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DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE

ABOUT CREMATION

The first number of this year's American Anthropologist contained an able paper by W. C. Macleod on the "Mortuary Aspects of Northwest Culture," which could not but immensely interest me because of its frequent references to my former charge, the Western Déné. In a note on the first and second pages of his effort, the author, mentioning my contention that cremation had been borrowed by the Carrier from the Tsimshian of the Skeena, puts on record his belief that my statement "is merely a deduction without a knowledge of the 'attendant practices' among the Tsimshian." I confess that I cannot see the ultimate end of this remark. I knew those practices from the writings of Dr. Boas and others, through visits to the Coast, and especially through the Tsimshian of the Skeena themselves, who lived within the territory assigned to my missionary activities. But

transeat.

What I want to comment on is the author's assertion, after he has mentioned my reference to the "non-cremating Sikanni," that "in Harmon's time Sikanni practice was the same as that of the Carriers" (op. cit., p. 123). This, to my most certain knowledge, is so far from the truth that, though I am here away from my library and even copies of my own past writings, I felt at first like contradicting it point-blank and without any authority to support my word.

For this much is beyond the shadow of a doubt: the inland aborigines of northern British Columbia in contact with the Tsimshian borrowed from them cremation, the consequent potlatch and labretwearing. The nearest neighbours of the latter, the Babine, adopted all of these three customs; the Carriers, farther inland and their immediate neighbours, borrowed from the same only cremation and the potlatch. As to the Sékanai, whose habitat is still farther away, namely east of that of the Carriers and whose social organization is quite different, they adopted neither cremation nor labret-wearing, but had made a faint, local and not over successful attempt at potlatching when they had to yield to the influence of the white new

comers.

Of this I am so sure that, I repeat it, my first impulse was to deny totally Macleod's assertion that, in Harmon's time, the latter burned their dead just like the Carriers-and that in spite of his references to that trader's journal. In the first place, it is a wellknown fact that that worthy's little book had been considerably "edited" by a Protestant minister of New England before it was deemed worthy to be presented to the "christian publick." And then I personally know of statements by other such traders which are entirely worthless, even when found in regular books.

Yet I thought it more proper to get Harmon's work, so that I might be able to control Macleod's references. The first is p. 161. Thumbing the trader's Journal, I find, what? That the Sékanai practised cremation just like their neighbours the Carriers? Not by any means. "The Sicannies," says Harmon, "bury, while the Tâcullies (the Carriers) burn their dead." I cannot understand such a disastrous distraction on the part of a scientific writer.

His second reference is p. 163. There I find indeed that "this day the Natives have burned the corpse of one of their chiefs." But was that among the Sékanai? Not at all; it was among the Carriers of Fraser Lake (cf. p. 162).

Macleod's last reference, for a wonder, would at first seem to bear him out in his contention. "A Sicanny died at this place," says Harmon, "and the following circumstances attended his incineration." But again where did that occur? At Stuart Lake, the capital of the Carriers. As happened more than once, two Carrier women had married a Sékanais for the sake of his extensive hunting-grounds, and, on his demise, they and their fellow-tribesmen followed their own mourning rites and cremated his remains as if he had been one of them.

This is so true that Harmon afterwards shows the two widows "carrying" daily a little satchel containing some of the bones of their late husband, a custom which I am sure even Macleod, if he knows anything of prehistoric Déné sociology, will not put to the credit of the Sékanai, and points to the ultimate potlatch which would have been a sheer impossibility to the Sékanai, for the good reason that, being nomadic, they had not a single house, let alone feastinglodge, to assemble in.

The point, therefore, is now settled, and we cannot escape the conclusion that, even in Harmon's time, while the Carriers cremated their dead, the Sékanai did not.

A. G. MORICE, O.M.I.

FIVE AS A MYSTIC NUMBER

Four figures so prominently as the only or chief mystic number in North America that other sacred numbers are usually mentioned as deserving of special notice. So far as I know, five as a sacred number is restricted to the Far West, and to a rather limited region there. Professor Kroeber notes its occurrence in northwestern California, southwestern Oregon, the lower Columbia area, and Puget Sound.1 Mrs. Erna Gunther Spier is able to confirm this statement for the last mentioned area on the basis of recent field work; and I have called attention to the prominence of five among the Paviotso.2

When reading Professor Karsten's account of the Toba I was struck with the ritual and mythological significance of five, and I have since encountered several additional references of interest. The Chiriguano of the Gran Chaco impose upon the father of a new-born child a five days' fast and rest. From the Witoto of Colombia the evidence is not decisive, but I note that the universe is conceived by these Indians as a series of five strata and that five years must elapse before the same man may again act in the capacity of master of ceremonies at the Juka festival.5

The gap between central California and Colombia is in a measure bridged by the predominance of five as the mystic number of the Tepecano of Jalisco, Mexico. It would be of considerable interest to discover whether a continuous distribution could be established for this trait in South America and ultimately for the whole of the New World.

ROBERT H. LOWIE

1A. L. Kroeber, California Culture Provinces, Univ. of Cal. Pub. in Amer. Arch. and Ethnol., vol. 17, no. 2, 1920, p. 161.

2R. H. Lowie, The Cultural Connections of California and Plateau Shoshonean Tribes, same series, vol. 20, 1923, p. 154.

R. Karsten, The Toba Indians of the Bolivian Gran Chaco, Aabo, 1923, pp. 22, 27, 109 f.

4 E. Nordenskiöld, Indianerleben, Leipzig, 1912, p. 206.

5 K. Th. Preuss, Religion u. Mythologie der Uitoto, I, Göttingen, 1921, pp. 49, 124. J. A. Mason in E. C. Parsons, American Indian Life, 1922, pp. 203-236.