Traditions of the Thompson River Indians (cont.)
Among the other Coyote tales the fourth and the last arc rather remarkable on account of their distribution. Coyote meets a cannibal. He proposes that they shall close their eyes and vomit into two dishes, in order to see what kind of food they cat. Coyote exchanges the dishes before the cannibal opens his eyes, thus making him believe that he himself is a cannibal. The Shuswap ascribe this incident to the Coyote and the Cannibal Owl, while far to the south the Navaho tell the same of Coyote and the Brown Giant24.
The last story tells of the unsuccessful attempts of Coyote to imitate his hosts who produced food by magical means. We may compare with this tale that of the Chinook, who tell how Blue Jay tried to imitate his hosts;25 that of the Comox, Nootka, and Kwakiutl of Vancouver Island, and of the Bella Coola and Tsimshian of northern British Columbia,26 who tell the same story of the Raven Dr. Farrand found the tale among the Chilcotin. Dorsey has recorded it among the Ponca, who tell of Ishtinike's vain attempts to imitate his hosts27, and Rand tells it from the Micmac, among whom the Rabbit is the hero of the tale28. Finally we find it told of the Coyote among the Navaho, although among this tribe the incidents arc materially changed29.
The distribution of the various parts of the Coyote legend as do scribed here is conclusive proof of its complex origin. It is quite inconceivable that all these complex parts of the tradition should have originated independently among the tribes among whom we find them now. This view is strengthened by the fact that the incidents arc most nearly alike among neighboring tribes. In the notes to the various tales recorded in this volume, numerous additional instances of close resemblance’s between the tales of the Thompson River Indians and their neighbors are given, which corroborate the evidence brought forward in the preceding remarks.
It appears, therefore, that there is ample proof of transmission of tales to the Thompson River Indians from foreign sources and vice versa. It was suggested before (p. 12), that if such proof can be given, we may assume that the transformer myths originated from different sources, and have not had time to amalgamate. The similarity of the series of Coyote tales with the Coyote tales of the south and east, and with the animal tales of the coast, and of the Qo?'qLqaL legend with the Xäls legend, point to the sources from which the various series of transformer tales sprang.
I doubt if it will ever be possible to determine the origin of all the parts of the tales of this tribe that have been woven into their structure. It may be that we shall better understand the history of their development when we shall have fuller collections than are now available from the tribes of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Their relation to the legendary lore of the coast tribes of British Columbia, however, seems well established. It appears that a considerable number of tales were borrowed bodily from the coast tribes, and were incorporated ready-made in the tales of the Thompson River tribe. It is, therefore, certain that these importation’s when interwoven with mythical tales never have had any symbolic significance among the people whose property they are now. They are not nature myths, in the generally adopted sense of the term. While dealing with phenomena of nature and with the peculiarities of animals, they are not the result of tribal thought; they are at best adaptations of foreign thought, but much more frequently importations that have undergone little if any change. The present character of Indian mythologies can be understood only by historical studies regarding their origin. How much is due to independent thought or to gradual adaptation, under the influences of environment and of new social conditions, remains to be determined by detailed comparative studies.
We may trace the influence of environment in the modifications that the tales undergo, owing to differences in the mode of life of various tribes. Thus the tales of the fishermen of the seacoast who spend most of their time in their canoes, and whose villages are located near the shore, differ in many respects from the tales of the Thompson River Indians, who hunt part of the year in the mountains. The animals who are the heroes of the tales, also change from one locality to the other. In northern British Columbia the Raven takes the place of the Coyote; on Vancouver Island the Mink takes his place, while still farther south, among the Chinook, the Blue Jay assumes many of his functions.
But much more striking than the influence of geographical environment is that of the social status of the tribe. The clan organization of the coast tribes pervades their whole mythology and all their traditions, while the loose social organizations of the tribes of the interior gives their tales a peculiar character. This difference is brought out very strongly in the myths of the transformer as found among a number of coast tribes and those of the interior. Every clan has a legend expounding the events that took place at the time of meeting between the transformer and the ancestor of the clan, while there is no such personal relation between the Indians and the transformer in the interior. The rivalry between clans is one of the mainsprings of action in these tales. It is evident that in many cases tales which originally had no totemic bearing were appropriated by a clan and changed so as to become clan traditions. I have described a number of such changes in a fuller discussion of the social system of the Kwakiutl30. Other tales developed numerous variants among various clans, the more elaborate social organizations acting as a stimulus for the
development of traditions. The same is true in the case of ritualistic myths. The complicated rituals of the coast tribes are all part and parcel of traditions, and some of the latter are made to explain the ritual.
