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PREFACE

HE term Bella Coola can be applied to the Indians who

formerly occupied more than twenty villages on the lower
Bella Coola River in central British Columbia, to their near
kinsfolk on the Kimsquit River, and to those living at the head
of South Bentinck Arm. Disease and changed conditions con-
sequent upon the coming of the white man have so reduced
their numbers that the last two groups of settlements have
been virtually abandoned, while only one village remains in
the Bella Coola valley. This is located on a reserve near the
mouth of the river, and its four hundred inhabitants comprise
practically all the survivors of what was once a tribe of several
thousand people, with a distinctive language and culture of
their own.

The material contained in this monograph was collected in
this one village many years ago for the National Museum of
Canada.! I was in the field during two periods that extended
from March to August, 1922, and from September, 1923, to
February, 1924. My field notes were worked up and the com-
pleted manuscript submitted to the Museum in 1926. Since
that time it has suffered various vicissitudes. Recommended
for publication by the Chief of the Anthropological Division,
it passed through the hands of various editors; questions were
raised about its size and the suitability of detailed studies of
social anthropology in a government publication, and by the
time these matters were adjusted, funds for extensive publi-
cations were unavailable and the manuscript was put aside.
Since the aim of the investigation was to record, as far as pos-
sible, the sum-total of the complex and interwoven social life
of the Bella Coola, I did not think it desirable to prepare short
articles? summarizing different aspects, preferring to await an

1Then the Victoria Memorial Museum.
2The only exception was a short article on Bella Coola supernatural animals
published in the Ontario Annual Archaeological Report for 1924-25, pp. 17-27.

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