362 REPOET — 1902. 



be called, of existence and the universe. In common with other primitive 

 races, they people their environment with sentient beings and agencies of 

 beneficent and maleficent character, mostly of the latter. Out of this con- 

 ception spring their belief in, and their seeking by special means, personal 

 guiding and protecting ' spirits,' or ' potencies ' ; which are akin to, but 

 not identical with, the ' Manatous ' of the plain Indians. Nature to 

 them is full of ' mystei'ies ' ; and their perception of its laws is to endow 

 every object and agency in their environment with conscious power and 

 being. Surrounded thus by Potencies and Mysteries, capricious in 

 action and generally malevolent in character, liable at any moment to be 

 made their victims or prey, there was a vital need of a protecting ' influ- 

 ence' or 'spirit' in their lives. This 'guide,' 'protector,' 'influence,' 

 ' power,' ' charm '- — for it partakes of the character of all these — the 

 Tcil'Qe'uk call by the name of su'lla or so'lla. This is the abstract or 

 nominal form of the verb ti'lia, ' to dream.' It is thus called because 

 these ' potencies ' come to and communicate with them in dreams or 

 visions. A person's s«77« might be apparently anything — bird, beast, 

 fish, object, or element. There was apparently no limitation, provided 

 only that it came to him in a dream or vision. This is a fact of special 

 significance, clearly showing that every object in Nature, animate or inani- 

 mate, possessed for them active and sentient powers and qualities. This 

 fact is the more striking when it is remembered that parts of animals or 

 objects, or even of human beings, might become a person's su'lla. Such su'lia, 

 however, were rare among them. But their presence at all is of particular 

 interest to us in our studies of the social organisation of the Indians of 

 this region, as they seem to show us the steps by which the peculiar 

 totemism of the northern tribes is reached. Such tribes as the Tcil'Qe'uk 

 and others, who make su'lla of a tooth, a bone, a shell, a basket, or other 

 utensil, a piece of hair or wood or stone, and similar objects, have clearly 

 not yet passed beyond the stage of fetishism. Indeed, the Salish su'lia 

 are throughout only higher forms of fetishism, in that they are always 

 iiidivichtal objects, no matter what those objects may be. Yet the su'lia 

 of the Tcil'Qe'uk and other SaJish tribes is not the fetish or talisman of 

 the African savage ; it partakes also of the character of the totem. It 

 is, indeed, I am led to believe, the connecting-link between pure fetishism 

 and totemism as it is found among our northern Indians. That the personal 

 totem as we find it in this region has been evolved from fetishism I think 

 the su'lia of the tribes under consideration make clear ; and that the 

 peculiar clan totem of our northern tribes is the further evolution and 

 natural extension of the personal totem becomes equally clear under the 

 study of the origin and spread of personal and family crests and emblems ; 

 these standing in the same relation to the clan totem as the fetish does 

 to the personal totem. These crests and emblems, formerly so highly 

 esteemed and jealously guarded by those entitled to them, which entered so 

 largely and aflfected so profoundly the social life and organisation of our 

 coast Indians, are seen to have originated in two different ways. One 

 springs from pictographic or plastic representation of the su'lia, as among 

 the interior Salish and the northern Alaskan tribes ; ^ the other is an em- 

 blematic record of some event or adventure, more or less mythical, in the 

 life of the owner or his ancestors, the nature of which is well exemplified 



' See ' The Eskimo about Bering Strait,' by Edward W. Nelson. Part I. of the 

 Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. 



