Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/417

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with cuts in the text and with plates from photographs. Contain- ing as it does a minute account of what is much harder to obtain than the details of art and implements, namely, the ceremonial and superstitions, it could not have been written save by one who was intimately acquainted with his subject, and whose observation, tact, and judgement had been continuously directed to it for a con- siderable period.

The Thompson Indians recognise blood-relationship on both sides ; but there are traces, indistinct and uncertain perhaps, of mother-right as a stage through which they have passed. The commonest form of marriage, for instance, is that in which the overtures are made by the girl's parents ; and temporarily in all forms the young couple have to live with the bride's family. One form, however, seems to have resulted in their living permanently with the bride's relatives. It is perhaps the oldest of all forms, that by touching. In that form marriage was constituted by the simple act of one party touching the other on the naked body. Special opportunity was given for this at some of the festivals, but it might apparently be done at any time. This kind of marriage is now out of use.

Trace of clans and totems there is none. The organisation is of the loosest kind. It seems to have rested on the family, that is to say, the whole body of persons who could trace their descent from a common ancestor. They possessed certain names which no one else was permitted to use, and they were bound to avenge one anothers' deaths. As a matter of fact the tribe is distributed in village communities ; but these are shifting bands, their strength, so far as I can gather, depending from time to time upon the will of the individuals or families constituting them. Nor had the tribe any formal, still less hereditary, chiefs, though wise or wealthy men were influential.

In these circumstances we cannot wonder that the mythology of the tribe was vague and unorganised. As it is set before us in the present work and in the Traditio?is, there is no hint of a Creator; but the Raven and the Coyote, who figure so largely in the myths of the North-Western tribes, play a part defined by Dr. Boas as that of transformers. They are, between them, account- able for giving the world much of its present shape and peculiarities ; and but for the advent of Europeans, they were perhaps on their way to becoming something more like what we should call gods.