367 
other phratries, so that the Carrier never possessed any unified gov- 
ernment even within a single sub-tribe. 
To buttress their social arrangement the Carrier adopted the 
potlatch system of the west coast tribes. Each event of importance — 
the erection of a large house, the return from a successful war raid, 
the coming of age of a soil or daughter, a marriage, a funeral — 
demanded a feast and a distribution of presents. The funeral of a 
chief, indeed, and the installation of his successor, required not one 
potlatch only, but six. constituting a very heavy burden on the new 
incumbent and his clan. 
To-day this old organization is disapi>earing rapidly. The popu- 
lation has dwindled to one-fourth of its former number, and 
individual homes replacing the large, semi-communal houses that 
were occupied by a chief and his kinsmen have broken down the 
solidarity of the clan. Where phratries and clans still persist, as on 
the borders of the Tsimshiati country, phratric exogamy is no longer 
compulsory, individuals no longer insist on their rightful seats at 
fiances, and shirk the expense of acquiring by potlatches, in defiance 
of the law, the titles, crests, and other privileges to which they are 
entitled by descent. European settlement, moreover, has completely 
changed the economic condition of the Carrier, and their adoption 
of Christianity has lessened their interest in the old social system, 
which in some districts is now almost forgotten. 
The former religion of the Carrier was a blend of the beliefs cur- 
rent among neighbouring tribes. Like die Haida, they acknowledged 
rather vaguely a supreme sky-god (since interpreted as the God of 
the missionaries) to whom they occasionally offered sacrifices of food 
and prayed for help in times of famine. ILit they pinnerl most of 
their faith to a multitude of supernatural beings in nature around 
them, with whom they tried to gain contact through flreams, and 
whose aid they sought by the practice of various rituals. Men with 
special gifts, they claimed, gained closer contact than others with 
this supernatural world either throngli sickness, or by fasting and 
dreaming in special places; and through the power they derived from 
their visions, and the songs magically imparted to them, they could 
inflict and heal diseases,’ capture the wandering souls of their fellow- 
1 Ro.ss Cox rc'niarks tliat tho profession of a medicinp*nnan was somewhat dangerous, bcraiise he 
was liable to suffer maltreatment and c\eii death if his patient died. Cox, Ross: Op. cit,, pfi. 379, 388. 
