364. ACCULTURATION IN SEVEN AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBES

histories of disputes within a sadeku that were not settled upon
the advice of the headman. Yet, in spite of this lack of cen-
tralized authority with definite coercive sanctions, feuds were
not common.

Of course, factors of status operated definitely as social sanc-
tions and reinforced the authority of a chief. An individual in-
curring the displeasure of a family chief would receive no co-
operation from the latter in the struggle for status.

No cases are known of individuals having been deprived of
trapping and fishing rights, although men have been known to
leave the family after a quarrel. By this action they almost auto-
matically renounced claims to rank.

Perhaps the clue to the mechanism of social control lies in
the early conditioning process. Even today, children obey the
commands of their parents instantly and without demur. From
earliest infancy no child is given the opportunity to evade a
command.

SUPERNATURALISM

As far as could be determined, the Carrier have no general
term for the supernatural, nor do they conceive of any general-
ized non-animatized force as wakan, mana, or Manitou. All super-
natural concepts tend to be concretized. The world was con-
ceived as populated by a number of spirits, mostly animal, who
if appealed to in the proper way revealed themselves and directed
the individual, giving him good luck. When the same spirit
appeared recurrently in a dream, the individual knew that he
was going to get shamanistic power. Dreams in general were
prognostic. To dream of coitus was a sign of good luck. Most
spirits were helpful; but the beaver and otter lodged in the body
and caused illness. Each individual was supposed to have a ghost
and a soul, the distinction between the two being only vaguely
drawn. The soul, bEtsen, sometimes left the body temporarily,
causing loss of consciousness, and could be restored only by the
shaman to whom the bEtsen was visible. At death the bEtsen
left the body through the top of the head, hovered about for
a while and then disappeared. The ghost, nautnit, left the body
also through the top of the head at death and hovered about the