REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. 
ANTHROPOLOGY. 
Social Organization of the Kwakiutl Indians.1— The results of 
the investigations made by Dr. Boas during the last ten or twelve 
years among the Indians of the Northwest coast have been pub- 
lished in the reports of the British Association for the Advancement 
of Science, in the Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, and in government 
reports and elsewhere in this country. The present account of the 
social organization and the secret societies of the Kwakiutl tribe is 
one of the most valuable papers in the series. The Jessup Expedi- 
tions, which Dr. Boas last year led in person, are again at work in 
that region, and we may expect to receive a final and complete 
account of these coast tribes at an early day. 
It is generally known that these people form, as Dr. Boas states, 
a distinct cultural group; they have been isolated to some extent by 
mountain barriers from the tribes of the interior. 
This isolation, however, has not been so complete as to prevent 
the introduction of myths from foreign sources. As elsewhere, cul- 
ture and environment are closely related. The contour of the coast, 
indented by fiords and protected by islands, has favored the develop- 
ment of navigation. Fish and marine mammalia abound in the 
sheltered waters. A mild climate of extreme humidity has produced 
a plant growth of almost tropical luxuriance. The quest for food is 
one requiring such little concern that the people have abundant 
leisure for the development of an extensive oral literature and elabo- 
rate ceremonials. These tribes are blanket Indians in more than 
one sense; they are clothed in blankets, and their property consists 
of stores of imported woolen blankets. A blanket is valued at fifty 
cents, which is also the conventional equivalent in Canadian money of 
the “skin,” the standard of value of the Athabascans of the Far 
North 
Among the interesting conclusions reached in this paper may be 
mentioned the belief of the author that in the olden times the 
1 Boas, Franz. The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the 
Kwakiutl Indians. Ann. Rept. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1895. Washington, Government 
rinting Office, 1897, pp. 311-738. 
