-Welch estimator (EM)
Decoding (CF-3)
The Viterbi algorithm
Putting it all together
 Test case 1 – Training
Test case 2 – Evaluation
HMM as filtering technique
Conditional random fields
Introduction to CRF
Linear chain CRF
Regularized CRF and text analytics
The feature functions model
Design
Implementation
Configuring the CRF classifier
Training the CRF model
Applying the CRF model
Tests
The training convergence profile
Impact of the size of the training set
Impact of L2 regularization factor
Comparing CRF and HMM
Performance consideration
Summary
8. Monte Carlo Inference
The purpose of sampling
Gaussian sampling
Box-Muller transform
Monte Carlo approximation
Overview
Implementation
Bootstrapping with replacement
Overview
Resampling
Implementation
Pros and cons of bootstrap
Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)
Overview
Metropolis-Hastings (MH)
Implementation
 Test
Summary
9. Regression and Regularization
Linear regression
Univariate linear regression
Implementation
Test case
Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression
Design
Implementation
Test case 1 – trending
Test case 2 – features selection
Regularization
Ln roughness penalty
Ridge regression
Design
Implementation
Test case
Numerical optimization
Logistic regression
Logistic function
Design
Training workflow
Step 1 – configuring the optimizer
Step 2 – computing the Jacobian matrix
Step 3 – managing the convergence of optimizer
Step 4 – defining the least squares problem
Step 5 – minimizing the sum of square errors
Test
Classification
Summary
10. Multilayer Perceptron
Feed-forward neural networks (FFNN)
The biological background
Mathematical background
The multilayer perceptron (MLP)
 Activation function
Network topology
Design
Configuration
Network components
Network topology
Input and hidden layers
Output layer
Synapses
Connections
Weights initialization
Model
Problem types (modes)
Online versus batch training
Training epoch
Step 1 – input forward propagation
Computational flow
Error functions
Operating modes
Softmax
Step 2 – error backpropagation
Weights adjustment
Error propagation
The computational model
Step 3 – exit condition
Putting it all together
Training and classification
Regularization
Model generation
Fast Fisher-Yates shuffle
Prediction
Model fitness
Evaluation
Execution profile
Impact of learning rate
Impact of the momentum factor
 Impact of the number of hidden layers
Test case
Implementation
Models evaluation
Impact of hidden layers' architecture
Benefits and limitations
Summary
11. Deep Learning
Sparse autoencoder
Undercomplete autoencoder
Deterministic autoencoder
Categorization
Feed-forward sparse, undercomplete autoencoder
Sparsity updating equations
Implementation
Restricted Boltzmann Machines (RBMs)
Boltzmann machine
Binary restricted Boltzmann machines
Conditional probabilities
Sampling
Log-likelihood gradient
Contrastive divergence
Configuration parameters
Unsupervised learning
Convolution neural networks
Local receptive fields
Weight sharing
Convolution layers
Sub-sampling layers
Putting it all together
Summary
12. Kernel Models and SVM
Kernel functions
Overview
Common discriminative kernels
Kernel monadic composition
 The support vector machine (SVM)
The linear SVM
The separable case (hard margin)
The non-separable case (soft margin)
The nonlinear SVM
Max-margin classification
The kernel trick
Support vector classifier (SVC)
The binary SVC
LIBSVM
Design
Configuration parameters
The SVM formulation
The SVM kernel function
The SVM execution
Interface to LIBSVM
Training
Classification
C-penalty and margin
Kernel evaluation
Application to risk analysis
Anomaly detection with one-class SVC
Support vector regression (SVR)
Overview
SVR versus linear regression
Performance considerations
Summary
13. Evolutionary Computing
Evolution
The origin
NP problems
Evolutionary computing
Genetic algorithms and machine learning
Genetic algorithm components
Encodings
Value encoding
 Predicate encoding
Solution encoding
The encoding scheme
Flat encoding
Hierarchical encoding
Genetic operators
Selection
Crossover
Mutation
Fitness score
Implementation
Software design
Key components
Population
Chromosomes
Genes
Selection
Controlling population growth
GA configuration
Crossover
Population
Chromosomes
Genes
Mutation
Population
Chromosomes
Genes
Reproduction
Solver
GA for trading strategies
Definition of trading strategies
Trading operators
The cost function
Market signals
Trading strategies
Signal encoding
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
We had nearly sung it through when she came peeping in at the
door, as if she had a lingering desire to have the thing finished up.
So I got hold of her hand and drew her towards him, placed her
hand in his, laid my hand over them both, and held on until I had
finished the ceremony.
With this memory before me I have married many hundreds since,
and never failed to place my hand upon theirs, and hold on until the
ceremony was completed.
 CHAPTER XI.
FOODS, FEASTS AND FOLLIES.

“Those who attempt to reason us out of our follies begin at the

wrong end, since the attempt naturally presupposes us capable
of reason.”—Goldsmith.

Nature made bounteous provision for the wants of the aboriginal

inhabitants of British Columbia. The seas and rivers were teeming
with fish—salmon of several kinds, halibut, cod, and sturgeon, and
among smaller fish, herring, oolachan, smelts, and trout; the
beaches and shallows afforded large sea crabs, clams, cockles, and
oysters. The plains, valleys and mountains abounded in wild animals
of many kinds—elk, moose, cariboo, deer, mountain sheep and
goats, bears of different colors, and numerous smaller fur-bearing
creatures. The forests, the sky and the lakes and streams were alive
with members of the feathered tribe—swans, geese, ducks of several
varieties, and, besides all these, the Indians were not averse to
eating eagles and gulls, if necessity demanded.
Besides laying in large stores of dried meats and fish, the natives
gathered large quantities of wild berries, of which there were several
varieties, and dried them for their winter supplies. There were many
other kinds of food, such as the inner bark of the spruce tree, many
kinds of roots, wild potatoes, wild onions, wild rice, sea-weed, fish,
eggs or spawn, crab apples and nuts.

Methods of Cooking.
The people had three common ways of cooking their food: by
boiling, steaming, and broiling before the fire.
To cook a quantity of provisions in one of their big tubs or boxes—
for they had no pots in those days—they poured in water sufficient
to cook the quantity needed, and then red hot stones, lifted with a
pair of wooden tongs, were dropped in to make it boil. When salmon
or other fish were to be cooked, they usually cut off the heads and
tails, and kept up the boiling process until all was reduced to a
broth, when it was ladled out into dishes or long troughs and set
before the people. Think of seven hundred salmon cooked in this
way for a single feast!
To prepare food by steaming, a large fire was first kindled on a bed
of cobble stones. When the wood had burned out, the stones being
very hot, layers of green grass or sea-weed were laid on the top of
the stones and kept damp with water. The clams, mussels, or other
shell fish—if salmon, cod, halibut or sturgeon, usually only the heads
and tails were thus prepared—whatever they wished to cook, were
placed upon the grass, a little water was poured upon the top, and
the whole was closely covered with mats, leaves, or boughs to keep
in the steam. This is much the best means of cooking clams or other
shell fish. They are delicious when cooked after this fashion.
When it was desired to broil the salmon, birds, venison or other wild
meats, a stick the size of a broom handle, about four feet long, was
split part way down, and the meat or fish was put into the split,
while little sticks were placed crossways to keep the food spread.
The stick was then tied at the split end, while the other end, already
sharpened, was driven into the ground by the hot camp-fire, the flat
side being kept towards the fire. The oil or gravy was caught in a
clam shell or other dish and poured back upon the meat while
cooking. Salmon never tastes better than when cooked in this
manner. Often when travelling by canoe have we had deer, bear or
mountain-goat meat, ducks or geese, and even porcupine, eagle or
gulls, cooked in this way. The latter is quite palatable when you are
worn with travelling and the larder has become nearly exhausted.

Feasts.
It has been said, “It is always a feast or a famine with a native.”
Whether that is true or not, certain it is that the natives of the Pacific
Coast have a great variety of feasts. Indians, wherever you find
them, are very hospitable to strangers—the travellers and miners of
this vast country would all testify to this. They are most generous,
even reckless, with their food. If you are invited to a feast among
them the food is piled up before you, and after having satisfied your
appetite you are expected to take away all you cannot eat. If the
visitor is a chief or important person, what he has left is sent home
by messenger to his family. If he be any ordinary guest, he sweeps
off what remains—which is usually much more than he has eaten—
into a corner of his blanket or his shirt, and carries it away. If the
feast be of whale’s blubber, porpoise, fish of similar kind, or venison,
bear or mountain goat, it is cut up into slices and strung on a sharp
stick, or carried in his hand to the rest of his family.
At a big feast there are always several masters of ceremonies and a
number of waiters in attendance. These never sit down while the
eating is going on, though often a feast will last for six or seven
hours, having as many courses. There are numerous small, every-
day feasts where neighbors call upon each other in a happy, social
way.
One of the greatest offences to an Indian is to refuse to accept an
invitation which he has given you to eat with him and his friends.

Music and Dancing.

With most feasting is usually associated dancing and other
merriment.
The readiness with which the Indians pick up our beautiful hymn
tunes and learn to play our musical instruments has been remarked.
Indeed, these people are naturally very musical, and in their heathen
state were passionately fond of singing their own native melodies. Of
songs they had a great variety: war songs, marriage songs, songs
for feasts and public gatherings, mourning songs for the dead, songs
when the fish came, dancing songs, canoe songs, and many others.
When we asked the old dance-song maker where they got their
music, he replied:
“We get it from the wind in the trees, from the waves on the sea-
shore, from the rippling stream, from the mountain side, from the
birds, and from the wild animals.”
As for musical instruments, we are all familiar with the simple Indian
drum, made by stretching a deerskin tightly over a hoop. Besides
this they used as a drum a big square box, painted in different
colors, with figures of birds and animals upon it.
When the drummer was at work crowds would, accompany him,
beating time with sticks upon boards. The sound was weird in the
extreme, if heard at the dead of night, coupled with the shouts of
the heathen dancers.
Besides the drums were rattles of various shapes, used by the chiefs
and conjurers, and pipe whistles—indeed, whistles of many kinds,
imitating birds and animals—some of which were used by the
hunters in pursuit of game.
With much of their music is associated their pagan dancing. There
are professional dancers among the tribes, who as a rule are
identified with the clans of the medicine men. The heathen dances
are very fascinating to the heathen mind, and in nothing is the
“backsliding” of the Indian more noticeable than in his return to the
dance.
At the dancing season certain persons become possessed, or as the
An-ko-me-nums say, “the you-an, or dance-spirit, is on them.” They
dream dreams and see visions, and move about in a hypnotic state,
unable, or at least declining, to work, and roaring out at intervals a
sort of mournful sobbing, “Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh.” Then they go from
house to house, hunting up every kind of food they can get hold of,
and gorging themselves many times a day. At night these dancers,
all daubed and plastered with grease and paint, would gather in the
large houses, where the people were assembled, and work
themselves up into a frenzy, prancing up and down and round about,
performing numerous contortions. Then they would break out in
song, or in monotonous recitation relate their dreams and visions
and tell many weird tales. Then round and round, and up and down
again, they would prance, until they dropped from sheer exhaustion,
or fell, perhaps, into the fire, and another took their place. All this
time the onlookers watched and listened to the chanting and the
story, or screamed and pounded in frantic accompaniment to the
dancing.
The heathen dance is certainly demoralizing, and, like everything of
heathenism, is of the devil.

White Man’s Dance vs. Indian Dance.

Early in my stay at Nanaimo four or five of the leading chiefs came
to me with the proposition that if I would allow them to go on with
their potlatching and wild dancing every day in the week, they would
come to church and rest on Sunday.
“No; you had better stop all your heathenism,” was my answer.
Nothing daunted, they came back again later. Now they would all be
good on Sabbath and stand by me if they could dance. It was not
very bad, and they had to keep up a little of what their fathers told
them. And if I would not speak against it or pray against it they
would all be good soon and would have all their children go to
school.
“No, I cannot have anything to do with the old way, the dance, the
potlatch, etc., it is all bad,” I said.
Then they whispered to each other, “Oh, he is like a post; you
cannot move him.”
To give an idea of the scenes witnessed on these dancing occasions:
Old Sna-kwe-multh, a man who had been taken a slave by some
northern tribe, but who had found his way home, wished to
demonstrate his bravery. At a great feast he came rushing in half
naked and danced before the people. As his frenzy increased he
slashed at his thighs with some kind of sharp instrument, and then
with both hands caught up his own blood and drank it, to prove
himself a brave.
A number of white men, who had been witnesses of the shameful
scene, ran out and cried, “The devil is in the man.”
I denounced the custom and pleaded with them to give it up.
Speaking to the old Chief Squen-es-ton, I said, “You must stop it. It
is of the devil.”
“Oh,” said he, “the white man’s dance worse than the Indian’s
dance.”
“How do you make that out?” I said.
“Oh, Indian man, alone, dance all round the house and sit down.
And then Indian woman she dance all round and she sit down. But
white man take another man’s wife and hug her all round the
house.”
What could I say to the argument? What would you have said?

Potlatching.
Of the many evils of heathenism, with the exception of witchcraft,
the potlatch is the worst, and one of the most difficult to root out.
At one time its demoralizing influence was so manifest that the
Government passed a law prohibiting it, but this excellent law was
seldom properly enforced.
“Potlatch”—the word is from the Chinook and means “to give.”
Literally the idea is the giving away of everything a man possesses
to his friends. In return he gets nothing except a little flattery, a
reputation for generosity, and poverty.
“Tlaa-nuk” is the An-ko-me-num word, and it suggests something
more than “a giving,” or a feast, or an entertainment, or a ceremony,
for it is all of these and more. It is a system of tribal government
which enforces its tyrannical rule upon all, and overrides all other
laws of the nation or the individual.
Its outward manifestation of the heathen feast and dance, with the
giving of gifts to all present, is bad enough, but this is as nothing to
the unseen influence behind it all.
The potlatch relates to all the life of the people, such as the giving of
names, the raising into social position, their marriages, deaths and
burials.
A man desires, or thinks himself entitled to, some coveted position,
property or distinction, and for years, perhaps, makes preparation to
secure it. This can only be done by the law of “tlaa-nuk” (potlatch),
and so when ready he calls together from far and near his friends
and relatives, when, after much feasting and dancing and speech-
making, he gets up on a high platform and proceeds to give away all
that he possesses.
The ambition of an Indian to be thought greater, richer and more
influential than any of his neighbors leads him not only to give away
a large part of his goods—which, as a matter of fact, he expects
returned with interest on some future occasion, at another such
gathering—but wantonly to destroy very much in such a manner that
it can never be restored. For instance, think of a man taking a fine
large canoe, valued at, perhaps, one hundred and fifty dollars, and
smashing it into pieces; or of another seizing a number of beautiful
new guns or rifles and bending and breaking them so that they
would be utterly useless; or of another setting fire to piles of food
and of goods. Some few years ago, at one such gathering, the poor,
foolish creatures took rolls of new bills, the product of their
summer’s work, and threw them into the fire.
I knew a man at Nanaimo who, together with his wives and children,
worked for years saving and getting together much property; and
then a great potlatch was given, and everything went, to the last
stitch of clothing, and he and his family were left practically naked to
face the winter, without any provisions. His children nearly starved,
while he contracted a cold which led to consumption, from which he
died.
Some time ago it was rumored that the law against the potlatch was
to be repealed. This drew a strong protest from several quarters,
among them from some of the Indians themselves.
About that time the following letter, which explains itself, appeared
in the local press, signed by an Indian whose identity was vouched
for by a gentleman who knew him well:
“Having heard that in the last session of the provincial parliament a
resolution was passed asking Dominion Government to reconsider
the potlatch question with a view to repealing section 114, and that
there is to be an inquiry as to the evils of the potlatch, we should
like to tell the public what the potlatch is.
“Really and truly it is destruction to life and property, as we shall
show. The first is that the women go from home to other places for
immoral purposes, to get money or blankets to give away, or
potlatch, as people call it. The second is that they sell their
daughters to other men as soon as possible, sometimes twelve or
thirteen years old, marriage they call it; the people do not care so
long as they get blankets to potlatch with. And the third is that they
hate each other so much because of their trying to get one above
the other in rank, as it is according to how many times they potlatch
that they get the rank, and keep it, too. If they could they would
even poison one another. Even now they think they kill one another
by witchcraft, with intent to kill, and they believe that they do kill. A
man does not care for any relatives when the potlatch is in question.
The potlatch is their god; they will sacrifice everything to it—life,
property, relatives, children, or anything, must go for him to be a
‘tyee’ (chief) in the potlatch.
“A man after giving a potlatch will sit down, his children, too, without
knowing where he is going to get his food and clothes, as he has
given away everything, and he has borrowed half of it, for which he
has to pay back double. And another thing is, when they are mad
with one another they will break canoes or tear blankets or break a
valuable copper, to shame their opponent. The potlatch is one fight,
with quarrelling and hating one another.
“And another is the desecration of the dead. The hamatsa, or
medicine man, when he first comes from the woods, carries a dead
body in his arms, professing to have lived on such things when in
the woods, and as soon as the hamatsa comes in the house the
other hamatsas all get up and go and tear the body to pieces among
them like dogs; besides all this they bite the arms of one another;
and the other thing is that when a man gets ill he thinks he is
witchcrafted, and then his relatives will go and take the dead body
that they think he is fixed with: they cut and mutilate it to undo the
work that they think has been done to him. We have just heard of
such a case from Kurtsis, of a woman’s dead body having been
taken out and cut, to undo the work that they think has been done
to a certain man. All these things are pure facts, and we are
prepared to prove them if need be, and could tell other evils, but we
are afraid of tiring the public.”

Gambling.
The Indians are passionately fond of gambling. In olden times they
gambled, not with cards, but usually with round wooden pins about
three inches long, or with shells and pebbles.
The gamblers would sit opposite each other on the grass or in the
large houses, and a great crowd would gather on both sides, making
a rattling noise with short sticks on boards, and singing to work
themselves up for luck, or “power,” as they called it. The gambling
would go on night and day, almost week in and week out, until they
had not a shred of clothes left. Money, muskets, canoes, horses, and
sometimes the houses over their heads, they would stake on a
chance.
The story is told of one old man among the Kling-gets who gambled
away everything he had. Then, with the hope that he would have a
lucky day some time, he put himself down and gambled away for
days, still losing, until his wife, seeing that he was “going,”
persuaded him to stop. She had to pay two hundred blankets to buy
him back.
The gambling passion still lives with them, and now some of them
have adopted the methods of their white brothers—they were
always fond of imitating him, even to their own hurt—and are going
deeper and deeper into sin.
 CHAPTER XII.
NATIVE WORSHIP AND SUPERSTITIONS.

“Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple,

Who have faith in God and Nature,
Who believe, that in all ages
Every human heart is human,
That in even savage bosoms
There are longings, yearnings, strivings,
For the good they comprehend not,
That the feeble hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God’s right hand in that darkness
And are lifted up and strengthened....”
—“Hiawatha.”

The An-ko-me-nums, like most of the Indians of British Columbia,

were spirit worshippers. First of all, they believed in a great Chief
Spirit, who created all things and was all-wise and all-powerful, and
ruled over them for good, but who was not actively concerned for
them, and whom they never called upon except in cases of great
difficulty or distress.
Then they believed in a multitude of lesser spirits, who were in most
cases evilly disposed towards them. These inhabited certain
mountains and headlands and rocky, dangerous points, around
which the waves raged and tossed their frail canoes, and sometimes
upset them. A swirling eddy, a dangerous rapid, a lonely lake in the
mountains, a steep precipice where perhaps at some time or other
one of their people had met with disaster and possibly death, was
the abode of a “Stlaw-la-kum,” or evil spirit.
They prayed a great deal to the sun, to the moon, to the Great
Being who gave them all the fish and food, or to the spirit whom
they believed might be responsible for any impending danger. They
were often found in the woods praying. Hunters would pray and fast
for days in the mountains, bathing themselves and performing
certain exercises, in order to be successful hunters. They would pray,
while fishing, for a successful catch. And for weeks before going on
a war expedition they would fast and pray and bathe and paint
themselves in preparation for the undertaking.
Food and drink were often thrown on the fire as an offering to the
unknown Divinity, while the ascending smoke bore the prayers of the
poor blind worshippers onward to the Great Chief above.
Speaking of this, one of our native preachers says: “My grandmother
in the early morning used to kindle a fire as she sat on the river
bank. When it was a clear, quiet morning and the smoke would
ascend, as it seemed, straight up to the land above, she would say,
as she prayed for more food or for protection from sickness or
trouble, ‘Now our prayers will be answered.’ But if the wind blew the
smoke about, she would say it was no use praying, as such prayers
were useless.”
Out on the water, with the tempest threatening, they were
accustomed to turn around and whistle and wave their hands to the
wind, to keep it away, and when it grew stormy they would pray to
the mighty wind. Crossing the Gulf of Georgia on one occasion in a
big storm, the old heathen captain and his wife, with whom we
voyaged, prayed most appealingly, “Oh, you big storm, don’t you
drown us; you are so strong and we are so weak; don’t you make
such a rough sea. Why should we go down? We are all dirty, our
clothes are dirty, we are very dirty; if you take us down we shall
dirty your clear waters, they are so clear and blue. Don’t have us
dirty your beautiful waters.”
The south men, as well as the north, would throw out food and even
clothes as a sacrifice to appease the storm.
When becalmed on a fair day the conjurer or “windmaker” would
volunteer to raise the wind. He would begin by whistling and waving
the hand, and then praying to the Spirit of the locality. Should a light
breeze spring up they would shout and hurrah because they had
brought the wind.
Of their traditions we have not much to say. In common with many
other peoples, they had legends of the creation and of the deluge.
Their stories of the flood are very local in coloring, and usually
gather around a certain mountain peak, the highest in their
immediate vicinity. The legend of the thunder bird is one which is
repeated in varied forms all up and down the coast. The Nanaimos
told how the thunder was made up between two mountains.
Between two large rocks, near the shores of a little mountain lake,
some great birds which made the thunder had their nest. Then the
little thunders all came out, and they with the big thunders clapped
their wings; then the roll and roar of the thunder could be heard
echoing through the hills.

Death and Burial.

The An-ko-me-nums believed in a future existence, and placed upon
the graves the toys and trinkets of the children, the weapons and
belongings of their braves, the canoe or horse of the chief, which
they thought would be of service to the former owner in the land to
which he had gone.
They buried their dead in various ways. There are evidences that in
times long past they put many of them in rocky tombs and hid them
from their enemies. During times of war they buried them in large
pits, which were covered with ashes, and huge mounds of shells
were heaped on the top. At Comox, on Vancouver Island;
Musqueam, near Eburne, at the mouth of the Fraser; at Port
Hammond, and other places, where these mounds existed and have
been opened, human skulls and bones have been found in large
numbers.
Fifty years ago they enclosed the bodies of the dead in boxes and
placed them upon a scaffold, some ten or twelve feet high, to keep
them out of the way of animals. In still later times they placed them
on the ground and built little houses over them. To-day they are
buried in the earth, after the Christian fashion.
Such fear had they of death that the dead were not kept very long,
but were placed in a box and hurried out of the way as soon as
possible. They were particularly cruel and indifferent to their old
people, even placing them in their boxes before they were quite
dead.
I recall the case of a poor old man at Nanaimo who had been sick
for some time. I called one day at the house and did not find him on
the miserably dirty old cot. I then asked his son, a heathen, a chief,
and past middle age himself, where the old man was. “He is in that
box,” he replied, at the same time pointing to a native cedar box,
about eighteen inches square and two feet deep, made without a
nail, and bound with cedar withes.
I went to the box, and opening it I found the poor fellow, where
they had placed him, according to custom, crowded in and doubled
up, his head between his knees, but still alive. I had him taken out
at once, but he died the next day.
Some time ago, on the west coast, a man who had been very sick,
and whom they expected to die, was thus buried alive. His legs were
broken and his poor body was jammed into a box, and it was put
away on an island. A woman picking berries heard the man groan,
and with considerable grit for an Indian woman went and opened
the box and let him out. He is still living, though as a result of his
horrible experience he is compelled to make his way about as best
he may on all fours.

Did Not Know He Was Dead.

Several years ago smallpox raged along the coast and swept off
many of the Indians as well as the whites. The city and government
at Victoria appointed certain white grave-diggers to bury the
numerous corpses found upon the beach, among the trees, in huts
and in canoes.
In many cases the grave-diggers found poor creatures almost, but
not altogether, dead; they knew they would be fit for burial soon,
and did not care to spend time waiting for the last gasp. It is said
they were taking one poor fellow off to the grave, but he objected
on the very proper ground that he was not dead yet. He was told to
shut up, as he was dead, but too delirious to comprehend the fact.
So they carefully placed him under the sod to await the resurrection
morn.

Rising from the Grave.

The coal company at Nanaimo were building a wharf from a point in
the harbor, and paid for the removal of a number of Indian bodies
which had been buried near the spot. New graves were dug on a
little side hill, and to these the remains were transferred. The holes,
however, were quite shallow, owing to the presence of a clay hard-
pan underneath. Next day a great outcry was made in the camp,
and intense excitement prevailed, for most of the boxes had risen up
and had come out of the graves. We went down to discover the
cause of the disturbance, and what had seemed to the poor people
so strange and uncanny had been caused by the heavy rain of the
night before filling the shallow graves and floating out what they
contained. It took some time to quiet the fears of the people.
The men who do anything in any way in the digging of the grave or
the handling of the body are paid excessively for their services. This
may be due, in part, to their horrible fear of the dead.

Mourning for the Dead.

The Indian mother grieves for her children with the same intensity of
feeling that characterizes her white sister. After the burial she will
return to the grave in the early morning and weep bitterly. She often
continues this for days at a time. She wails and calls up the looks of
the little one, its acts and words. She will carry the clothes and
playthings to the little grave, and cry and talk away to her lost
darling, and pathetically plead for its return.
There is, however, a kind of professionalism about a great deal of
their mourning for the dead. When a chief or leading person had
passed away women were accustomed to rush into the house from
all parts of the village. Perhaps on their way there they might be
chatting and laughing about trifles, but as soon as they got near the
house where the dead lay, they would commence rubbing their
hands down their faces, and really seem to pump up their tears, for
before they were fairly seated the tears were flowing, while they
wailed and told all the good qualities of the dead.
After this had gone on for some time, someone belonging to the
house would hand around a dish or basket containing water. The
crying then ceased, and dipping their fingers in the water they
bathed faces and hands, and received the strips of calico or clothes
of the deceased, which was their reward for their weeping.

The Witch-Doctor.
The medicine-man, or witch-doctor, that demon among heathen
peoples, held sway among the An-ko-me-nums when I first went to
the Coast.
The shaman, or medicine-man, is the representative of the grossest
features of paganism. He has wielded, and still wields to some
extent, a marvellous influence over the people, because of the
supernatural powers which they believe him to possess.
He professes to have acquired his power by long months of
retirement in the mountains or beside some lonely lake, where he
fasted and prayed and held converse with the spirits and with
nature.
Returning, he practises certain magical rites, and by this means is
able, so he claims, to heal the sick and raise the dead and look into
the future, and even cause the death of many who may oppose his
magical powers.
The tyranny of this wretched despot and the awful absurdity of his
miserable pretensions, together with his fiendishly bitter opposition
to everything that is good, leads him to be feared and hated.
Their method of treating disease was not by means of medicine. It
was left to the old women of the tribe really to administer such
simple remedies as they might be acquainted with—poultices,
lotions, emetics, purgatives, and such-like. The witch-doctor preyed
upon the superstitions of the people, and by his conjurer’s rites
deceived and beguiled them.
When called in, in case of sickness, he would shake his rattle and
work himself up to a frenzy, scream and howl, and if it was a case of
fever he would rattle away for hours. If there was some fixed pain,
he would grab hold of the chest or forehead or place where the pain
was said to be, and then get down and suck and squeeze and suck
away until the blood came through the skin. Then repeatedly spitting
the blood into his hands, he would shout for his attendants to rattle
harder and sing louder, “It was coming.” Finally he would jump and
scream or cheer and say he had got it out, and then proceed to
show a piece of shell, glass, pebble, or a nail, which he claimed he
had taken from the body, and which was the cause of the trouble.
A cousin of Sallosalton’s, a bright youth who had attended our
school, in whom I had become very much interested, was taken very
sick with a fever, and the conjurer (witch-doctor) was called in. I
visited him, and saw that the old conjurer’s rattling and the
additional noise of the people beating time to his rattle or drum and
boards, together with the yelling and singing for hours, was only
distracting the poor boy and making him very much worse. I went to
the town and consulted the only doctor there. He came to see my
young friend, and said he felt sure that if the medicine were
administered properly, and we could keep the old conjurer away,
there was good hope of his recovery. So I told the people that we
did not want the conjurer there any more, and that they must help
me to keep the lad quiet. Night after night I sat up in order to
administer the medicine and keep the old imposter away, and thus
give him the necessary quiet. But I found that secretly during the
day, while I was resting, they would call in the conjurer again, as his
friends had more faith in him than in our medicine and nursing.
Several days passed before I discovered their doings. But one day I
slipped into the house unexpectedly and found the old fellow rattling
over him, with a number of his friends keeping time with sticks on a
board, to assist the old imposter, as he said, “to get the power.” I
rushed in and ordered him to stop and leave. A day or two after I
found him again at the same thing, all painted up and nearly naked,
and partly stretched out upon the body of the sick man, howling and
rattling away. My indignation was aroused, and I said to him, “If you
don’t stop you’ll kill that boy. Leave at once! and if you don’t I’ll
bundle you out of the house.”
 “One day I slipped in and found the old
fellow rattling over him.” p. 121
He saw that I was making for him, when he got up and crawled out,
saying that he was there by invitation. Of course, the father, mother
and friends, who were responsible, were very much disgusted at my
action.
I continued my watch by the poor boy for several nights, and had
the joy of knowing that he was trusting in Jesus. However, I was
suddenly called away to the Fraser River, and, much to my regret,
had to leave the sick one. After I left they got the conjurer back, and
finished their work, for the boy died soon afterwards.

“You Don’t Understand My Sick.”

It is lamentable to behold the superstitious dread of these people of
the power of the witch-doctor to do them harm.
During my stay at Nanaimo a bright, intelligent young man, about
nineteen years of age, by the name of Charlie, attended our school.
I missed him for some days, and on inquiry learned that he was sick.
I made my way to the old heathen house where he lived, and there
found him lying on a wretched cot, covered with his old dirty
blanket.
I said, “Charlie, what’s the matter?”
“I am sick, sir,” he replied.
I felt his pulse, made general inquiry, but could discover very little
the matter with him. Giving him some medicine, I told him to “have
a strong heart,” as he would soon be well.
Two or three days afterwards, on a beautiful sunny spring morning, I
visited him again, and found he was still lying in the same place. I
got him up and out of the old house into the sunlight, but he
seemed to grow worse rather than better.
Finally I said to him one day, “Charlie, what’s the matter with you?
You are not sick!”
“Oh, you cannot understand my sickness,” he replied.
“Where are you sick? What is the matter?” I continued.
“Oh,” he said, looking very serious, “white man don’t understand my
sickness.”
“Tell me where your sickness is?” I urged.
Pulling down his dirty blanket, and putting his hand upon his
stomach he said, “It is here. An old conjurer has made me sick. He
has blown something into my inside.”
“Oh, nonsense, Charlie!” said I. “It is no such thing. No man has
power to do that.”
But he shook his head and replied, “Oh, I told you, you don’t
understand my sick. The Indian has power, and he is using it on me,
and I shall die.”
Day by day I visited the poor boy and tried in every way to get him
to arouse himself and to go out with the rest of the boys. But no, he
lay there and sickened, and in about six weeks he died.
I do not believe anything was the matter, except his superstitious
fear that the old witch-doctor had put his spell upon him and was
killing him.

Retaliation for a Supposed Insult.

If there is a class that deserves severe treatment among the Indians
it is these miserable reprobates, who still are busy preying upon the
credulity of the people and working incalculable mischief.
At the present time there are several of these imposters among the
bands in the Lower Fraser Valley. They have been for years a
nuisance, the priests of paganism and the prophets of evil.
Their miserable pretensions we have ignored, and have left them
out, as far as possible, in our social gatherings among the people.
Several years ago invitations to the wedding of two of our young
people were sent to many of the Indians of the community, these
witch doctors alone being purposely left out.
This enraged them so much that they announced that they would kill
three persons who were at the gathering before a year was gone.
Shortly after one of the little pupils at the Institute, who had been ill
for some time, died, and they immediately claimed credit for the
child’s death. A little later a woman who attended was taken sick
and also died, and according to the statements of the conjurers she
was victim number two.
During the following summer a number of our Indians, as usual,
went down to the salmon fishing at the mouth of the river, among
whom was a middle-aged chief, one of our most intelligent Indians,
and, we considered, one of our truest Christians.
Typhoid was epidemic that year at Steveston, and this chief was
taken down with the fever.
Dr. Large, our energetic and successful medical missionary at Bella
Bella, was then at the Fraser River for the summer season, and
visited and gave the chief medical attention. He appeared to improve
under treatment and bade fair speedily to recover, but in an
unexplainable manner to the medical man the recovery was delayed.
He found, on inquiry, that the chief was not taking the medicine
prescribed, and had said that he did not think he would ever get
well. When pressed for his reasons, he confessed the belief that he
was the third victim of the witch-doctors’ rage, and that he could not
live. The missionary reasoned with him, pleaded with him, prayed
with him, but without avail, and finally the poor fellow died, the
victim of his own superstitious fears, upon which the conjurers had
worked all too successfully.
We were grieved beyond measure that such a noble life had been
thus cut short, and that the power of superstition and ignorance was
still so manifest.
This power of the medicine-man is coupled with the Indian’s belief in
witchcraft. No heathen Indian ever dies a natural death, for every
sickness or accident is due, according to their superstitious view, to
the evil eye or malign spell of someone who is evilly disposed
towards them. When calamity or sickness comes they immediately
apply to the witch-doctor to perform his incantations and discover
the witch. Sometimes it is an old woman of the tribe, whose term of
life is now necessarily short; sometimes it is a slave or a bright girl
or boy, and sometimes a whole family are pointed out as the “guilty
ones” and doomed to death. The atrocities committed by the
natives, moved by this dreadful superstition, are numberless and in
many cases too dreadful to relate. How fervently we pray that the
enlightening influence of the Holy Spirit may penetrate the gloom of
heathen darkness and forever drive out all the nameless horrors
which belong to paganism.
 CHAPTER XIII.
STRUGGLES WITH WHISKEY, AND THE
RAVAGES OF FIRE-WATER.

“Mourn for the lost,—but pray,

Pray to our God above,
To break the fell destroyer’s sway,
And show His saving love.”

For hundreds of years the natives of the Pacific Coast of British

Columbia have been exposed to the temptations of the white man’s
whiskey. The traders on ships in those early years thought it to their
advantage to take a good supply of rum with them in the traffic for
furs, and the poor people became so infatuated with it that while it
lasted they would not even go out after the pelts. Whether it was
the awful effects of the whiskey traffic upon the natives, or the risk
that the Company’s servants ran in dealing with drunken Indians, or
the loss to the Company’s business due to the condition of the
natives, we cannot say—perhaps it was all of these—but finally Sir
George Simpson, the Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
forbade the sale of liquor at any of the trading posts.
Strong drink has been the greatest enemy to the Indians of the
Coast and one of the greatest difficulties in the way of Christianizing
and civilizing them.
At our first mission station, history has it, a coal mine was sold for a
bottle of rum. We are not sure just how this occurred, but it is stated
that an old Indian who made discovery of the first vein of coal was
promised a bottle of rum and repairs to his old flint-lock musket if he
would bring to Victoria, seventy-five miles away, a sample of the
mineral, and afterwards show where the vein was located. The old
man loaded his canoe with coal and paddled away for days until he
reached the place, and delivered it to the party, who gave him the
bottle of rum as agreed. The Indian was always afterwards known
as “Coal Tyee.”
In our first work among the natives hardly a day passed but they
had liquor, procured either from the miners or sailors, or from those
contemptible characters who spent their time in vending the
accursed “fire-water” among these deluded people. Many a score of
bottles of whiskey had to be destroyed in those days. Sometimes, of
course, the owners became terribly exasperated at our action, and
we were always, while living right among them, exposed to danger
from wild, drunken men. Two men followed me one night for some
distance, and said they were determined to break my head with a
bottle. Sometimes for whole nights together it would seem as if all of
the people of the village were intoxicated, and often I have been
called up at the midnight hour to settle some trouble, or possibly to
prevent bloodshed, due to the presence of whiskey.
On a trip along the coast, near where Ladysmith now stands, a
young man under the frenzy of whiskey had shot down his own
father. A council of the chiefs and people was being held, and I was
called in to witness and hear the speeches and the talk of vengeance
on the white man who had given them the liquor. One after another
spoke, and finally one chief directed a most appealing address to
me.
“Oh, Missionary,” he said, “you bring us good words, the Book tells
of good things, but look at that dead chief. Are you not ashamed of
your white brother? Why don’t you convert him? He has the Book,
why don’t he stop making and selling whiskey? Why don’t you
convert the man who gave the liquor to that man who shot his own
father?” And as the old orator poured forth his eloquent address in
his own language, I felt, for the first time, ashamed that I was a
white man.
 The Law in Our Own Hands.
More than once, realizing the awful effect of this dread traffic upon
the natives, the Missionary felt impelled to take the law into his own
hands in dealing with this illicit trade.
 WITCH DOCTOR. “COAL TYEE.”
p. 119 p. 127
CROSBY TEACHING WITCH DOCTOR’S WIFE.
INDIAN CHIEF. p. 119

One fine day in Victoria, another preacher and myself, crossing the
bay on the old ferry boat, saw a canoe coming from under a wharf
with boxes in it. I said to my friend, “That looks like whiskey.” We
hurried the ferryman up, watching at the same time where this
canoe would land. Leaving my friend, I ran over the hill, shouting as
I passed the chief’s house, in his own tongue, “Give me an axe, an
axe I must have.” Jim, the chief, successor to old King Freezee, ran
out of his house with an axe in his hand. Seizing it I ran towards the
canoe, and just as the men landed their cases of “tangleleg,” as it
was called at that time, I smashed them open with the axe, sending
the blade through the five-gallon coal oil cans full of this terrible
stuff. Much of the liquor then sold to the Indians was a vile
combination of camphene, coal oil and other fiery material, which
seemed to set the natives wild when they drank it. The men by this
time had run away, one up the hillside and the other some distance
down the beach, looking back to see what would be done. I do not
know whether they thought I was an officer of the law or not, but at
any rate we got rid of that much of the abominable stuff—“chain
lightning” it was sometimes called—which might have caused much
trouble and loss of life in the camp.

“Oh, Let Me Have Just a Little, Sir!”

On a journey down the east coast of Vancouver Island my Indian
boy, Charlie, and I, having travelled about twenty-five miles in a
small canoe, touched at a little village on a beautiful island where I
had often visited and preached before.
Just as our canoe struck the beach, on the north point of the island,
a young man by the name of Jacob, who was already “half seas
over,” called out, “Mr. Crosby, whiskey, whiskey!”
I jumped out and ran across the point of land, and here was a big
fellow, named Comox Tom, with a large canoe, just pushing off.
Too late to reach them, as they paddled away as quickly as possible,
I turned around through the village and found they had had a
“whiskey feast.” And, oh! what a sight! nearly all drunk—men,
women and children.
Seeing that I could do them no good, I turned and said to my boy
Charlie, “Will you go with me, and we will overhaul that canoe, or
they will do the same bad work at another place?”
“Yes, I’ll go, sir!” he replied.
Just then Jacob, the man who had called to me, came forward and
jumped into the canoe, saying that he would go too.
Off we went, following the big canoe, which was now well over
towards the other island, some three miles away. Our little craft,
with three good paddles and plenty of elbow grease, fairly leaped
over the water, and it was soon evident that we were catching up to
them with their heavy canoe.
As we got near I saw the old man at the bow set his musket by his
side and the man at the stern get his ready also, while the two
women, who sat in midships, each armed herself with an axe. It
looked as if they were getting everything ready for a fight.
I stopped paddling and called to the big fellow, Tom, who was
steering the large canoe, to stop and listen to what I had to say.
“Tom, we have not come to fight,” I said, “but I must have the
liquor.” And then to my helpers, “Pull up alongside, boys!”
As soon as we were alongside of their big canoe I seized hold of a
five-gallon can of whiskey and began pouring it out. While I was
doing this my boys in the bow of the canoe hauled on board a case
of “Old Tom.” The big Indian, in the meanwhile, got hold of the can
as I was pouring it out and claimed it as his own.
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