The Haidas are a tribe of Indians of America, of language na-dené, that occupied the coast of Colombia, to the time under the British dominion of Queen Carlotta. The Haidas were big hunters of whales and sea otters. The canoes were for them, as a visitor observed, what the horses were for the Indians of the Lowlands. Their boats, sometimes very great, you/they were dug in the trunk of a solo enormous cedar and you adorn of sculptures. The Haidas are better known as carvers of totemic poles and as builders of big wood houses decorated. Their gifted artists still produce splendid masks and other carved objects. You/they had divided in clan and they had secret society. The first European that met them was Juan Perez, that arrived in 1774 with the corvet Santiago, followed by the famous French explorer her Perouse. The contact with the Europeans was catastrophic for the Haidas, because it brought impoverishment, epidemics of smallpox and venereal illnesses to them and for this motive today they are almost extinct.
