November 23, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



515 



the whole trustworthy, picture of native life 

 and thought. On the one hand this must be 

 supplemented by the introduction of matters 

 too well known among his people to be ex- 

 plained by the storyteller, and on the other 

 by determining in how far the conception of 

 what ought to be in the social and religious 

 lives of the people conformed to things as they 

 actually were. 



The discussion of Tsimshian society derives 

 a large part of its importance from the fact 

 that it concerns one of the two areas over the 

 data from which controversies regarding " the 

 origin of totemism " have raged most violently. 

 Evidence of the entire absence of such a thing 

 as totemic taboos and of the importance of the 

 father's as well as the mother's clan in the life 

 of the individual are therefore of interest, as 

 also the comparative study of the distribution 

 of crests among the matrilineally organized 

 peoples of this region. The general discussion 

 of totemism on pages 515 to 519 should be read 

 carefully by all interested in that subject. 



In his treatment of the evolution of the 

 north Pacific clan systems Professor Boas 

 follows his usual cautious method. He 

 criticizes adversely the reviewer's theory re- 

 garding a former extension of the Tlingit 

 over what was later the Tsimshian coast, 

 as also his suggestion that Haida moieties 

 have arisen as the result of the amalgama- 

 tion of two distinct peoples. The evidence for 

 the former view was, however, not entirely tra- 

 ditional, being based partly on the presence of 

 a considerable number of animal names in 

 Haida identical with those in Tlingit, and the 

 comparative lack of similar Tsimshian names, 

 although in historic times relations between 

 the Haida and Tsimshian were much more 

 intimate than between the Haida and Tlingit. 



To prepare the comparative study of Tsim- 

 shian mythology an enormous amount of pains- 

 taking work was necessary, particularly in the 

 analysis of the various versions of the Raven 

 legend, and future students will be saved an 

 incalculable amount of labor. Two or three 

 more efforts of the same kind would result in 

 the much-desired concordance. The results of 

 this comparison are summarized on pages 872- 



881, the more important points being the fol- 

 lowing. 



As forecasted in Boas's " Indianische 

 Sagen," published in 1895, Tsimshian mythol- 

 ogy is distinguished from the mythologies of 

 other Pacific coast peoples by the presence of 

 a large number of tales of inland origin. An 

 examination of the content of the material gen- 

 erally shows " that there are a number of very 

 simple plots, which have a wide distribution, 

 and which are elaborated by a number of inci- 

 dents that have a very wide distribution and 

 occur in a variety of plots." Comparing Eu- 

 ropean and Iforth American folk-lore Pro- 

 fessor Boas finds that " European folk-lore 

 creates the impression that the whole stories 

 are units and that their cohesion is strong, the 

 whole complex very old. The analysis of Amer- 

 ican material, on the other hand, demon- 

 strates that complex stories are new, that there 

 is little cohesion between the component ele- 

 ments, and that the really old parts of tales are 

 the incidents and a few simple plots." There 

 is a tendency among these Indian tales to shake 

 off many of their supernatural elements along 

 the border of their area of distribution, but 

 this is " counterbalanced by another tendency 

 of tales to take on new supernatural signifi- 

 cance." In conclusion Professor Boas has a 

 word to say (pages 879-881) regarding the 

 general theory of mythology, with particular 

 reference to that widespread impression that 

 mythic tales represent an attempt on the part 

 of primitive man to explain the phenomena of 

 nature. Professor Boas thinks that this belief 

 is not justified. His conclusion is that the ma- 

 terial presented in this work " rather empha- 

 sizes the fact that its origin must be looked for 

 in the imaginative tales dealing with the 

 social life of the people." Still he would prob- 

 ably not deny that particular applications of 

 such tales to the explanation of natural phe- 

 nomena had been attempted at a very remote 

 period in human history. 



" Tsimshian Mythology " furnishes a notable 

 addition to the sum of myth material and to 

 our knowledge of northwest coast enthnology, 

 but its chief claim to distinction rests on the 

 great advance which it registers in the com- 



