47 G - REPORT — 1900. 



and thus securing the goodwill of tlie tribe in his son's favour, The son, 

 too, upon his father's death, would also give a feast and make handsome 

 presents to all the influential men of the tribe, the result of which would 

 be that he would be elected to the rank of chief, and be allowed to succeed 

 his father in the chieftaincy of the tribe. From this it would seem that 

 children took their social rank from their mother rather than from their 

 father, which looks like a trace of matriarchate, or mother-riglit. It is 

 clear from their folk-tales, however, that these class divisions were not 

 hard and fast, but that members of a lower caste could by the per- 

 formance of certain acts pass into that above it. Of seci'et societies I 

 was unable to obtain any information whatever, and whether such 

 formerly existed among the Sk-qo'mic— of which I am extremely doubtful — 

 it seems impossible now to say. Among the chiefs there were some of 

 higher rank than the others, as among the N'tlaka'pamuQ. The supreme 

 sul'm of the tribe was known by the title Te K'laplla'ndii, and had his 

 headquarters at the mouth of the Hom'ultcison Creek, now called Capilano 

 by the whites. He was local chief also of the Homu'ltcison sept. Next 

 in rank to him came one of the Skuamish River chiefs. He likewise had 

 a proper title, being known a,s Te Qutsila'noQ.^ I was unable to learn 

 what special signification these titles liad. It is possible we may see in 

 them the special names of two powerful gentes. The gentile system of 

 the Sk-qo'mic, if such existed, is not at all clear. The distinction between 

 what might be regarded as a gens, or a sept, or a mere tribal division is 

 very difficult to determine. 



I could gather nothing satisfactory from any of my informants on this 

 head. Heraldic and totemic symbols, according to .some of them, were 

 never used in the old days ; but yet I was informed by others that some 

 of the old houses had carved posts or columns, and that the figure of a 

 bird or some otlier animal would sometimes be placed on a pole in front 

 of the house or fastened to one of the gable ends. They also, sometimes 

 at least, used masks in certain of their dances, if we may rely upon the 

 information on these points in their folk-tales. The tribe, as my ethno- 

 graphical notes show, was formerly divided into a number of subdivisions, 

 or d'kwumuq. Whether each of these should be regarded simply as a 

 tribal subdivision, as among the N'tlaka'pamuQ, or as a gens, as among 

 the nortliern tribes, is doubtful. Each division had its own proper name — 

 in every instance, I think, a geographical one— derived from some local 

 physical peculiarity, exactly as among the N'tlaka'pamuQ. In every 

 ukinimnq there existed the same threefold division of the people into 

 three classes, and in some instances the total number of souls in each 

 village would amount to several hundreds. Generally speaking, each 

 community would be made up of several families or clans. The members 

 of these clans were not bound together, as the gentes of the northern 



' The distinctive part of this title bears a remarkable resemblance to the esoteric 

 term by which one of the Nootka deities was invoked by the chiefs of that tribe. 

 Dr. Boas has recorded the name of this being under the form Ka'tse. The two forms 

 so clearly resemble each other as to suggest some connection between them ; and 

 in this connection I may remark that the more I extend my studies of the Salish 

 and Kwakiutl-Nootka, the stronger is the conviction forced upon me that between 

 these two stocks there is a deeper underlying racial connection than the structural 

 differences of their language would seem to indicate. Morphologically speaking, 

 they seem to Lave little in common ; but that little steadily increases with our larger 

 analytical knowledge of their languages, and their vocabulary reseciblances are 

 pir^ny and f.?r-rcaching. 



