Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/99

 80 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899

in the devising of property, means of capture, and tools for handling animal substances. The truth has gradually emanci- pated itself from the overgrowth of the imaginary, and an aborigi- nal empirical science of no mean proportions has been elaborated.

VII. RELIGION

Finally, in lower forms of religion and mythology, zootheistic conceptions are prominent. Every creature is somebody. The animal world lies very near to human actions. Nearly half the totemic names gathered by Mr Hodge among the Pueblo Indians are those of animals.

The folklore and mythology of zootechny would require a separate paper. Every tribe has its long and delightful faunal myths. Even in the pursuit of animals there are folk customs and folk beliefs that form a part of the history of religion.

The California Indians, after the acquisition of iron knives, still insisted, for superstitious reasons, on using flint and jasper flakes to cut and skin salmon, especially the first in the season. Fisher says that the wooden hunting hats of the sea-otter hunters, south of the Alaskan peninsula, are highly prized because they have the power of attracting the game, and a hunter who would part with his hat would lose his luck. Matthews in his Moun- tain Chant speaks of the old Navaho hunter taking four good sweats and lining the floor of the sudatory with the branches of sweet-smelling trees. Parkman saw an Ogalala Sioux consulting an enormous black cricket as to the position of the buffalo. Of this lore there is no end.

The Eskimo have not the gentile system, but on all their masks as well as in their carvings and etchings the overpowering influence of animal life is apparent. Among the stocks of the western coast down to Vancouver island the one obtrusive feature of the life is the totem post, the totem carving, etching, and painting, with nearly every motive from the animal kingdom. Of the Indians of the United States and Canada the following

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