12 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
nose, the nipple of a gun, the left or right side of anything, the head, 
the hand, the hair, the tail of an animal, is remarkable. Some Indians 
had guardian spirits of unusual colour or of some particular colour,—a 
gray tree, a white stump, a white horse, a black dog, a spotted dog, or 
fish, a black fox, a blue sky, a red cloud, a black fog, a red fish, ete. The 
favourite colours seem to have been black, white, spotted, red and blue. 
[t is evident from the above list that each person partook 
of the qualities with which his guardian spirit was endowed. For this 
reason certain guardian spirits were also considered more powerful than 
others.” * 
The guardian spirits or sulia of the Lower Fraser tribes, as far as 
we can now gather, were similar to those of the Thompsons. 
This practice of seeking sulia on the part of the Salish clearly 
springs from their conceptions of life. In common with other animistic 
races, they people their environment with mysterious beings and sentient 
agencies of beneficent and maleficent character, mostly of the latter, 
whence arises the power and influence of their shamans. The land, the 
water, the air teems with mysteries;’ they are surrounded on all 
sides with capricious beings that have power to harm or destroy them. 
They are at any moment of their lives hable to come under the influence 
of these, to be made their victims or prey;? consequently there is felt a 
vital need of some protecting, guiding influence in their lives ; and 
hence the practice of seeking tutelar spirits. Here is clearly the origin 
and raison d’être of the personal totem. That these sulia, or tutelar 
spirits, gave rise to the personal totem becomes evident as we consider 
the beliefs and customs of the Halkômeé’lem tribes which intervene 
between the Thompsons and the Coast Salish, among whom totemism 
has reached the gentile and clan stages. And that the peculiar clan 
totemism of our northern coast tribes is the further evolution and 
natural extension of the personal totem becomes equally clear under 
the study of the origin and spread of personal and family crests and : 
emblems; these standing in much the same relation to the clan totem as 
the fetish or sila does to the personal totem. These crests and em- 
blems, formerly so highly esteemed and jealously guarded by those 

* “The Thompson Indians of B.C.,”’ by James Teit, Memoirs of the Ameri- 
can Museum of Natural History, Vol. II., p. 354 et seq. 1900. 
? Compare with the beliefs of the Salish on this head the beliefs of the 
Dakotas as given by Lynd: ‘ The divinities of evil among the Dakotas may 
be called legion. Their special delight is to make man miserable or to destroy 
him. Demons wander through the earth, causing sickness and death. Spirits 
of evil are ever ready to pounce upon and destroy the unwary. Spirits of 
earth, air, fire and water surround him on every side, and with but one great 
governing object in view—the misery and destruction of the human race.” 
Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. II., pt. 2. 
