ON THE ETHNOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 47 



r 



Tcants. ^ North Side from Point A tJdnsoii, throvgh 



Sqelc = standing up (' Siwash rock ). ^;,^ 'jYarrows, ?«; tJtc Inlet 



Stetfiqk-. 



irclcen = sandj^ heach ; rerhatim, soft to 'St"k-qe'l. 



the foot. SmBla'koa. 



Snauq (False Creek). K'tca'm. 



Sk-oatcai's = deep hole in water. Swai'wI. 



Sk-wai'us. Homu'ltcison (Capilano Creek) (former 

 Ta'lmuq (Jericho). headquarters of supreme chief of the 



QapQapetlp = place of cedar (Point Grey). Sk-qo'mic). 



l^'lk-s'n = point (c/. radical for nose). TlastlEmauq = Saltwater Creek. 



Tle'atlum " Stlau'n. 



Tcitcilo'Bk. Qotlskaim = serpent pond. 



K'u'laqEn. QOa'ltca (Linn Creek). 



HumElsom. TcetcilQok (Seymour Creek). 



jVIiili. K-iaken = palisade, a fenced village. 



Social Organimtion, 



The social organisation of the Sk-qo'mic lias lieen so much broken up 

 and modified by missionary and white influence that it is difficult now 

 to learn any details about it. The tribe appears to have been divided, 

 like the N'tlaka'pamuQ, into a number of ukivmHuq, or village communi- 

 ties, each of which was governed by its own local chief. I could gather 

 nothing of their beliefs with regard to the origin of their different villages : 

 they seem to have none or else to have lost or forgotten them. Of the 

 origin of the tribe as a whole and some of the chief events of their 

 existence I gathered an account a few years ago from an ancient member 

 of the tribe, who was born a year or so after Captain Vancouver's visit 

 to them m 1792. This was published in the ' Proceedings of the Royal 

 Society of Canada,' 1897-98. Briefly it tells how the first Sk-qo'mic man 

 came into existence ; how later the tribe was overwhelmed by a flood, 

 and only one man and his wife escaped in their canoe, which landed on 

 the mountains contiguous to the present Sk-qo'mic territory ; and how 

 later again a severe and prolonged snowstorm caused, by cold and famine, 

 the death of the whole tribe save one man and his daughter. From these 

 two the Sk-qo'mic trace their tribal descent. 



The people were divided into the usual threefold division of chiefs, 

 nobles, and common people. The lines, however, between the.se classes 

 were not absolutely rigid. According to my informants a member of the 

 lower class, if a woman, could rise to the class above her by marriage 

 with a member of that class, the wife usually taking the rank of her 

 husband if not a slave. But a man of the lower rank, even if he suc- 

 ceeded in marrying a woman of the middle class, could only become a 

 member of that class by undergoing a long and severe training, in which 

 daily washings and scrubbings of the body played an important part. 

 This was evidently a form of initiation the further particulars of which 

 I could not learn. As a rule the chiefs and their families and immediate 

 relatives formed a class or caste apart, the title of chief or headman 

 descending from father to son, patriarchate prevailing among the 

 Sk-qo'mic. Consequently a chief usually married a chief's daughter or 

 daughters. But this rule was sometimes broken, and a woman of a lower 

 class was taken to wife. In these cases the chieftainship would properly 

 descend to one of the chief's brothers or his son, and not to his own son. 

 This was the rule. But it was possible to bi-eak this also and transmit 

 the headship of the tribe to his own son by giving many ' potlatch ' feasts, 



