Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/345

 FRACHTENBERG] ESCHATOLOGY OF THE QUILEUTE 333

and about 50 miles north of the Quinault reservation. The Hoh Indians (about 30 in number) live some 20 miles south of the Quileute reservation. These Indians are of particular interest to the student of ethnology, because, with their Makah (Nootka) neighbors to the north, they are the only North American Indians known to have actually engaged in whale-hunting, a profession in which they have attained a great skill and high perfection. Whale-hunting was given up by the Quileute Indians some 20 years ago, but most of them are still engaged in sealing which yields a not inconsiderable part of their annual income. As a littoral people the majority of the Quileute are fishermen today, deriving most of their income from this pursuit. However, I hope to demonstrate in another paper, 1 in the course of publication in the American Anthropologist, that originally these Indians were hunters, par excellence, and that they lived much farther inland than has been the case during the last seventy years.

The material upon which this paper is based, forms part of an extensive study of Quileute ethnology and linguistics, undertaken under the auspices of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and conducted during the summer of 1915 and during the summer and fall of 1916. The writer spent most of this time on the Quileute reservation, located at Lapush, Washington. While collecting these data, particular care was taken to interrogate only such individuals as were known to be authorities in their particular subjects. Thus, the chapter on eschatology was worked out with the aid given, willingly or grudgingly, by the last surviving medicine- men of the Quileute Indians. Two of these proved rather willing informants; a third had to be coaxed and cajoled into giving infor- mation; while the fourth refused most persistently and obstinately to "reveal any secrets imparted to him by his guardian-spirit." It was suggested to me that the persistent silence of this fourth potential informant may have been due to utter ignorance on his part ; but I have good reasons to believe that his reticence was the result of a misguided conservatism and of actual fear of the possible consequences for revealing sacred mysteries. It is needless for me

1 "The Ceremonial Societies of the Quileute Indians."

�� �