582 REPORT—1899, 
General Remarks. 
A consideration of the foregoing folk-tales brings out many points of 
interest. Jt will be seen, for instance, that the number 4 is an oft- 
recurring number. It is undoubtedly the sacred mystic number of the 
Salish stock, as we find it holding an equally predominant place in the 
myths and stories of the Bella Coola tribe on the coast, between whom 
and the N’tlaka’pamug there has been no intercourse from time imme- 
morial. I am unable at present to say how far it is common to the 
mythology of the other tribal divisions of this stock ; but finding it in 
these two widely divergent branches separated by impassable physical 
barriers, we may fairly conclude that it is common to the whole. Our 
knowledge of the mythology of the other great divisions of the Salish is 
not yet very extensive if we except that of the Bella Coola recently pub- 
lished by Dr. Boas ; and it will be interesting and profitable to gather 
collections similar to these from all the other divisions. Whether all the 
tribes of the Salish have such a store of folk-tales, or are as imaginative as 
the N’tlaka’pamug, I am unable to say. That they possess more, or have 
more active and lively imaginations, [ much doubt, for it seems scarcely 
possible to find a people more highly imaginative than the folklore of the 
N’tlaka/pamug shows them to be, or rather to have been. There is not a 
single peculiar feature of the landscape which has not its own story 
attached to it. There is no conspicuous object of any kind within their 
borders but has some myth connected with it. The boulders on the hill- 
sides, the benches of the rivers, the falls, the cafions and the turns of the 
Frazer, the mud slides, the bare precipitous cliffs, the sand bars, the 
bubbling spring and the running brook, the very utensils they use, all 
have a history of their own in the lore of this tribe. Every single pecu- 
liarity in bird, or beast, or fish is fully and, to them, satisfactorily 
accounted for in their stories. The flat head of the river cod, the top- 
knot of the blue jay, the bent claws and dingy brown colour of the coyote, 
the flippers of the seal, the red head of the woodpecker, and a host of 
other characteristics, all have their explanation in story. 
Some of the tales here recorded are extremely valuable to us in the 
glimpses they afford of the past and, for the most part, forgotten life, 
customs, thoughts, and beliefs of this people. The intense repugnance in 
which they held incestuous intercourse, the deep shame and disgrace that 
followed a lapse from virtue in the unmarried of both sexes, and the 
serious and damaging reflections it cast upon the parents, are portrayed in 
the somewhat pathetic story of the sister who was wronged by her own 
brother. The pains she took, and the lonely exile she bore to shield her 
father’s name from dishonour, and finally her own and her guilty brother’s 
self-destruction, all make this abundantly clear. Whether this story has 
any foundation in fact, or whether it was told merely to inculcate virtue 
and a hatred of incest, is quite immaterial. That it showed and embodied: 
the feelings of the people on this head is perfectly clear, and that is the 
point which is of interest to us. The praise and enjoinment of virtue, 
self-discipline, and abstinence in young men is no less clearly brought out, 
while the respect and consideration paid by the young to the elders of the 
family and tribe is an equally conspicuous virtue. In no other way could 
we learn these things. The folk-tales alone can now recall the vanished 
past for us. Hence their high value in ethnological inquiry, and the im- 
portance of bringing them together and recording them while there is yet 
opportunity. The pictures which these tales reveal to us of the ancient 
