Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/504

 156 Journal of American Folk- Lore.

The Thompson Indians of British Columbia. By James Teit. Ed- ited by Franz Boas. (Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History. Vol. II. Anthropology. The Jesup North Pacific Expedition. IV.) April, 1900. Pp. 163-392. Plates xiv.-xx.

This memoir relates to the same tribe whose traditions, also gathered by Mr. Teit, and supplied with an introduction by Dr. Boas, have been pub- lished as the sixth volume of the Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore So- ciety. The account, exhibiting intimate knowledge of the people, is an excellent example of what such a record should be. The manufactures, households, dress, means of subsistence, warfare, pastime, and art of the tribe are clearly explained and fully illustrated. In this notice can only be remarked statements in regard to life and folk-lore which may serve to sup- plement the information given in the Memoir of this Society.

The cosmogony of the Thompsons presents some analogies to the more elaborate system of the Bella Coola. The earth is supposed to have a square form, the corners being toward the cardinal points. The centre is naturally on the Thompson River, being at Lytton (Traditions, p. 104). The land rises toward the north, hence rivers flow southward ; the earth is level in the middle, but mountainous near the edge. It is surrounded by water, forming a sort of ocean-stream, according to the plan of a native (p. 343). The upper world, as shown in the Traditions, is regarded as a prairie of steep-sided plateau over which constantly blows a cold wind (as with the upper heaven of the Bella Coola). The stars are transformed persons who are rooted in the sky. No account of the trail of the sun is here given ; but the sun-house is described as situated in the far east (Traditions, p. no). In regard to star-lore, we find the widely diffused story of the bear and the hunters, elsewhere remarked in the present num- ber of this Journal. The three stars of the handle of the Dipper pursue the Grizzly Bear ; the first is swift, the second is accompanied by a dog (the companion star), the third is timid. We find the idea that rain and snow are caused by the natural operations of a deity who lives in the sky or upper mountains j the like opinion exists even among modern Greeks, and is responsible for the impersonal character, in the Latin language, of verbs relating to the weather.

An interesting account of the ghostland is given. In regard to the man- ner of approach, ideas vary ; such was the case also with Greeks. One opinion makes it necessary in the first instance to voyage over the inter- vening sea, then to follow a trail on which are stationed wise guardians to repel the approach of over-hasty souls, then to cross a river by a log (the very common bridge of the dead). The spirit comes to a moundlike lodge, which is entered on the eastern side ; emerging from the western gate, it arrives in the land of souls, which has the usual characteristics of para- dises, in possessing perpetual sunshine, an equable climate, and spontane- ous fertility. Now appears a curious piece of speculation, whether or not original with the Thompsons ; the soul like the man has its shadow, and this is the ghost, that stays behind on earth, either for a brief term or many

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