^S6 



NA TURE 



[September i6, 1897 



p. F. Kendall ; that on the Irish elk in the Isle of Man, by 

 P. M. C. Kermode ; and on geological photographs, by Prof. 

 W. W. Watts. 



The final meeting of the section on Wednesday was devoted 

 to a joint discussion with Section H, on the first traces of man 

 in North America, in which the President of the Association, 

 Profs. Putnam, McGee and Claypole, and Drs. Dawson and 

 Spencer took part. Though no definite conclusion was reached, 

 the general feeling of the meeting seemed to be against the 

 high antiquity of the reputed finds in the Trenton gravels. 



This completed the work of the section, and brought an 

 extremely busy week to a successful termination. The Toronto 

 meeting of the British Association, so far as Section C is con- 

 cerned, must be regarded as well above the average of recent 

 meetings, both in the quantity and quality of its work, and as 

 one which all the geologists present will remember both with 

 profit and pleasure. 



ANTHROPOLOGY AT THE BRITISH 

 ASSOCIATION. 



TVTATU RALLY most of the papers read before Section H 

 ■'■^ related to American anthropology ; the following abstracts 

 give some idea of the more important of the communications. 



Miss A. C. Fletcher, who has a long and intimate acquain- 

 tance with the Omaha, gave a couple of papers on the Scalp- 

 lock and the import of the totem among that tribe. Her 

 sympathetic studies have thrown considerable light upon the 

 religious conceptions of these people, and she has demonstrated 

 that they can compose highly dramatic songs and music. In 

 the legend of the Sacred Pole of the Omahas, we are told, 

 "The people felt themselves weak and poor. Then the old 

 men gathered together and said, ' Let us make our children 

 cry to Wakonda.' So all the parents took their children, 

 covered their faces with soft clay, and sent them forth to lonely 

 places. The old man said, ' You shall go forth to cry to 

 Wakonda. When on the hills you shall not ask for any 

 particular thing; whatever is good, that may Wakonda give.'" 

 Thenceforth on arriving at puberty the youth went fasting 

 among the hills till he fell into a trance ; whatever he then 

 beheld in his sleep would be the special medium through which 

 he could receive supernatural aid. This was his personal totem. 

 He then banded himself with those who had received similar 

 visions, and who formed a brotherhood or religious society. 

 These were probably the most primitive social organisations. 

 A further integration resulted in the grouping of brotherhoods 

 into gentes, who practised exogamy and traced descent through 

 the father. Each gens had its totem,, which was probably that 

 of the original founder of the gens. 



The gentile totem gave no immediate hold upon the super- 

 natural, as did the individual totem to its possessor ; it served 

 solely as a mark that the individual belonged to a definite 

 kinship group from which he could never sever himself without 

 incurring supernatural pnnishment. 



The child entered into the gens by means of the ceremony of 

 hair-cutting. As recently practised this rite consisted of two 

 parts, of which the first was confined to boys. A child was 

 presented by his mother to Thunder priest with the words, " I 

 desire my child to walk long upon the earth, I desire him to be 

 satisfied with much food, we seek your protection, we hold 

 to you for strength." While singing a song the priest cut 

 a tuft of hair from the crown of the head, and laid it away in the 

 sacred case. The hair typified the life of the boy, which was 

 thus symbolically entrusted to the safe-keeping of the Thunder 

 god. The child thenceforth passes out of the simple relation 

 he bears to his parents, and by this act is re-born into the tribe 

 and becomes a recognised member of the tribe. The sign of 

 this consecration is the small lock of braided hair, which is 

 isolated from the rest, and to which is fastened the talisman and 

 the war honours worn by the warrior. It was this lock that 

 was cut from the head of a slain enemy and formed the central 

 object in the triumph ceremonies, since it pre-eminently repre- 

 sented the life of the vanquished enemy. The second part was 

 common to all children. In a symbolic ceremony the child was 

 turned in the four quarters in order to place it in relation with 

 the elements, and thus to ensure long life and prosperity. 



Probably the turning ceremony was the more primitive 

 portion, so that the sequence may have been much as follows : 

 A child was put into harmonious relation with its environment 



by the rite of the " turning of the child." Then a boy was 

 placed in the safe-keeping of the Thunder god, by means of the 

 '•hair-cutting" rite, that he might become a brave defender 

 of his people. The need of the assistance of supernatural 

 forces led to the "vision rite," with its consequent totem. 

 Those having the same totem naturally formed brotherhoods, 

 and which acknowledged spiritual affinities, and lastly kinship 

 was recognised and relatives were bound together by a common 

 totem, and the restrictions of a common tabu. This important 

 paper will shortly be printed in full by the Anthropological 

 Institute. 



Mr. C. Hill-Tout presented a long folk-tale, entitled 

 " Sqaktktquacht, or the Benign- Faced " — an interesting 

 hero-tale of a clever younger brother who went about doing 

 good. He was the youngest of three brothers, who were the 

 children of the red-headed woodpecker and his wife, the black 

 bear. This saga will be published by the Folk-lore Society. 



A legend concerning Scar-face, which is believed by the 

 Algonquian Blackfeet to explain the origin of their principal 

 sacred ceremonies, was sent by Mr. R. N. Wilson. So much 

 ritual has reference to this myth, and so many observances 

 are founded upon it, that the student of Indian religious 

 thought may accept it as one of the most significant and in- 

 structive of their legends. A beautiful Indian girl refused many 

 suitors, but promised to marry one young man if the scar that dis- 

 figured his face could be removed. After a long journey he came 

 to where the Sun lived with his wife, the Moon ; their son, the 

 Morning Star, befriended Scar-face. The Sun healed him and 

 retained him until he had been taught many religious ceremonies. 

 Eventually he returned home, married the girl, and taught the 

 ceremonies to his tribe, and the Sun, as he had promised, was 

 kind to the people and heard their prayers. Mr. Wilson's other 

 paper gave a detailed account of Blackfoot Sun-offerings. The 

 tribal religious ceremonies are performed by " prayerful " men ; 

 they are not members of any society, but simply individuals of an 

 extremely religious temperament gifted with a good memory. 

 There is no medical priesthood, as has been inaccurately stated. 

 The Sun is pre-eminently the Blackfoot divinity ; they may have 

 had more ancient deities, but the " Creator" was never heard of 

 by them until the advent of the missionaries. An account of the 

 life of the Blackfoot women was given by the Rev. J. Maclean. 

 According to Mr. Stansbury Hagar, who presented a paper on 

 the star-lore of the Micmacs of Nova Scotia, the Micmacs 

 believe the stars to be the camp fires of the inhabitants of the 

 sky. The larger fires are before the dwellings of the chiefs, and 

 around them are grouped the lesser lights of the people who bear 

 the same totem name. The Milky Way is the road between heaven 

 and earth. The four stars of the body of the Plough are known 

 as the Bear. He is pursued by seven birds (the three stars of 

 the Plough-handle, Arcturus and 7, e, and rj of Bootes). Near 

 the second of these hunters is a faint star representing the kettle 

 in which the bear is to be cooked. Behind them the Northern 

 Crown with ^ and 7 of Bootes form a typical den. In the spring 

 the bear is seen climbing out of his den ; in summer he runs 

 across the sky ; in the fall, overtaken by his pursuers, he is 

 wounded with an arrow and totters to the ground ; in winter he 

 lies dead upon his back, but with the following spring returns to 

 life, and so the cycle continues eternally. 



Dr. W. J. McGee gave a graphic account of the Seri Indiafts 

 of the Gulf of California. This very ancient tribe has been so 

 isolated that it had never before been studied. These cannibals 

 are extremely active and warlike ; they use poisoned arrows, 

 and owing to their bellicose disposition they are now nearly 

 extinct. They are more distinctly matriarchal than any other 

 j tribe, and were originally monogamous, though now they are 

 polygamous. They live entirely by fishing and the chase, and 

 have no agriculture. Their implements are natural stones, 

 which by use may become pounded into more serviceable shapes ; 

 for these the term " protoHthic " was suggested. A cultural 

 art has been but recently acquired, as there is no name in general 

 use for the chipped arrow-points that they now employ. 



The Kootenays and Salishans of British Columbia were 

 described by Dr. A. F. Chamberlain ; though aUied in many 

 respects, they belong to two distinct linguistic stocks. The 

 former are intensely democratic and without complicated secret 

 societies or totemistic clans. Sun-worship is strongly developed 

 among them. A large series of interesting Kootenay drawings 

 was exhibited by the author. 



A summary of the twelfth report of the Committee ap- 

 pointed to investigate the North-western tribes of Canada, by 



NO. 1455, VOL. 56] 



