10 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
differ but little from fetishes. They are, I am led to believe, the 
connecting link between fetishism pure and simple and the totemism of 
this region. This “essence, “guide,” “protector,” “influence,” “charm” 
—for it partakes of the character of all these—the Halkomé’lem tribes 
of the Lower Fraser call by the name of Sulia. This is the abstract or 
nominal form of the verb wlia, to dream. It is thus called because these 
potencies come to and communicate with them in dreams or visions. 
A person’s sûlia may, among the upper Salish tribes, be apparently 
anything, a bird, beast, fish, object or element. There is apparently no 
limitation which is a fact of great significance and clearly shows that 
among them, as among the Alaskan:and other northern tribes, every 
object in nature, animate and inanimate, possesses sentient powers and 
qualities. This fact becomes the more striking when it is seen that parts 
of animals, or objects, or even of human beings, might and did become 
a person’s stilia. Such sulia, though not uncommon among the interior 
tribes, grow rarer as we proceed towards the coast, where the tendency 
is towards animal sulia. But their presence at all is of particular interest 
to us, as they seem to show us the steps by which the clan totemism of 
the coast tribes is reached. Such tribes as the N’tlakapamuQ, the 
Teil’qéuk and others who make «ulia of a tooth, a bone, a shell, a basket 
or other utensil, a piece of wood or stone, and such-like objects, have 
clearly not yet wholly passed out of the stage of fetishism. Indeed, the 
Salish sulia are throughout only higher forms of fetishism in that they 
are nearly always individual objects. Yet they are not apparently the 
fetish or talisman of the African savage; they partake of the character 
and have in them the germ of the totem. Every adult individual of 
the tribe possesses one or more of these silia. They are usually acquired 
at puberty. Teit, in writing of the Thompson Indians, says of them: 
‘Every person had his guardian spirit, which he acquired during the 
puberty ceremonials. Only a few shamans inherited their guardian 
spirits without such ceremony from their parents who had been particu- 
larly powerful. The guardian spirits of these parents appeared to them, 
uncalled for, in dreams and visions. All animals and objects possessed 
of mysterious powers could become guardian spirits, but their powers 
were somewhat differentiated. 
The following were the favourite guardian spirits of shamans:— 
Heavenly bodies: Sun, moon (rather rare), stars, Milky Way, Pleiades, 
Morning Star. Natural phenomena: sunset, thunder or thunder-bird, 
wind, rain, rainbow, snow, water, ice, lake, cascade, fire, cold, heat, tops 
of mountains, snow-capped mountains. Animals: coyette, otter, badger, 
grizzly bear, wolf, dog, skunk, weasel, ermine, eagles of all kinds, chick- 
en-hawk, owls of all kinds, raven, ducks of all kinds, swan, crane, loon, 
snakes, lizards and fish of all kinds. Parts of animals: birds’ down. 
