Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/627

 ANTHROPOLOGIC LITERATURE

Tht Mythology of the Bella Coola Indians. By Franz Boas. (M< of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. n, A pology 1.) New York : 1898. 4, pp. 15-127, pis. vii-xiL

The institution of " The Jesup North Pacific Expedition," in marked an event in the history of American anthropology. Some preliminary results have been made known by different collabora the expedition in several preliminary announcements ; the mo: and elaborate results are now appearing in a sumptuous series, of the memoir under notice is the second.

The Bella Coola comprise a small tribe of coastwise Amerit British Columbia ; the designation being a corruption of the nai which they are known to the neighboring Kwakiutl tribesmen, seem to be a remnant of larger groups, and have no compreh name of their own. Their language belongs to the Salishan though they are now cut off from their more southerly colingu intervening Athapascan and Kwakiutl tribes, and have furthe undergone modification through intermarriage with their nor neighbors. As is normal to peoples of mixed culture and blooc have an exuberant mythology, which is noteworthy for the nurnl deities and for the perfection of the hierarchy in which the arranged. They believe in five worlds, two above and two belc earth ; in the uppermost resides the supreme deity, " a woman w terferes comparatively little with the fates of mankind " (p. 27), in the center of the next lower world stands the house of the got residence of the Sun and other deities; then follows the earth, island swimming in the ocean ; the nearer underworld is inhabit ghosts free to rise to the lower heaven, whence they may be sent to earth, while the lowermost realm is occupied by ghosts of a s death, from which there is no resurrection. In the fiducial observ comparatively little attention is paid to the supreme female, special prayers and oblations are made to the Sun and to variom ordinate tutelaries, including the Moon. As usual among prii peoples, most of the deities are personified in zoic form, though of the forms (e. g., the Thunder-bird) are mythic. The traditic which the mythology is crystallized are (quite naturally, in view «

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