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Show 122 BASIS OP AMERICAN HISTORY [ 1800 form, but still, among most tribes, strictly symbolic. This characteristic is shown most clearly in the basketry * and in the painting of raw- hide receptacles of various kinds. The mythology almost always refers to the deeds of a " transformer," or " transformers," who visited the world when it was in an incomplete state and straightened things out. He rid the country of monsters which infested it, changed and fixed the landmarks, taught the people the arts, and conferred upon them many benefits. After his work was done he disappeared, but is expected to return again when his people have most need of him. This " transformer" is usually personified not as a venerable person, but as a coyote or one of the other animals, or some purely mythological being; he tricks and is tricked, indulges in the loosest amours, and is often vain, boastful, and petty in character; but is nevertheless the great benefactor and hero of the people. 2 Of the industrial life of these tribes it is difficult to speak in general terms. They are all by necessity hunting and fishing peoples, but the contrast between the forests of the north and the arid region of the southern plateaus produces marked differences in the arts. 1 Farrand, " Basketry Designs of the Salish Indians" ( Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., Memoirs, II., pt. v.). f Boas, in introduction to Teit, Traditions of ike Thompson Indians. v |