LOCATION AND ENVIRONMENT 11

stream, on which the salmon-weir rested, was carried away.’°

The following village may be included with the above:

(27) Nusxeg: on the shore of North Bentinck Arm, to the
east of the creek that flows into it at Green Bay. This long-
deserted village was built so close to the ocean that high tides
reached almost to the houses. According to one informant,
the name was derived from that of the first chief sent down
from above to that spot; while another connected it, etymo-
logically, with Nusx, the name of the barren district some four
and a half miles up the valley of the creek. In recent years
this village site has been used only as a summer camp.

The name given to the Bella Coola valley is Nuxal/k; that
given to the inhabitants of the valley, excluding those of village
no. 27, is Nuxdalkimx.4

Two points must be borsderca with regard to the above
list of towns: In the first place, can it be regarded as an
accurate list, or do the towns belong to the realm of mythology?
In the second place, are the customs and beliefs of the inhabi-
tants of the different towns sufficiently similar to be described
without reference to local differences?

The first question is difficult to answer. The Bella Coola
undoubtedly consider the existence of these towns to be an
historical fact, but so do they regard the peopling of the earth

by men created in the land above. Nevertheless, the above
list appears to be substantially correct. The Bella Coola, al-
though now collected into a single village, still remember their
ancient homes. One man, for example, stated as a matter of
course that he was a man of Snuéa/i. Further inquiry elicited
the information that he had been born at Sinx?, where his
father had moved at the time of the smallpox epidemic. It
later appeared that my informant’s father was born at Tcumott,
had married there, and that it was his father who had moved

W0This explanation may be only legendary.
uBoas, p. 49, states that Nuxa/k is only applied to the lower villages of the
valley. All the writer’s information was contrary to this view.