454 



REPORT — 1894. 



The Indian Tribes of the Lower Fraser River. By Dr. Franz Boas. 



la the sixth report of the Committee I described the customs of tlie 

 Lka'ngED, the most southern group of the Coast Salish living on British 

 territory. The northern neighbours of the Lku'ngEn, who will be de- 

 scribed in the following pages, speak the K'auetcin (Cowichan) language. 

 This dialect of the Coast Salish is spoken on Vancouver Island from Saa- 

 nitch Inlet to Nonoos, on the islands north of Saanitch Peninsula and on 

 the Lower Fraser River as far as Yale. The language as spoken on Van- 

 couver Island and on the mainland shows slight dialectic differences, the 

 most striking ones being the general substitution of I for n, and of a for (7,, 

 on Fraser River. I have given elsewhere some notes on the tribes of 

 Cowichan River and of Nanaimo which belong to this group.' Therefore 

 I confine myself in the following pages to remarks on the tribes of the 

 mainland, whom I studied in the summer of 1890. 



The Cowichan of the mainland are divided into fourteen tribes, each 

 forming a village community. The inhabitants of each village are believed 

 to be the descendants of one mythical personage. I give here a list of 

 tribes, their villages, and the names of the mythical ancestors : — 



The tribes above SkuytVm are collectively called Te'it = those up river. 

 The tribal traditions tell that Qals, the deity (see p. 463), met the ances- 

 tors of all these tribes and transformed them into certain plants ot* 

 animals which generally abound near the site of the winter village. For 

 instance, Male is well known for the great number of flags growing in 

 the slough near the village, mountain-goats are found not far from 

 Pa'pk'um, and so forth. In many cases the ancestor is said to have been 

 transformed into a rock of remarkable shape or size, which is found not 

 far from the village. Thus T'e'qulatca, Qa'latca, and Autlte'n are still 

 shown. I do not understand that the tribe itself claims any relationship 

 with these animals or plants, but nevertheless these ideas must be con- 



' American Anihro2)olo(jht,\?!%9,^. ^2\ ; ' Zur Ethnologie von Britisch-Columbion,* 

 Petermann's Mitthcilungen, 1887, No. 5 ; Verhandlnnrien dcr Berliner (jlesselUchaft fiir 

 Anthro2)ohgif, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, 18M1, p. (j28. 



