Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/483

 Record of A merican Folk-L ore. 135

RECORD OF AMERICAN FOLK-LORE.

NORTH AMERICA.

Algonkian. Onomatology. In his note on " The adopted Indian Word ' Poquosin,' " in the " American Anthropologist " (vol. i. N. S. pp. 790, 791) for October, 1899, Mr. W. W. Tooker replies rather successfully to the criticisms of Mr. W. R. Gerard in a previous number of the same Journal.

Athapascan. In his brief account of the Chilcotin (Rep. Brit. Assoc, for 1898, London, 1899), Prof. Livingston Farrand notes, re- garding their mythology, a " surprising receptivity to foreign influences."

Eskimo. In the "American Anthropologist" (vol. i. N. S. pp. 601-613) for October, 1899, Dr. Franz Boas publishes an interesting article (with illustrations) on " Property Marks of Alaskan Eskimo.'' Attention to such marks seems to have been first called by Lubbock in 1869, and Dr. Boas' examination of the collections in the U. S. National Museum at Washington and the American Museum of Natural History, New York, "shows that property marks are used very frequently by the Eskimo tribes of Alaska," and that " they occur almost exclusively on weapons used in hunting, which, after being dispatched, remain in the bodies of large game." Tools do not seem to have property marks. Sometimes, as often occurs in the case of harpoon-heads, form and ornament are sufficient to indi- cate ownership, without property marks. Since property marks, so far as present evidence goes, have not been recorded from any other division of the Eskimo except the Alaskan, Dr. Boas considers that "this fact, taken in connection with the form and occurrence of such marks among the northeastern tribes of Asia, suggests that this cus- tom, like so many other peculiarities of Alaskan Eskimo life, may be due to contact with Asiatic tribes" (p. 613).

Haida. Under the title " Hidery Prayers," Mr. James Deans publishes (with comments) in the "American Antiquarian" (vol. xxii. pp. 31, 32) for January-February, 1900, three Haida prayers, one of the Masset tribe for fair weather, addressed to the sun ; a Skidegate prayer to the sea, when caught in a storm ; and a Skide- gate prayer to the " goddess of the mountains " for rain. The an- cient belief of the Haidas was that everything had a spirit, and they had many prayers, not alone dances and sacred ceremonies. — As Appendix I. to the Second Report of the Committee on an Ethno- logical Survey of Canada (Rep. Brit. Assoc, for 1898, London, 1899), Mr. C. Hill-Tout publishes an article on " Haida Stories and Beliefs." The cosmogonic and tribal origin myths and brief abstracts of some

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