96 BRITISH COLUMBIA.

MYTHS, LEGENDS, AND TALES.

Recognized distinctions existed between these three forms of recording super-
stitions, traditions, and tribal history, which embody explanations of the phe-
nomena of nature and the origin of man, also religious and moral ideas, and
reflect many details of tribal social organization.

MytTus.

These were accepted as of unknown origin; they dealt with the making of
mountains, rivers, and lakes; they related to the tribal ‘‘ Culture Heroes,” super-
natural, human, or animal, who taught the arts of life to mankind; they assigned
reasons for enduring rites and customs; they accounted for every peculiarity of
bird, beast, or fish; e.g., why the cod had a flat head or the bluejay a top-knot;
how the coyote got his dingy brown coat; why the deer had a short tail and why

the raven was black.
LEGENDS AND TALES.

Legends dealt also with very remote happenings, but rested upon some vague
historical foundation, though supernatural beings still took part in some of the
events described. “Tales undertook to be definitely historical. Their incidents
purported to be verifiable and to have taken place within tribal or individual
experience, in spite of the mysterious aid occasionally afforded to the hero or given
in the nick of time to secure victory to a favoured tribe.

An example of a MYTH is that accepted by the Haida as accounting for the
origin of mountains. It forms an episode in the many adventures of “ Yelth,”
the mythical and usually mischievous Raven, around whom centre most of the
North-west Coast myths. Early in his travels Raven noticed numbers of people
lying on the ground face downwards, as if covered with shame. As he ran along
he pulled them upright, and at once they became mountains. A Haida TALE
tells of persistent quarrels between the section of the tribe living on Skidegate
Inlet and those farther north, which became so fierce as to result in the departure
of the Skidegate people to the coast of the mainland, where they made a per-
manent settlement. Here the facts, disentangled from a long story, are un-
doubtedly historically correct.

General among the tribes of this Province, and, indeed across the continent
of North America, was the LEGEND of the Thunder-bird, the flapping of
whose wings caused thunder and from whose eyes flashed lightning. But par-
ticularly in this Province the tribes associated their conception of their creator
with this accompaniment of. wings and with the personification of the deity as a
bird, who flies about in his dress of feathers darkening the sky (the origin of
clouds), making thunder by the vibration of his pinions; whose combat with the
sea is reflected in great storms, and his victory by the food he secures therefrom
by means of the thunderbolt with which he smites the mighty whales. “This
legend took precedence over all others with the Nootka. Tradition records that
““Tootooch ? (who derived his name from “toovah,’”’ the native word for
thunder) was the survivor of four mighty birds living in the long ago in the
mountains above the Alberni Canal on Vancouver Island. Whales were their
favourite food; a fact resented by these mammals, who presented their case to
‘“ Quawteath,” the supreme deity on that coast. He responded by assuming the
form of a whale, and gradually approaching the shore attracted the attention of
the hungry birds by frequent spouting. One of the four swooped down at once,
attempting to seize Quawteath in his powerful talons. But Quawteath was the
stronger of the two and dragged him under water so that he was drowned.