66 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



this be the gens or the vision. A name therefore shows the affiliation 

 of the inidividual ; it grades him, so to speak, ami he is apt to lean 

 upon its implied power The personal name (and also the kin- 

 ship term in some oases) .among Indians therefore indicates the protect- 

 ing presence of a deity, and must, therefore, partake of the ceremonial 

 character of the Indian's religion." 



The practice among some savages of interchanging names is 

 founded upon the same or kindred beliefs. We also see another illus- 

 tration of the same idea in the care and jealousy with w:hich each 

 family or clan guards and retains for its own peculiar use its own list 

 of personal names. These names are regarded as peculiarly sacred, 

 inasmuch as they are intimately connected with the lives and histories 

 of their owners or their ancestors; and for an outsider to appropriate 

 one of them would be the deadliest otfence and would result in his 

 speedy death. 



It is clear from the foregoing, then, that an object and its name, 

 particularly when tihat object is a "mystery" object, was one and the 

 same thing in the eyes of the savage and hence his calling them by 

 the same name. 



And with regard to the third element of the categories, the symbol 

 or representation of the object, it was the same thing, kelson informs 

 us that the Eskimo possess masks representing their totem animals, the 

 wearers of which are believed to become actually the beings repre- 

 sented, or at least 'to be endowed with their spiritual essence.' 



Dorsey, writing in his " Study of Siouan Cults," concerning the 

 origin of the buffalo and their " mysterious " power says : " Therefore, 

 when a man can hardly be wounded by a foe, the people believe that 

 the former has seen the buffalo in dreams or visions and on that 

 account has received mysterious help fro>m those animals. All such 

 men who dream of the buffalo act Ul-e them and dance the huffalo dance. 

 And the man who acts the huffalo is said to have a real buffalo inside 

 him and a chrysalis lies ivithin that part of the body near the shoulder 

 blade." ^ Similar views are held by the Salish tribes. 



Turner, writing of the religion of the Hudson Bay Eskimo, says: 

 " The spirit [i.e., the tutelary guardian] is often in a material form in 

 the shape of a doll carried somewhere about the person." ^ 



Lynd, writing of the Dakotas, says : " Frequently the devout 

 Dakota will make images of bark or stone, and after painting them 

 in various ways and putting sacred down upon them will fall down and 

 worship before them, praying that all danger may be averted from hini 



' Eighteenth Annual Report Bureau of Amer. Eth., pp. 394-5. 

 ^ Eleventh Annual Report Bur. Amer. Eth., 1889-90, p. 477. 

 ' Ibid., p. 194. 



