RELIGION 57

The religious concepts of the Bella Coola are not limited
to explanations of strange apparitions, nor to knowledge of a
wide range of supernatural beings, anthropomorphic or zoo-
morphic. Many in whom they believe are invisible and intan-
gible, though none the less potent. Almost every incident of
life is attributed to the help or hindrance of a supernatural
agency. If a fisherman constructs a salmon-weir, with a
considerable amount of work, the Bella Coola ascribe his suc-
cess to the assistance of some supernatural being or super-
normal power; mere labour would never have sufficed. Ifa
man has phenomenal success in hunting, it is because the
supernatural has helped him in some way. It is not necessary
that an anthropomorphic being should appear; they seldom
do, but none deny that in some form or another supernatural
ones have aided the enterprise.

This attitude is clearly evident in Bella Coola beliefs
concerning the construction of canoes. Many professions
depend upon prerogatives without which a person cannot
hope to succeed. This is not true of canoe-makers, although
it is a great advantage to one of them if Yuldtimut, the
Master Carpenter, appeared to his ancestors in the beginning
of time. Even without this in many cases a man can succeed
in making a canoe if he is aided by a supernatural teacher,
or Model Maker. No one knows much about this being,
nor even whether there is more than one of them, but it
is through his kindly intervention that a man is able to
complete his complicated task. If carpenters who have left
a half-finished canoe in the woods, hear adze beats, as they
are returning to it, they remain away from the spot, knowing
that their work is being done with superhuman efficiency by
a supernatural artisan. Under such circumstances even a
solitary man can construct one of the large, ocean-going canoes.
About 1880 an expert carpenter, named Yefx/in, was making

stated definitely that his mother had told him Mackenzie came down the Dean
River when her uncle was a young man. As if to confirm this statement he added
the inconsequential detail that Mackenzie, in dire straits for food, killed and ate a
dog, and that he was given a marmot-skin blanket.