boas] DESCRIPTION OF THE TSIMSHIAN 427 



the hunters goes home and asks his mother in regard to the doings 

 of the eldest brother's wife. 



The father gives presents to his wife for the purpose of giving 

 them to his son when he is old enough (see p. 414), and the young man 

 asks his mother for his father's hunting-tools (1.143). On the other 

 hand, the son gives hunting-dogs to his father as a present (1.143). 



The duties which the father's clan performs in the social advance- 

 ment of an individual do not come out very clearly. We learn that 

 the cradle for a child is made by its father's father, a supernatural 

 being, who is paid two elk skins, ocher, and eagle down by the child's 

 mother's father (241). 



The daughter is carefully guarded by her parents (see p. 432). The 

 father who does not want to let his daughter marry is an oft-recurring 

 motive in these tales (161, 177, 232, N 229). In some cases the 

 father consents to a secret marriage which his daughter has entered 

 into against his will (298, 1.117, N 229), but he may harbor enmity 

 against his son-in-law who has married his daughter without his 

 consent. In other cases the child is deserted by him (432). 



When a chief desires to obtain a treasure, he offers his daughter in 

 marriage to the successful competitor 1 (N 138). A hostile relation 

 between father and son, developing from the fact that the two belong 

 to hostile clans, appears as an element of one tale only, when, 

 after a war in which all the men of one clan have been killed, the 

 chief kills all his sons who are the children of a woman of that clan, 

 for fear that they might avenge the death of their relatives (307). 

 For that reason it is also said at this place that the only surviving 

 boy hates his father. 



We do, however, find numerous cases in which a chief is displeased 

 with his child of whom he is ashamed for one reason or another. On 

 225 the son will not work. When the strain becomes great, the 

 father deserts his child. Thus the father sends off his voracious child 

 (60); the chief deserts his daughter, his nephew, and the grand- 

 mother of the latter (N 145); he deserts his son, his son's grand- 

 mother (presumably the maternal grandmother), and a slave (227 

 and N 171). On the other hand we hear of the deserted boy who 

 becomes successful and will not help his father (230). 



At the death of a man or a woman, their children give a potlatch 

 (N 186). Disobedient children are spoken of only once (126). 



We often find women described as living far away from their rela- 

 tives. The woman married in a foreign country tells her children 

 her story (26S). She tells her story to her grown-up children (234), 

 speaking a language which all her 3'ounger children do not under- 

 stand. Only the eldest one has learned her language (235). We 

 also hear of mother and daughter living at different villages, who 



