or jaws, as the case may require.[1] Collections of these masks are to be found in our large museums, where they stand as objective data as to what the native conceives his gods to be like. Masks are used elsewhere, even among the Aztec and Inca, but among the wilder tribes are not highly developed as here on the coast of the salmon area.
The whole subject of ritualism in the New World is too complicated to give an adequate view of it in a single chapter. Yet, from even this superficial sketch it appears that the phenomenon is strongest in Mexico and Peru, or the regions of highest culture, and that as we go outward in both continents from these centers, ritualism becomes less and less conspicuous. If we consider the United States and Canada only, it appears strongest in the centers of clan organization. Another general characteristic of New World ritualism is that wherever it appears, these rituals are the formalized narratives of an assumed supernatural, or spirit revelation, from the gods. The tracing out of the distribution of these rituals over the several areas of the New World is destined to become one of the most important problems of our subject and promises to reveal in the most satisfactory way the earlier historical contacts of the various existing tribes.
SUPERNATURAL GUARDIANS AND TOTEMISM
Under the head of Social Grouping we enumerated the most striking totemic features associated with clans and gentes, but the totemic complex is also intimately bound up with the very fundamental trait of individual guardians. This trait is particularly strong among the bison hunters but far from infrequent elsewhere. It is usually one of the equipments of a warrior which youths acquire by fasting and spiritual endeavors. The procedure usually takes this form: if a youth does not have a dream or vision which his superiors regard as supernatural, he is instructed and prepared for the inducing of such an experience and left in a lonely place to fast and pray, day and night. If a spirit appears, it is usually in animal form and that animal becomes in a sense the individual guardian of the supplicant. This guardian is, however, conceived of as
- ↑ Boas, 1897. II; 1909. I.
