# Journal of American Folk-Lore/Volume 11/Issue 40/Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society

THE SIXTH VOLUME OF THE MEMOIRS OF THE AMERICAN FOLK-LORE SOCIETY.
The sixth volume of the series of Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society bears the title, "Traditions of the Thompson River Indians of British Columbia, collected by James Teit. With Introduction by Franz Boas, and Notes. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1898." (Thirty-five tales; pp. about 150.)
The Thompson River Indians, whose myths are here gathered, form a branch of the Salishan tribes, inhabiting portions of Washington, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia. The languages of this stock are divided into two principal groups, those of the coast and of the interior; the former exhibit great variety, the latter are more uniform. Salish proper is employed from Montana to southern British Columbia; in the southeastern part of the province is used the affiliated tongue of the Shuswap; between the latter and the coast, in the north, the Lillooet, in the south the Thompson River language; the tribe live above and below the confluence of the Fraser and Thompson.
The people among whom have been recorded these tales are, or were, chiefly hunters and fishermen, subsisting on venison and salmon, with the addition of berries and roots; contact with civilization has led to a change of conditions, to the tilling of the soil and work for wages. Until lately, these Indians were in the habit of spending the winter in the river valleys, where they occupied small villages composed of but a few houses. During the summer they dwelt in huts close to the streams, occupying themselves in taking and curing salmon. In the spring the tribe assembled numerously in the upland valleys, which abound in edible roots.
Such manner of life was connected with a loose social organization. There existed no clans, no definitely fixed communities, no chiefs, and no totemic system; marriage, based on purchase, was restricted only so far as applies to very near kin, the woman following her husband to his village. Religious rituals appear to have attained no great development; there have been reported no secret societies, extended ceremonials, or rites in which dramatization enters as an essential element. The tribe, however, did assemble at regular intervals to celebrate a ceremonial dance in which sacrifices were made to the sun, and it may be found that in ancient times these ceremonies had greater development and importance; in such case, Dr. Boas is of opinion that the fundamental concepts must have been analogous to those of the Kootenay, consisting in worship of the sun, and in the belief that the dead would ultimately return from the land of shades.
​The tales of the present collection are especially concerned with accounts of the deeds of the transformers whose activity was necessary to render the earth suitable for the abode of mankind. Originally, according to the mythology, its state was unfitted for such occupation, possessing neither plants, berries, nor salmon, and tenanted by dangerous beings. It was inhabited by animals in human form, who possessed magical powers, and often were cannibalistic. After a period appeared men who wandered hither and thither, modifying the existing order, and banishing undesirable inhabitants, or transforming these to animal shapes; by the last transformer the people were divided, the evil altered into birds and beasts, cursed and assigned to different spheres of activity, while the good were guided in their migrations, and assigned the places in which they should dwell. Among the Thompson River Indians the first of these agents is termed the Coyote, the last the Old Man; a myth affirms that the former was an emissary of the latter; these two meet and have a contest of magic, resulting in the defeat of the Coyote; the Old Man makes a house of ice in a far-away part of the world, and therein puts the Coyote to await his second coming, when the world is once more to be changed, and the dead brought back to the land of the living.
The myths relating in detail the task of world-manufacturing far from possessing consistency, and exhibit various versions; it would seem likely that the narrative was never elaborated into a coherent structure. In one tale (No. I., 1) we read of a flood, in which were drowned all the people except the Coyote, who changed himself into a piece of wood, and who repeopled the world by taking trees as wives. In another (No. I., 2) we find the Coyote alone, and making out of stone a son, whose wives he afterwards covets, and whose banishment he procures; the son reaches heaven, but descends with the help of the Spider, and again arrives at his village; the Coyote is at first ashamed to encounter the returning exile, but in the end himself becomes the victim of the arts of the latter, is swept away by the Fraser River, and again, in the shape of a board, comes to the mouth of a stream; he is rescued by two old women, and lives with these in the form of a child disobedient and hard to rear; below a dam he finds salmon, hitherto unknown to him, and four mysterious boxes, which he is forbidden to open; he breaks the dam, so that the salmon ascend the stream, and opens the boxes, which emit flies and wasps. He mounts with the salmon and finds people living along the river; at one place he dams the water with rock, and causes mountain sheep to appear in the land. He teaches the curative use of the sweat-house, has with other animals contests of magical ability, deceiving the Grizzly Bear by his ​power of making dried skins pass for meats, and withered twigs look like fruits; by craft he gains the victory over cannibals, and is able to acquire a magical staff used by the latter. But while he thus appears as the adversary of evil powers, yet he also figures as lustful, cruel, selfish, and deceitful. In spite of his skill in magic, he is described as often overreached, and as coming out second best in contests for supremacy.
The inconsistencies of such character, answering to the usual description of the culture hero, have given rise to controversies in respect to interpretation. Dr. Boas, giving attention to the subject in his Introduction to the present collection, is of opinion that the actions of such personages are originally conceived as performed from personal and not altruistic motives, the resulting advantage being secondary and incidental. This doctrine he maintains by examples taken from the northwest coast and other regions, and concludes that these transformers did not represent the conception usually given by the term "culture hero," who is commonly understood to be a benevolent person who has made it an object to advance the interests of humanity, but rather powerful personages who, from selfish reasons, were instrumental in conferring on the world its present conditions. Taking this view, it is easy to comprehend the combination in one nature of the benefactor and the trickster, the transformer acting with an eye to the advancement of his own interests, whether by the use of fair means or foul, just as an Indian would treat his enemy.
There can, however, be no question that in aboriginal lore is encountered also a higher conception, which ascribes to the transformer a conscious intent to benefit friends. In the Thompson River mythology such action is attributed to the Old Man. The Algonkin myths relate of Manibozhoo that he instituted secret societies for the sake of mankind, while at the same time they relate concerning him absurd stories. In such more advanced representation, Dr. Boas considers that we have a result of the interpolation of altruistic ideas into a material originally unaffected by such notions. A transitional point may be indicated by the tradition of the Kwakiutl that the changes were made for the advantage of a particular friend. The higher rises the ethical conception, the greater must appear the contrast between the two classes of incidents; the result is that, in cases where such evolution has taken place, the arts of the trickster may be ascribed to a separate being, the personality of the transformer being split into two parts, as has been done in the mythology of the Micmacs and the Penobscot, where Glooscap has retained almost exclusively the features proper to a benefactor. Dr. Boas is of opinion that the correctness of his view would appear ​more clearly if we possessed Indian mythologies more nearly in their original form, uninfluenced by the effect of civilization.
The idea that the powers of Nature were originally hostile, and must be either conquered or propitiated in order to be brought into satisfactory relations with humanity, is set forth in several myths of this collection not directly concerned with the great transformers. A singular tale (No. VII.) recites how a boy is abandoned by his parents on account of his general worthlessness of character, but becomes a mighty hunter, and makes blankets out of bird-skins, so beautiful that they are noticed and coveted by the Sun, who perceives them on his daily round, and purchases them at great price; the tints of the bird-plumes, at least those of the blue jay, are still visible in the orb. From another story (No. VIII.) we learn that the sun was originally a cannibal, who passed nearer the earth than at present, and daily returned to his house laden with the bodies of the men he had slain with his beams. It happens that an unlucky gambler, who had lost his all in the game, goes to the wilderness in order to consult his protecting spirit, and receives advice to travel in quest of fortune; he roves until he comes to a lake, over which lies a cloud which rises and falls ; at the moment when this envelope is lowest he leaps on the cloud, which serves as a bridge; he crosses the lake and comes to a delightful land, where he observes a path; this he follows and arrives at the habitation of the Sun, at the time absent on his daily journey. A son of the master of the house receives, warns, and conceals him. The sky-wanderer returns, carrying on his back the body of a victim; entering the lodge (according to the habit of cannibals down to those of the English nursery), he scents the presence of a human being, but is persuaded out of his opinion. On the morrow, when the daily traveller has once more departed, the sun-youth dismisses the guest with the present of a magic bundle; the adventurer reaches his village, opens the pack, and finds himself the possessor of sun-robes sufficient in quantity to stock several lodges. Thus suddenly enriched and elevated to the position of an important person, he is able to purchase two wives; accompanied by these he sets out on a second expedition, crosses the lake, reaches the sun-lodge, and presents one of the women to the youth who had befriended him, reserving the second for the sun-father. Pleased with the gift, the Sun makes an agreement to desist from his former practices, and no longer to destroy Indians, unless on exceptional occasions.
Another tale (No. IX.) supplies a different and highly poetical explanation of the daily solar travel. A daughter of the Sun is sought in marriage by a mortal, who overcomes the first severity of the father and obtains the girl, who departs to her husband's coun​try, promising to return on a visit (according to the custom of Indian women, who, like their white sisters, are fain to display their offspring). This obligation, however, she neglects; but the time arrives when her human husband finds his bright bride altogether too warm for comfortable cohabitation, and vanishes without permission. Thus deserted, the wife, whose second son has just been born, sets out for her father's house, taking her first child, and also her babe in arms. "Her father saw her coming, and said to himself: 'She disobeyed my commands. Why ought I to receive her now, when she would not come before? She shall never find me, nor enter my house.' Therefore, when she was nearing Lytton, he turned her into the sun which we now see. This is the reason that the sun travels each day from east to west in search of her father."
A very pretty story (No. X.) illustrates the originally inimical character of natural forces. The hot and cold winds are engaged in internecine strife; the Indians, who have to bear the brunt of the quarrel, use their best efforts to act as intercessors and negotiate a peace. By such mediation, it is finally arranged that the feud shall be concluded by a marriage; a child of the south wind is sent to the icy north, where in time she becomes acclimated. According to custom, she desires to return with her babe, and her southern brother meets her to act as escort. But the air which breathes about the infant is so frigid that the unaccustomed southerner can endure it no longer; in his disgust, he snatches the babe from its mother and flings it into the lake. Forthwith the air grows mild, and the infant floats as a lump of ice; the proof may be seen on the lake, any spring, when warm airs breathe. The alliance, however, has performed its function; the union has tempered the breezes, and the gain belongs to mankind; only now and then do the blasts still rage in their unregenerate force.
The obvious poetry of these narratives needs not to be pointed out. It is to be observed, however, that this essentially poetic character is disguised by the baldness of the style in which the ideas are enveloped, a characteristic common to early epic narrative, and which is apt to mislead the modern reader, who is accustomed to conscious ornamentation, and finds it hard to perceive unadorned beauty. Moreover, primitive stories are filled with accounts of cruelty, licentiousness, and incest, actions which in higher ethical conditions would be regarded as inexcusable crimes, but which in savage morals fail to awaken the same horror. Present also are disgusting elements, which yet have their instructive side; in the present collection appears evidence that practices maintained in the theory of modern witchcraft, and which might be explained as an interpolation caused by the tendency to accentuate a conscious reverse to accepted ​morality and decency, may be in fact only accentuated survivals of early practices. No authentic gathering of Indian tales can be free from unpleasant and sometimes repulsive features. But it is beside the mark to set down these as the primitive qualities of savage myth, thus appearing as irrational, while the agreeable aspects of the stories are under suspicion as superinduced.
In the fifth volume of these Memoirs, by a method of unusual completeness, the elaborate myths of a highly developed system have been set forth in connection with notices of the connected ritual. Scholars of the first rank have recently set forth, and continue to hold, the opinion that ritual is the only essential feature of religion, and that myth has little to do with its essence; the absurdity of such contention, discarding one of the two indissoluble components of worship, was demonstrated by the work of Dr. Matthews. The present work lacks this ritual element; it is not made clear whether the stories here presented are essentially connected with pious practice, or whether they only constitute fictitious narratives having a purpose purely intellectual. As we are told that the tribe does meet for ceremonial dances, and as the nature of these is not indicated, it is admissible to conjecture that some at least of these narrations will yet be found to be associated with faith and worship; it may be found that some of the histories exist in more detailed form, and are partially reproduced in dramatic representation. Such possibility merely emphasizes the importance of perfecting knowledge, even though the results should be negative. However this may be, the tales are sufficiently interesting in themselves, and the collector is entitled to thanks for a faithful record of material absolutely new.
One of the general questions affecting the theory of folk-lore and mythology has been the problem of origin. Until within a few years, especially in England, the tendency has been to presume that folk-tales are chiefly an inherited treasure ; that borrowing only takes place sporadically; and that the essential character of any individual story may be made out from its contents, without reference to historical comparisons. On the other hand, it has lately come to be generally allowed that popular tales do wander freely, irrespective of diversities of language, race, and culture. It now appears certain that the same principle holds in America; through vast areas roam incicidents and beliefs which enter into the mental furniture of the most different peoples, and which in each locality combine with independent matter. In effecting a new settlement, the details of the narratives are so modified as to be brought into accord with new environment, so that such agreement is no indication that the tale, apparently indigenous, may not in reality be of foreign extraction. ​The interest of oral fiction, therefore, is not lessened by immigration, which does not prevent the oral literature from serving its purpose as a mirror of mentality, in the same manner as the written literature of more cultivated races, which forms its counterpart.
In the case of tale-elements included in mythic systems, there arises a deep interest in examination of the evolution which they are made to undergo. Examining the conditions of such development, Dr. Boas finds that a considerable part is played by changes of geographical environment, but a much greater by alterations of social structure. Of the latter process he finds striking illustrations among the tribes of British Columbia. Here on the coast exists a complex clan organization reflected in tradition. On the other hand, the tribes of the interior in general formerly possessed the free social structure characteristic of the Thompson River folk; but certain races of the stock, in contact with the coast, have been led to replace the original loose village community by one claiming descent from a common ancestor, a change which has profoundly modified the mythology.
In conclusion, the author of the Introduction hints at a remarkable theory of mythological formation. According to his view, the material out of which the myths of primitive peoples are constructed must be regarded as being of heterogeneous origin, in great part adopted ready-made. The manner in which foreign and indigenous matter is interwoven and worked into a fabric somewhat homogeneous depends in considerable measure upon social conditions and habits. Actions which form social laws, and go to make up the habits of a people, are introduced into ritual, and receive prescribed forms of expression. The myth itself is made to conform to the prevalent social characteristics, although exceptions are found, to be explained as survivals of an earlier social state; such survivals are of two kinds, according as the memory of antique customs is preserved in the form of myth, or earlier myths are retained in the midst of altered custom. These survivals thus serve as evidence of the gradual assimilation which is forever taking place between social structure and inherited tradition. Such alteration has a tendency to obscure the original significance of the myth. "The contents of mythology prove clearly that attempts at the explanation of nature are the primary source of myths. But we must bear in mind that, owing to the modifications they have undergone, we cannot hope to gain an insight into their earliest form by comparisons and investigations, unless these are based on a thorough inquiry into the historical changes that have given to myths their present forms. It would seem that mythological worlds have been built up, only to be shattered again, and that new worlds have arisen from the fragments."
W. W. N.