Traditions of the Thompson River Indians (cont.)
Conclusions founded on observation of the tribes of British Columbia and on that of the Pueblo tribes of the southwest31 agree, in that they tend to show that the ritual and, we may say in a more general way, the social system, have been foisted upon the myths, thus producing variations, which tend to establish harmony between mythology and social phenomena.
The Salish tribes, to which the Thompson River Indians belong, owing to their wide distribution and diversity of culture, offer a very interesting example of the influence of social organization upon mythology. The great body of the people have the same loose organization that we find among the Thompson River tribe; but among the tribes living on the coast more complex conditions prevail. They have been under the influence of the tribes of the coast of British Columbia for so long a time, that their customs and beliefs have undergone material changes. The loose village community has been replaced by one claiming common descent from one mythical ancestor.
This transition may be observed among the tribes of the Delta of Fraser River, who are closely allied to the Thompson River Indians. Each village has a mythical ancestor, and some of these are described as animals. It may be well to make clearer the peculiar character of these tales by means of a few abstracts of myths.
The ancestor of the M?'sxui, a tribe whose village is near the mouth of Fraser River, was SqEI?'yiL (derived from sqEl?'o, beaver). When the transformer visited his village they had a contest, in the course to which they tried to transform each other. Finally the transformer proved to be the stronger of the two. He transformed SqEI?'yiL into a beaver. It seems that in a few cases these traditions contain memories of historical events. Such seems to be the case in the tradition of the origin of the StE?'lis, who live on Harrison River. The name of their ancestor is Ts'?'tsEmiltx. One of his descendants is said to have invited a chief named QulqE'mEx·i'l, whose ancestors were the marten and the mountain goat, to descend from the mountains and to live with him. Since that time the descendants of these two chiefs are said to have formed one tribe32. I think the occurrence of these traditions must be explained in the following way: The coast tribes north of Fraser River are divided in totemic clans, each of which has a clan tradition. All the privileges of the clans are explained by the clan traditions, which, for this reason, are considered a most valuable property. That this is so is indicated by the jealousy with which the property right to certain traditions is guarded by the families of the coast tribes. When the Salish tribes began to be thrown into contact with the coast tribes, the lack of family traditions must have been felt as a great disadvantage. Their lack made the tribe, in a way, inferior to their neighbors on the coast, and for this reason the tendency and the desire of evolving myths of this character becomes intelligible. But the tribe was organized on a different basis from that of the coast people. While the latter were divided into clans, the idea that was present to the minds of the Salish people was that of the village community; and it is clear, therefore, that the traditions which developed would be of such a character that each village would have one mythical ancestor.
The same change has taken place among the Bella Coola, whose mythology is much more thoroughly modified by the coast tribes than that of the Salish tribes of Fraser River.
These considerations have an important bearing upon the interpretation of the myths of primitive people, such as are recorded in the following pages. I have tried to show that the material of which they are built up is of heterogeneous origin, and that much of it is adopted ready-made. The peculiar manner in which foreign and indigenous material is interwoven and worked into a somewhat homogeneous fabric depends to a great extent upon the social conditions and habits of the people. Oft-repeated actions which are the expression of social laws, and which constitute the habits and customs of the people, may be expected to be more stable than traditions that are not repeated in a prescribed form or ritual, and have thus become intimately associated with habitual actions. This is probably the reason why we find that ritual moulds the explanatory myth, and why, in a more general way, the myth is made to conform with the social status of the people. Discrepancies between the two, in a general way at least, belong to the class of phenomena that are called " survivals." The discrepancy may consist in the preservation of earlier customs in traditions, or in fragments of early traditions under modified social conditions. The survivals themselves are proof of the gradual process of assimilation between social conditions and traditions which has wrought fundamental changes in the lore of mankind.
Both factors, dissemination and modification on account of social causes, must tend to obscure the original significance of the myth. The contents of mythology prove clearly that attempts at the explanation of nature are the primary source of myths. But we must bear in mind that, owing to the modifications they have undergone, we cannot hope to gain an insight into their earliest form by comparisons and interpretations, unless they are based on a thorough inquiry into the historical changes that have given to myths their present forms. It would seem that mythological worlds have been built up, only to be shattered again, and that new worlds were built from the fragments.
