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Show IQOO] ESKIMO AND PACIFIC - 115 mental characteristic of Indian religious beliefs and cults. \ Among the Kwakiutl, the clans are believed to halve been founded by ancestors who had certain relations with supernatural beings and obtained from them the crests, names, dances, and songs. These are the privileges which are handed down from generation to generation and are jealously guarded as a family's most precious possession. Every year the spirits are supposed to visit the people and animate them, and it is during the times of their visits that the elaborate ceremonials which have often been described are conducted. * It is impossible to disentangle the social and religious features of these systems, and the close relationship between the two is seen nowhere more clearly than in these tribes of the coast. The chief figure in the mythology1 of the region is the raven, who is the great benefactor of man. It is he who procures fire, daylight, and fresh water, regulates the phenomena of nature, and teaches men the arts. He is also a trickster, after the manner of the culture heroes of all American tribes/ In certain places the mink assumes the leading r61e; and on the coast of Washington the same adventures that are told of the raven farther north are assigned to the bluejay. Another distinctive feature of the culture of the northwest coast is the art. It is peculiar in 1 Boas, Indianische Sagen, etc. |
