ON THE NORTH-WESTEKN TIIIBKS OF CANADA. 833 



to tho northern group of tribes. If such is possible, the rank of each 

 man is here still more exactly fixed than among their neighbours. The 

 rank is determined by the gens to which a man belongs, by the feasts he 

 has given, and by the secret societies to which he belongs. In the list 

 of gentes on page 827 I have enumerated the Kwakiutl gentes according 

 to their social standing. In great festivals celebrated for the purpose of 

 acquiring rank by giving away property, the noblest guests sit in the 

 rear part of the house, nearest the fire, and the lower in rank the farther 

 back they sit. When only one row is formed those lowest in rank sit 

 nearest the door. 



The affairs of the whole tribe are discussed in council, in which only 

 men participate. Before the opening of the discussion four songs are 

 sung and four courses are served. Then the public affairs are discussed 

 in long and elaboi-ate speeches, delivered principally by the chiefs. In 

 time of peace there is no chief who has acknowledged authority over the 

 whole tribe, but each gens has its own chief. A certain superiority of 

 social standing is acknowledged in those who have given a great donation 

 feast. In times of war a war chief is elected. 



The chief represents his gens, and carries out the decision of the 

 council. Except on delivering speeches, he does not speak to people of 

 low rank, but converses with them through messengers. 



If a single person is offended, the gentes of both his father and mother 

 are obliged to come to his help. Thus the long war between the Coast 

 Salish and Lekwiltok originated. Formerly these wars were of so 

 frequent occurrence that the villages all along the coast were protected 

 by stockades. 



The institutions of the Coast Salish and of the Kwakiutl are pretty 

 much the same, except that the former have a pure patriarchate, and the 

 cliild inherits his father's rank and property. 



Among the Skqo'mic, for instance, the chieftaincy devolves upon the 

 chief's son. If there is only a daughter his grandson is the successor. 

 If there are no children a new chief is elected from among his gens. If 

 the successor is a young boy a representative is elected who acts as chief 

 until the boy is grown up and has assumed a name. If a man dies his 

 wife inherits all the property and keeps it until her children are grown 

 up. After the death of the husband she gives a potlatch to his memory. 



Among all the tribes heretofore described each gens owns a certain 

 district and certain fishing privileges. Among the Tlingit, Haida, and 

 Tsimshian each gens in each village has its own fishing-ground ; its 

 mountains and valleys, on which it has the sole right of hunting and 

 picking berries ; its rivers in which to fish salmon, and its house-sites. 

 For this reason the houses of one gens are always grouped together. I 

 do not know of any tradition which accounts for this fact, or of any other 

 foundation of their claim. The Kwakiutl, who have the same distribu- 

 tion of land among the various gentes, account for this fact by saying 

 that the ancestor of each gens descended from heaven to the particular 

 region now owned by his descendants. Later on Kanikilak', the son of 

 the deity (see p. 826), in his wanderings encountered these ancestors, 

 and gave them the country they inhabited as their property, filling at 

 the same time their rivers with salmon. The Coast Salish derive their 

 claims to certain tracts of land in the same way from the fact that the 

 ancestor of each gens came down to a certain place, or that he settled 

 there after the great flood. The right of a gens to the place where it 



1889. 3 H 



