182 REPORT— 1887. 



reqaii'ed as to whether they are receptacles for spirits or deities, or merely 

 symbolical representations. The veneration for certain animals, and 

 prohibition to kill and eat them, partly has to do with direct animal- 

 worship, but is mixed up in a most perplexing way with respect for the 

 totem or tribe-animal. In fact, many travellers, as, for instance, Long the 

 interpreter, already mentioned, have confused the totem-animal with the 

 medicine-animal, which latter is revealed to the hunter in a dream, and 

 the skin or other part of which is afterwards carried about by him as a 

 means of gaining luck and escaping misfortune. Above these lesser 

 spiritual beings greater deities are recognised by most tribes, whether 

 they are visible nature-deities, such as Sun and Moon, Heaven and Earth, 

 or more ideal beings, such as the First Ancestor, or Great Spirit. There 

 is still great scope for improving and adding to the information 

 already on record as to the religious systems of the tribes of the 

 Dominion, and hardly any better mode is available than the collection 

 of legends. 



Mythology. — As is well known, most Indian tribes have a set of 

 traditional stories in which are related the creation of the world, the 

 origin of mankind, the discovery of fire, some great catastrophe, especially 

 a great flood, and an infinity of other episodes. Such, for instance, are 

 the legends of Quawteaht, taken down by Sproat among the Ahts, and 

 the Haida stories of the Raven published by Dawson. These stories, 

 written down in the native languages and translated by a skilled interpreter, 

 form valuable anthropological material. It is true that tliey are tiresome 

 and, to the civilised mind, silly ; but they are specimens of native language 

 and thought, containing incidentally the best of information as to native 

 religion, law, and custom, and the very collecting of them gives 

 opportunities of asking questions which draw from the Indian story- 

 teller, in the most natural way, ideas and beliefs which no inquisitorial 

 cross-questioning would induce him to disclose. 



In studying the religion and mythology of the various tribes, and 

 also their social constitution, their arts, their amusements, and their 

 mental and moral traits, it is important to observe not only how far 

 these characteristics differ in different tribes, but whether they vary 

 decidedly from one linguistic stock to another. Some observers have 

 been led to form the opinion that the people of each linguistic family 

 had originally their own mythology, differing from all others. Thus the 

 deities of the Algonkins are said to be in general strikingly different 

 from those of the Dakotas. Yet this original unlikeness, it is found, has 

 been in part disguised by the habit of borrowing tenets, legends, and 

 ceremonies from one another. This is a question of much interest. It 

 is desirable to ascertain any facts which will show whether this original 

 difference did or did not exist, and how far the custom of borrowing 

 religious rites, civil institutions, useful arts, fashions of dress, ornaments, 

 and pastimes extends. Thus the noted religious ceremony called the 

 ' sun-dance ' prevails among the western Ojibways, Crees, and Dakotas, 

 but is unknown among the eastern tribes of the Algonkin and Dakota 

 stocks. It would seem, therefore, to be probably a rite borrowed by 

 them from some other tribe in the vicinity of those western tribes. The 

 Kootanies of British Columbia, immediately west of these tribes, are 

 said, on good authority, to have practised this rite before their recent 

 conversion by the Roman Catholic missionaries. If it is found, on 

 inquiry, to have prevailed universally among the Kootanies from time 



