100 



The Ottawa Naturalist 



[Vol. XXXII. 



His companions are afraid. One day when he is 

 drawing water he meets his former (human) wife 

 and smiles at her. Next time when he takes seals 

 to his bear wife her ears are turned forward. She 

 jumps into the water, attacks him, and kills him 

 and his two sons. 



In a Tlingit version given by Dr. Boas, the man 

 and his bear wife have three children. The child- 

 ren, according to most of the versions, took the form 

 of bear cubs, but, when indoors, take off their skins 

 and are then human. 



If the writer's inference is correct, and if Dr. 

 Swanton's explanation of his plate may be applied 

 to the McGill example, it will follow that only two 

 crests are displayed, and that these are significant 

 of the two great divisions into which the Haida are 

 separated. The grizzly bear is one of the com- 

 monest crests used by families belonging to the 

 Raven Clan, and the raven, for some inexplic- 

 able reason, is used only by the other division, the 

 Eagle Clan. The remaining smaller figures do not 

 represent crests, but only fill up space artistically and 

 add to the seeming importance of the pole. 



Dr. Swanton (I.e. p. 270) states that Qogis, or 

 Qogits, a name meaning "common sea-otter", be- 

 longed to a family which originally lived at Rose 

 Spit, at the extreme north-east end of the Queen 

 Charlotte Islands. The name of the family is 

 Kunalanas, the "town-people of the point", and 

 this family was entitled to use certain crests, which 

 are given in this order: grizzly bear, Tcamaos (a 

 mythical floating snag with magic powers), killer- 

 whale and sea-lion, with, possibly, others. 



All of these crests are used by the Raven Clan. 

 The raven must have belonged to the wife of Qogis. 

 Both the raven and the grizzly bear are used by a 

 great many families of the two clans and it would 

 be impossible, therefore, without the aid of someone 

 with local knowledge, to determine to whom the 

 pole belonged. 



Returning to the consideration of the McGill 

 pole, it will be noticed that in addition to the three 

 larger figures already mentioned there are four 

 smaller ones. Taking these in order from above 

 downwards, the uppermost is placed between the 

 elbows and knees of what the writer supposes to be 

 a female grizzly bear. A somewhat human head 

 is seen above a pair of folded wings, below which 

 IS the head of a bird with short curved beak. The 

 lower (he?) bear is holding a frog in its paws. The 

 raven, at the bottom of the pole, shows a seated 

 human figure below its beak. Of these four figures 

 all that can be said is that, in addition to their 

 purpose as ornament, they may also have reference 

 to one or more of the numerous Haida stories. The 

 lowest may quite probably illustrate some incident 



in which the raven assumed a human form. This 

 it repeatedly did according to the old myths. 



Whilst it must be admitted that there are minor 

 differences between the original pole and that which 

 is assumed to be a model of it, these differences are 



The McGill Totem Pole, exhibited in the 

 Redpath Museum, Montreal, Que. 



certainly less than those which occur in the case 

 of another totem pole, which was acquired by the 

 writer, and a model of it which was obtained by 

 the resident missionary at Masset. The pole in 

 question was purchased for the British Museum 

 from a village close to Masset, and the model was 



