emblem is the sun. Here also belong the numerous tales of ancestors who came down from heaven, took off their masks, and became men, for in all these cases the mask has remained the crest of the clan."[1]
If I rightly understand Dr. Boas' account of these tribes, however, this statement is hardly strong enough. In the first place, the word Sīsîntlaē means "children of the sun," and the sun himself is explicitly said to have come down to earth and become the father of the clan.[2] Next, some clans appear to dispense with the apparatus of the mask, that of the G.īg.îlqam of the Nimkish, for instance, who believe themselves to be descendants of the thunder-bird (a mythical being, common to the tradition of many American tribes) and paint its figure upon their house-front.[3] Lastly, even when the apparatus of the mask is retained, it is doubtless no more than a modern and rationalistic expression of the old, deep-seated belief in transformation. So that we have clear evidence of the descent at all events of some of the clans from non-human ancestors, as set forth in the words I have already quoted from Dr. Frazer.
On the other hand, there are cases where the story of the acquisition of the crest, though betraying a certain "analogy," as Dr. Boas says, "to the acquisition of the manitou," is clearly to be distinguished from it. Of such is the story of the chief of a clan, who went hunting and saw a fabulous bird, supposed to be similar to a crane, and heard its cry. It was larger than a man. He hid, and the bird tried to find him. On discovering him at one side of a
- ↑ U. S. Nat. Mus. Rep., 1895, p. 337.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 333. Boas, Indianische Sagen, p. 166.
- ↑ Nat. Mus. Rep., p. 375. The omission to mention the mask may, however, be accidental. Another clan of another tribe claim descent from a thunder-bird of which it is expressly recorded that he "took off his birdmask and became a man" (p. 418). But in any case the mask is modern. Originally there was none; for in savage belief personal identity does not depend upon form, and the power of transformation is a very extended one.
