Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/123



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N the Annual Report of the United States National Museum for 1895 I have given a description of the social organization and secret societies of the Kwakiutl based on observations and inquiries made prior to 1895. Further information relating to the social organization of the Kwakiutl collected on my last visit to Vancouver island, and since that time obtained through correspondence with Mr. George Hunt clears up a number of points of this difficult problem.

One of the greatest obstacles to a clear understanding of the social organization of the Kwakiutl is the general confusion caused by the reduction in numbers of the tribe. I have tried to clear up the situation by recording the histories of a number of families in all possible detail. In the following I shall give the principal results that may be derived from my collection of data.

I will begin with the discussion of what constitutes a tribe. There is a very fundamental difficulty in the definition of the tribal unit and of its subdivisions. I do not know of a single Kwakiutl tribe that is at present an undivided unit. All those studied consist of well-recognized subdivisions.

Furthermore, a single locality is claimed as the place of origin of each division of the tribe. In the consciousness of the people these divisions are fundamental units. The development of the concept of a tribal unit is not, by any means clear, except in so far as it appears as an effect of the congregation at one place of a number of local units. Recent tradition, the historical truth of