Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/314

 302 Reviews.

sequence of the want of the clan-organisation the relationship of the gods to one another is, except in a few cases, left undefined. The names of many of them, and of some of the monsters with which, like that of other nations, the mythology of the Bella Coola is plentifully furnished, are of Kwakiutl origin. Kwakiutl influence is also betrayed in other ways, such as the physical appearance and customs. But this is by no means enough to account for the highly organised mythology. For this Dr. Boas is of opinion that the Bella Coola are indebted to the general mental stimulus imparted by contact with the neighbouring tribes when they settled on the Bella Coola River, where they now are.

Every village traces its beginning to mythical ancestors sent down by the Sun. These ancestors are sometimes single indi- viduals, more usually three men and a woman, who are often called brothers and sister, though there is nothing said of their parentage. Apparently the woman sustained, in some cases at least, the relation of wife to one or more of the men. This, how- ever, is not quite clear ; and the traditions relate the adventures sometimes of one and sometimes of more of the men, representing them as taking wives in the course of their journeys and of course having children. There is thus a contradiction between the actual practice of the Bella Coola and that ascribed to their mythical heroes, for the Bella Coola villages are strictly endo- gamic. How does this contradiction arise ? It must be ascribed either to an earlier exogamy or to foreign influence. Dr. Boas does not directly tackle the question. He considers that the Bella Coola, when they first met with that branch of the Kwakiutl (the Bella Bella), by which they seem to have been influenced, were " distinctly divided into village communities that were not exogamic." In other words they retained their Salishan organisa- tion. They are still not exogamic, and yet there is reason to believe that their blood is mingled with that of the Bella Bella. The village traditions are considered by Dr. Boas to embody some historical reminiscences, so far at all events as concerns the migra- tions of the mythical ancestors. If this be so, we may perhaps infer that the incidents of the marriage of the heroes to the daughters of one or other mythical or human being are the form in which the facts of the intercourse with the Bella Bella and perhaps other tribes are transmitted. What is curious is that the Bella Coola villages