PREFACE

light on obscure points. That is a task for the comparative
student and nothing but confusion would result from such an
incorporation in this volume. For the benefit of the reader,
footnotes have been inserted referring to The Mythology of the
Bella Coola Indians’ by Boas, the most comprehensive descrip-
tion of the tribe. In the field I deliberately disregarded pub-
lished accounts.

And what of these people, the subject of this book?

The intimate experiences of the second winter in Bella
Coola only confirmed my feeling of sadness at the decay of the
old arts and crafts. Music, painting, carving, weaving, story-
telling, acting, all are passing away. Only a handful of the
tribe survives, and of them the younger people ape the white
man and have little interest in the lore and customs of their
fathers. I know of few sadder experiences than talking with
some Bella Coola patriarch and realizing the tragedy which he
feels at the termination of his people’s culture.

Though the individual may suffer, civilization must press
onward and the life of the Indian will soon disappear. With it
will pass forever manners, customs, beliefs, rites, and knowl-
edge, data of value to students of man both now and in the
future. Every year lessens the amount of information avail-
able. In Bella Coola, for example, the death of Captain
Schooner left a gap which none could fill. Others must follow
him, and within a short time there will be no ethnological work
possible in that tribe. A tithe of the people may survive, but
their culture, the growth of generations, will have been swept
away.

Most of those to whom I am indebted for help in this study
have passed away. Dr. A. C. Haddon and Dr. W. H. R. Rivers,
both of Cambridge University, who were my mentors in anth-
ropology, are dead; so too is Dr. E. Sapir, former Chief of the
Anthropological Division in the National Museum, who gave
me instruction in phonetics, and Mr. H. I. Smith, Dominion
Archaeologist, to whom are owing most of the photographs re-

‘Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. II, 1898.