Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/343

 FRACHTENBERG] ESCHATOLOGY OF THE QUILEUTE 331

Quileute, and other Indians of the Northwest coast, display certain forms of intellectual life coupled with high cultural achievements which are certainly lacking among the tribes living farther south.

This contrast is particularly strong when one compares the lewd mythology, the woeful attempts at philosophy, and the complete absence of any highly developed phases of material culture among the Indians of Oregon (such as the Coos, Siuslaw, Alsea, Molala, and Kalapuya) with the beautiful tales, the high philosophical concepts, and the accomplished forms of basketry and wood-carving of the Indians north of the Columbia river. In this connection, it may be noted that the farther north from the Columbia river we proceed, the more highly developed (intellectually and culturally) .tribes we find. In other words, the Columbia river would seem to form a dividing line between two well-defined and sharply con- trasted cultural areas. And, just as in Ancient Greece, or in Italy during the Renaissance, or in Germany during the classical period of Schiller and Goethe, where intellectual and cultural attainments as national assets did not interfere in the least with professions of allegiance to regional governments, so, also on the Northwest coast, the high mental and cultural development was equally shared in by all the tribes constituting that region without affecting, however, their separation into several groups and tribes. In Greece, as well as in Italy or in Germany, we deal with a more or less homo- genous people bound together by ties of kinship and language, whose high traits were more national than regional in character. And, may we not assume the probability of eventual proof, that the adaptability of all Northwest Indians for a high type of culture ultimately goes back to a common source which has little, if any- thing, to do with contact or the influences of environment?

Before proceeding with a discussion of Quileute eschatology, it may be well to say a few words concerning the distribution and history of these people. The Quileute Indians, it will be remem- bered, belong, with the now extinct Chimakum tribe, to the so- called Chimakuan linguistic family. Earlier writers, and particu- larly Farrand, assigned three distinct dialects to this group; the- Chimakum, the Quileute, and the Hoh. The latter, however.

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