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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 884 



constitutes a model of ethnological research, 

 but the tribes that he describes have been so 

 much influenced by the West Coast and 

 Plains cultures that they are presumably far 

 less typical of the culture area than the 

 Athabascan tribes of the Mackenzie Valley. 

 A thorough investigation of these tribes 

 (Chippewyan, Slaves, Yellow Knives, Dog 

 Eibs, Hare and Loucheux) is probably the 

 greatest single need of ethnological research 

 in Canada. Among these tribes, if anywhere 

 in the dominion, we may expect to find the 

 simplest and most fundamental forms of 

 aboriginal American culture, granted that 

 there is such a thing as a fundamental Ameri- 

 can culture substratum. The Athabascan 

 tribes to the west, including the various 

 tribes of the interior of Alaska knovm as 

 Kutchin, are also important in this connec- 

 tion. Similarities in culture which are likely 

 to turn up between the Plateau-Mackenzie 

 and Eastern Woodlands regions (one may in- 

 stance the similarity in technic between the 

 birch-bark basketry of the east and that in the 

 west of Athabascan and Interior Salish tribes) 

 may be explained as due either to the persist- 

 ence of fundamental American traits in both 

 regions — we would be here dealing with Dr. 

 Boas's " marginal " theory — or to the secon- 

 dary spread of such features from one region 

 to the other. 



In the West Coast area many cultural prob- 

 lems likewise await investigation. Only of the 

 Kwakiutl can it be said that we have a really 

 exhaustive series of studies, due to Dr. Boas's 

 many years of research, accessible to the stu- 

 dent. For the Haida and Tlingit much of 

 fundamental value has been already published, 

 notably by Dr. Swanton, yet here our knowl- 

 edge is less complete. Of other impor- 

 tant tribes of the area (Bella Coola, Bella 

 Bella, Tsimshian, Coast Salish and Nootka) 

 we are relatively uninformed, except in re- 

 gard to particular points here and there. 

 Further research on these latter tribes will not 

 only serve to give us a more complete picture 

 of the distinctive culture of this region, but 

 may cause us to modify somewhat our idea of 



certain fundamental elements of the culture. 

 It may be pointed out, for instance, that the 

 Nootka do not illustrate a pure system of 

 paternal descent, for the writer found that aU 

 sorts of privileges, even of such purely mascu- 

 line interest as rights to whaling secrets and 

 rituals, could be inherited through the female 

 as well as male line of descent. 



Of scientific work in Canadian archeology 

 there is doubtless even less at the disposal of 

 students than of ethnology. If we except the 

 work of Mr. Harlan I. Smith on the coast and 

 interior of southern British Columbia, and 

 some rather scattering work done by Boyle 

 and others connected with him in Ontario, 

 there is almost nothing to record that is 

 worthy of serious consideration. An archeo- 

 logical survey of Canada must be of the great- 

 est possible assistance to the student of Ca- 

 nadian aboriginal culture in estimating 

 what elements of material culture are truly 

 characteristic of any particular culture area 

 and what on the other hand are due to secon- 

 dary influence. It is to be expected that many 

 problems touching the movements of popula- 

 tion in early times and the centers of the dis- 

 persion of cultural elements will receive great 

 aid from archeological methods. 



Our knowledge of the native languages of 

 Canada is far from complete, even where con- 

 siderable masses of grammatical and text ma- 

 terial are at our disposal. The quality of the 

 work is not generally all that can be desired. 

 Of Kwakiutl, Tsimshian and Haida we have 

 a reasonably satisfactory knowledge, of the 

 other languages of Canada we are in many 

 cases already informed of the fundamental 

 traits of structure and in some cases, as in 

 that of Ojibwa, we even possess extensive dic- 

 tionaries, yet a poor phonetical groundwork 

 and a failure to grasp the traits of morphol- 

 ogy from a purely objective standpoint vitiate 

 the value of much of this material. Adopting 

 a reasonably high standard of linguistic work, 

 such as one might now adopt in discussing 

 works dealing with Indogermanic or Semitic 

 linguistics, we can safely say that, so far as 

 represented in Canada, none of the Athabas- 



