248 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



through the woods to a certain salmon creek, and found 

 two salmon-spear handles, beautifully carved, standing 

 at the foot of a big tree. When he carried them home, 

 the beaver said that they were his make. Then the 

 people said something that offended it again, whereupon 

 the beaver began, to every one's surprise, to sing just 

 like a human being. While singing, it seized a spear and 

 threw it straight through its master's chest, killing him 

 instantly. Then it threw its tail down upon the ground 

 and the earth upon which the house stood dropped in. 

 They found afterwards that the beaver had been digging 

 out the earth under the camp to make a great hollow. 

 The people who had this experience, claim the Beaver 

 as their crest and are proud to possess the songs com- 

 posed by him. 23 In other traditions of the same sort 

 there is no indication that the clan is thought of as having 

 descended from the totem animal. The grizzly bear crest 

 was obtained by a man who married a she-bear. 24 In 

 some cases it was believed that the crest animal came to 

 earth and became a man, the ancestor of the clan. 25 In 

 the case of the Thunder-Bird, it is related that Too- 

 Large, the Thunder-Bird, flew with his wife through the 

 door of the upper world down to the lower world of men 

 where there was a man at work upon his house. This 

 man called to them that they should become men and help 

 him. Too-Large at once lifted the jaw of his thunder- 

 bird mask, and said, "0 brother! we are people." In 

 these legends the ancestor is first an animal, but becomes 

 a man by taking off his animal mask. 20 Thus the concept 



23 Rwanton, J. R. Tlingit MytJis antl Texts, Bureau of Amer. Ethnol., 

 bul. 39, 1909, p. 227. 

 2* Ibid., pp. 228-229. 



25 Boas, op. cit., p. 382. 



26 Boas and Hunt, Kwakiutl Tcr** J**un Expedition, vol. iii, 1905. 



