4() BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 
arts, their beliefs and customs, differ so markedly from those of all 
other Indian peoples. Notwithstanding this great uniformity of 
culture, however, a closer study of the elements of it discloses many 
things that are peculiar to single tribes, which show that this cul- 
ture is the natural result of a gradual and convergent development 
from several distinct sources or centers, every one of these tribes 
having added something peculiar to itself to the sum of this develop- 
ment. 
The territory occupied by these tribes is a mountainous coast, | 
deeply indented by numerous sounds and fiords, which encompass 
many islands, both large and small. Travel along the coast is very 
easy by means of canoes, but access to inland places is quite difficult, 
rugged hills and dense forests rendering travel here very trying, even 
forbidding. A few fiords deeply indent the mainland, and the 
valleys, opening into them, make possible access to the center of the 
high ranges, separating the highlands of the interior from the coastal 
lands, establishing an effective barrier between the people of the 
coast and those of the interior. These barriers have forced these 
tribes to occupy a rather isolated area, and thus they have devel- 
oped a culture peculiar to themselves, without marked traces of 
intrusive influence. 
The following are Kwakiutl groups and subgroups of peoples: 
Haisla dialect—Kitamat and Kitlope. Heiltsuk dialect—Bella- 
bella, China Hat, Nohuntsitk, Somehulitk, and Wikeno. Kwakiutl 
dialect: Koskimo subdialect—Klaskino, Koprino, Koskimo, and 
Quatsino; Nawiti subdialect—Nakomegilisala and Tlatlasikoala; Awa- 
kiutl subdialect—Awaitlala, Goasila, Guauaenok, Hahuamis, Koek- 
satenok, Kwakiutl (including Matilpe), Lekwiltok, Mamalelekala, 
Nakoaktok, Nimkish, Tenaktak, Tlauitsis, and Tsawatenok. The 
Hoyalas subdialect formerly constituted a Kwakiutl division or 
group, which is now extinct and whose affinities are unknown. 
Among the Kwakiutl proper there is a ‘‘ceremonial of cannibal- 
ism’”’ which is the most important part of the ritual to which it be- 
longs. It is the belief of the living Kwakiutl that cannibalism was 
introduced among them from the Heiltsuk about 1830. On the 
other hand, the Tsimshian claim that they acquired this revolting 
custom from the Heiltsuk about 1820. This would seem to indicate 
that cannibalism was limited for a time to the comparatively small 
habitat of the Heiltsuk. But there is no evidence that it originated 
with the Heiltsuk. 
