92 MuseuM AND Art NOTES

Among the Tsimshians, as among other of the coast tribes, ceremonial masks
played an important part in all their festivals, especially in those of a totemic char-
acter like their winter dances.

On these occasions the possessors of masks wore them in the dance in which
they assumed the character the mask represented or symbolized. Some of these
characterizations were very realistic and dramatic. Every mask commemorates some
event or incident of a totemic nature in the life of the dancer or in that of some
ancestor who first acquired the totem. This is dramatically portrayed in the dance.

Totemism entered into and moulded the lives and concepts of primitive peoples
like our Indians very deeply. It practically governed and influenced their whole out-
look upon life; and, if we would rightly understand the significance of their totemic
emblems, their totem-poles, their house carvings and paintings, their masks and other
carved and painted objects, we must first get a proper conception of what totemism
meant to them.

Totemism, as it exists among primitive peoples like our Indians, is demonstrably
the outcome of animistic conceptions of life, of savage or unsophisticated man con-
templating the relations existing between himself and the world about him. Our
Indians, in common with other animistic races, peopled their environment with
mysterious beings and sentient agencies of both beneficent and naleficent character,
mostly of the latter. They imagined themselves to be surrounded on all sides by
capricious beings that had power to harm or destroy them. At any moment of their
lives they were liable to come under the influence of these ghostly beings, to be made
their victims or prey. Consequently there was felt a vital need of some protecting,
guiding power or influence in their lives. From this feeling arose the practice of
seeking tutelar or guardian spirits, or totems, as they are now more commonly called.
The methods by which the acquisition of this protecting spirit was brought about
differed considerably among different peoples. Among our Indians dreams and visions
were the common source of the personal totem or guardian spirit; and the dream or
vision was the proper and common mode of communication between the guardian
spirit and its protege. In order to acquire a personal totem the seeker usually retired
to some secluded spot in the mountains or forest and underwent a more or less
lengthy course of preparation. This consisted of prolonged fasts, frequent bathings,
much running and other exhausting bodily exercises. By these means it was believed
they could induce the mystic dream or vision the more readily. With the body in
the enervated condition which such exercises and fasting must necessarily bring about,
the mind of the novice would become abnormally active and expectant, and all kinds
of dreams, visions and hallucinations would naturally follow. It can readily be under-
stood how real to the novice in these circumstances must seem the vision of the
looked-for spirit or totem, and how firm was his belief in its actual manifestation.

Being deeply influenced by their animistic conceptions, spiritism played a promin-
ent part in their lives. Every object about them, inanimate as well as animate,
possessed a ghostly side. This they believed continued to exist even after destruction
or death of the object itself. Hence practically anything might, and did, become a
guardian spirit or totem, though not all had equal mystery powers. Because of this
and because the first object to appear in its ghostly form to the neophyte in the dream
or vision always became his totem, he naturally hoped and desired that his totem might
be strong and possess great mystery power.