SOCIAL CONDITION, BELIEFS, AND LINGUISTIC 

 RELATIONSHIP OF THE TLINCIT INDIANS 



Bv ,I<)HN R. SWANTON 



INTKOOrCTION 



■ The material contained in this papi-r is a portion of the results of 

 al)out two months" worlv at Sitlia, Ahiska, between January and March, 

 1!M)4, and about one niontii at Wran^ell, March to April of the same 

 year. The remainder of the mater-ial gathered at that tima consists 

 principallvof texts in the native language with translations and myths 

 recorded in English. The chief objects of the investigation were: (1) 

 To obtain a suUicient number of Tlingit myths to round out the col- 

 lections of tales from the noi'th Pacific coast; (2) to collect enough lin- 

 guistic material for a careful study of the Tlingit language, with the 

 special object of comparing it with that of the Haida, with which some 

 sort of relationship was })elieved to exist and with which the writer 

 already had considerable acquaintance; and (3) to add as much as pos- 

 sible to our knowledge of Tlingit ethnology generally. This paper 

 coiuprises most of the notes made with the third purpose in view, 

 and the results of the writer's comparison of Tlingit and Haida. Very 

 little attention is given to the arts, the industries, and the food quest, 

 partly because these have i)een treated very fully in Krause's monu- 

 mental work, Die Tlinkit Indianer (Jena, 18S,5), and in one particular, 

 that of basketry, in "The basketry of the Tlingit," by G. T. Enunons, 

 in volume in of the Memoirs of the .\merican Museum of Natural 

 History, and partly because these arc not so readily studied in con- 

 nection with language and myths, and indeed require independent 

 investigation. 



The phonetics used are almost identical with those employed by 

 Professor Boas, the writer, and others in connection with the work of 

 the Bureau of American Ethnology and the American Must>nm of 



395 



