ox THE NORTH-WESTERN' TRIBES OF CANADA. 677 



inherited by the woman's children. This must have given an important 

 impulse to acquiring or inventing similar traditions on the part of other 

 clans, since their possession was undoubtedly considered a prestige. 

 Probably the fastings of young men and the subsequent hallucinations 

 have furnislicd the greater part of the material for these legends. 



It is necessaiy to consider at this place a few characteristic traditions 

 which belong to the cannibal society of the tribes of the northern and 

 central parts of the coast. The most widely diffused tradition on this 

 subject seems to have originated among the He'iltsuk', but it has spread 

 .southward to the Kwakiutl. It is told that a young girl was carried away 

 by the cannibal spirit. Her four brothers searched for her, and with 

 difficulty escaped the pursuing cannibal spirit. Finally, they succeeded in 

 killing him, and his ashes were transformed into mosquitoes. In the 

 course of their visit to their sister the brothers learned the songs and 

 secrets of the cannibal society. This tradition is given in most cases 

 as the origin of the secret society. A number of other members were 

 initiated in other ways, one by stealing the cedar-bark ornaments of the 

 bathing cannibal spirit, another one by ascending the sky and obtaining 

 the secrets of the society. 



These customs have also spi'ead to the northern neighbours of the 

 He'iltsnk-, the Tsimshian. They have the following tradition in regard to 

 the origin of the society : — A hunter pursued a bear, which finally led 

 him into the interior of a rock. Inside he saw people performing the 

 ceremonies of the society, and he Avas insti'ucted by their chief to repeat 

 the same ceremonies at home. In all the traditions of the Kwakiutl the 

 cannibal spirit presides over the society, Avhile he does not appear in the 

 Tsimshian tradition. This shows that difierent traditions are used for 

 explaining the same ceremonial. 



In connection with these facts we will consider the conclusions which 

 were drawn from a consideration of the mythologies of the tribes of 

 British Columbia. We saw that none of these could be considered as the 

 product of a single tribe. All the traditions were full of foreign elements, 

 which it was possible to trace over Avide areas. If, therefore, the same 

 ritual is explained by different traditions, we may conclude that the 

 rituol preceded the tradition ; that the former is the primary phenomenon, 

 the latter the secondary. 



It seems that the development of the ritual, as well as of the traditions 

 connected Avith it, is founded in the prestige given by membership in a 

 secret society. There must have developed a desire to become a member 

 of a society, Avhich led, wherever the number of societies was insufficient 

 for the tribe, to the establishment of neAv ones. It is not meant, of 

 course, that the Indians intentionally invented new traditions, but that 

 the desire stimulated their fancy and excited their mind, and that in this 

 manner, after proper fastings, occasion Avas given for hallucinations, the 

 material of Avhich Avas naturally taken from the ideas found among the 

 tribe and its neighbours. Similar phenomena have been treated, from a 

 systematic point of A-iew, by StoU in his book on Suggestion, and by Tarde 

 in his book on the Laws of Imitation. 



It is easily understood hoAv the exciting ceremonial of the cannibal 

 .society may have giA'en rise to hallucinations in Avhich a young man 

 thought to see the same spirit under neAv conditions, and that after 

 his return from the solitucjfi he told his visions. Since the opinion 

 preA'ailed that the spiiit Avhich appeared in tiiis manner had a tendency 



