ON THE NORTH-WESTERN TRIBES OF CANADA. 179 



This is the case with the ball-play, now known by the French name ' la 

 crosse,' which belonged to the Eui'opean game familiar to the French 

 colonists. It is worth while to ascertain in any district where it is played 

 what form of bat was used, what were the rules, and whether villages or 

 clans were usually matched against each other. The bowl-game, in which 

 lots such as buttons or peach-stones blackened on one side are thrown 

 up, has its analogues in Asia ; the rules of counting and scoring belong- 

 ing to any district should be carefully set down. It is in fact more diffi- 

 cult than at first sight appears to describe the rules of a game so as to 

 enable a novice to play it. Among other noticeable games are that of 

 guessing in which hand or heap a small object is hidden, and the spear- 

 and-ring game of throwing at a rolling object. 



Constitution of Society. — Highly valuable information as to systems of 

 marriage and descent, with the accompanying schemes of kinship, and 

 rules for succession of offices and property, has in time past been obtained 

 in Canada. Thus in 1724 Lafitau ('Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains,' 

 vol. i. p. 552) described among the Iroquois the remarkable system of 

 relationship in which mothers' sisters are considered as mothers, and 

 fathers' brothers as fathers, while the children of all these consider them- 

 selves as brothers and sisters. This is the plan of kinship since shown by 

 Mr. L. H. Morgan to exist over a large part of the globe, and named by 

 him the ' classificatory system.' J. Long also in 1791 gave from Canada 

 the first European mention of the Algonkin totem (more properly otem), 

 which has become the accepted term for the animal or plant name of a 

 clan of real or assumed kindred who may not intermarry; for example, 

 the Wolf, Bear, and Turtle clans of the Mohawks. These historical 

 details are mentioned in order to point out that the lines of inquiry thus 

 opened in Canada are far from being worked out. The great Algonkin 

 family afibrds a remarkable example of a group of tribes related together 

 in language and race and divided by totems, but with this difierence, 

 that among the Delawares the totem passed on the mother's side, while 

 among the Ojibways it is inherited on the father's side. Some Blackfeet, 

 again, though by language allied to the same family, are not known to have 

 totems at all. To ascertain whether this state of things has come about 

 by some tribes having retained till now an ancient system of maternal 

 totems, which among other tribes passed into paternal and among others 

 disappeared, or whether there is some other explanation, is an inquiry 

 which might throw much light on the early history of society, as bearing 

 on the ancient periods when female descent prevailed among the nations 

 of the Old World. It is likely that much more careful investigation of the 

 laws and customs, past and present, of these tribes would add to the scanty 

 information now available. On the Pacific side of the Rocky Mountains, 

 where the totem system and female descent are strongly represented, such 

 information is even scantier ; yet careful inquiry made before the passing 

 away of the present generation, who are the last depositories of such 

 traditional knowledge, would be sure to disclose valuable evidence. How 

 large a field for anthropological work here lies open may be shown by a 

 single fact. Among the characteristics of tribes, such as the Haidas of 

 Queen Charlotte's Island, has been the habit of setting up the so-called 

 ' totem posts,' which in fact show conspicuously among their carved and 

 painted figures the totems of families concerned, such as the bear, whale, 

 frog, &c. Such posts, which are remarkable as works of barbaric art, 

 are often photographed, and Judge James G. Swan, of Port Townsend, 



N 2 



