of the Pacific Coast of Canada and Alaska. Let us examine one or two.
The Tsimshians are a tribe reckoning kinship through the mother. One of their clans is that of the Bear; and this is the legend of the clan: "An Indian went mountain-goat hunting. When he had reached a remote mountain-range, he met a black bear, who took him to his home, taught him how to catch salmon, and how to build canoes. For two years the man stayed with the bear; then he returned to his own village. The people were afraid of him because he looked just like a bear. One man, however, caught him and took him home. He could not speak, and could not eat anything but raw food. Then they rubbed him with magic herbs, and gradually he was retransformed into the shape of a man. After this, whenever he was in want, he called his friend the bear, who came to assist him. In winter, when the rivers were frozen, he alone was able to catch salmon. He built a house, and painted the bear on the house-front. His sister made a dancing-blanket, the design of which represented a bear. Therefore the descendants of his sisters use the bear for their crest."[1] Read literally, this is an example of what I may call the manitoutotems; and indeed Dr. Boas expressly brings it forward as such. But you will probably be of opinion that the expressions lead to the inference that at one time the totem stood in a closer relation to the clan; in a word, that the bear was once believed to be the ancestor of the clan. The suspicion is strengthened when we find Dr. Boas writing of the North-western tribes in general: "There exists, however, another class of traditions, according to which the crests or emblems of the clan are . . . brought down by the ancestor of the clan from heaven, or from the underworld or out of the ocean, wherever he may have derived his origin. This is the case with the Sīsîntlaē, whose
- ↑ Ibid., loc cit. This is not an uncommon ætiological myth. Another example is given by Mr. Boyle, Archæological Report, Ontario, 1898, p. 165.
