Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/313

 REVIEWS.

The Mythology of the Bella Coola Indians. By Franz Boas. (Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural His- tory, Vol. II. Anthropology, I. The Jesup North Pacific Expedition.)

In this monograph we have a further instalment of Dr. Boas' exhaustive investigations into the tribes of the Pacific Coast of Canada and Alaska. The Bella Coola, properly Bilxula, speak a Salishan dialect, and inhabit the shores of Dean Inlet and Bentinck Arm, and the course of the Bella Coola River. Though now few in numbers they seem to have once been more popu- lous. Both their physical appearance and their customs and beliefs lead to the opinion that, though originally of Salishan stock, they are much mingled with the Athapascan and the Northern Coast tribes.

Alone among the North Pacific tribes the Bella Coola have developed something like a systematic mythology. The universe, according to their idea, consists of five worlds, two above and two below our world, which is the middle one. In the two upper worlds live the gods. The supreme deity, a goddess named Qamaits, resides in the upper heaven. In the lower one is a remarkable building called Nusmeta, the House of Myths, where the other gods dwell. The master of the house is the Sun, often called Taata, our father, the only being to whom the Bella Coola pray. What we call a totem-post stands outside the house, covered with representations of all kinds of birds, and surmounted by a white crane. The gods are concerned with the winter-cere- monial, which corresponds to that of the sacred societies of the Kwakiutl. We might expect that the gods, living together in one house, would be regarded as a clan. The social organisation, however, of the Bella Coola is not formed on the gens. The village community forms the unit, and the traditions and the ceremonies in which they are represented are the common possession of the village. We may conjecture, then, that in con-