This thesis attempts to demonstrate that the symbolic significance of food gathering among the Lillooet, Thompson, and Shuswap generates two major paradoxes, cannibalism and infertility, which arise from a sexual imbalance revealed by certain myths related to food gathering, and that the shaman is a potential mediator of these paradoxes. Initially, I suggest that an analysis of the symbol system of a culture affords an excellent access to native perspective if the analyst is able to avoid the influences of his ethnocentrism with respect to his methodology and selection of data. Thus, analytical methods must possess universal applicability, and the data (native categories of thought) might be selected from native solutions to problems occurring to all humans--e.g., cultural solutions and conceptions of those solutions to food gathering. The second chapter considers some definitions of symbols proposed by Geertz, Langer, and others and suggests a "working definition" of a symbol as a locus of logical operations. It is then possible to apply structural methods of analysis (metaphor, binary opposition, transformation, et al) to a symbol system as structuralism professes to consider the universal structure of cognition. In the third chapter, I provide some ethnographic notes concerning the manifestation of one underlying Plateau cultural principle, equality, to the general social structure of the Lillooet, Thompson, and Shuswap with respect to political organization, food gathering, and the sexual division of labor. Although men and women are considered to be generally equal, a strict distinction is maintained between sexual roles. Hence, I suggest that this balance plus necessary distinction might be termed a "sexual balance." Also, the chapter briefly considers the unusual capacities of shamans and suggests that, as shamans are not subject to restrictions imposed upon the normative group, they may be able to manipulate the rigid sexual distinction if the sexual balance is upset. The fourth and fifth chapters discuss the symbolic significance of food gathering. In the fourth chapter, I suggest that women maintain a metaphorical sexual relationship with the roots they gather. As this relationship is strictly metaphorical, however, serious problems accrue when the relationship becomes literal and when men gather roots. Another myth succinctly states the ultimate results of a violation of a woman's metaphorical relationship with food. This violation generates an excessive cultural union or marriage between two men (necessarily infertile) and an excessive natural union (between woman and tree) whose issue, blood transformed into blackberries, poses the problem of cannibalism to the people. The fifth chapter suggests that women who hunt also pose a threat to the cognitive system as men appear to have a metaphorical sexual relationship with deer and other game animals. Two myths suggest a former intimate relationship between women and deer. Menstrual blood appears to function as a differentiator of women from deer. The chapter focuses on the logical implications of the hunting ventures of a cannibal woman. This woman not only opposes the role of women by hunting, but also possesses a snake-like vagina which offers death as opposed to life (as in childbirth). The sixth chapter examines shamans (with respect to myths and ritual actions) as mediators of the two paradoxes, cannibalism and infertility. First, I discuss two myths relating the drilling and sucking practices of mosquitoes to those of thunder. These practices echo shamanic curative techniques. Also, the symbolic significance of the earth people's spiral ascent to the sky world parallels the significance of the spiral in other contexts. Finally, some rituals and myths concerning shamanic performance consider certain problems (including improper sexual distinction, excessive sibling intimacy, and lack of potential spouses) which generate infertility. The concluding chapter reviews the strategy for analysis and the logical implications of the symbolism of food gathering as well as the potential of the shaman to mediate paradoxes emerging from the logical implications. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

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The phrase 'Covenant Chain' is unique in the English language and along with its antecedents---'linked arms', 'the rope', and the 'iron chain'---the Haudenosaunee established relationships with the Europeans. The 'Covenant Chain' has been the subject of extensive discussion since the mid-1980s when a group of scholars in Iroquois Studies published several volumes on the diplomacy of the Haudenosaunee during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Most studies focus on the political aspects of the Covenant Chain and the role it played in creating and sustaining alliances. This study examines the meaning of the word 'covenant' and related ideas in the context of Haudenosaunee cosmology, history, culture and religious traditions. The numerous metaphors employed by the Haudenosaunee in council oratory and the many meanings associated with these different metaphors are discussed with a view to better understanding the Covenant Chain in relation to what Mohawk scholar Deborah Doxtator calls 'history as an additive process'. / In order to facilitate this discussion, the religious dimensions of covenant in European thought during this period are examined. While the basis of post-Reformation covenant theology differs radically from Haudenosaunee ideas of covenant, points of convergence do exist particularly in the area of political theory making. Johannes Althusius' (1557-1638) concept of 'symbiosis' is one such example. Surprisingly, Europeans who were involved in or who had knowledge of the Covenant Chain provide no theological discourse on it. Philosophical and theological discussions of the chain come from the Haudenosaunee themselves. / These relationships went well beyond contractual obligations and along with the idea of the 'middle line' which separates people and at the same time joins them together. Contrary to the widely accepted scholarly view that the chain---either the 'Covenant Chain' or the 'Iron Chain'---was associated only with alliances between the Haudenosaunee and the British, this study shows that the Haudenosaunee used the same expressions in their alliances with the French as well.

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The problem around which this thesis is written concerns the relation of myth to social organization in a small society. The society chosen for intensive study is Cape Madge, British Columbia, a Kwakiutl village of the Southern Lekwiltok group on the Northwest coast of North America. That myth and social organization are bound in together in a total system of social relations has been demonstrated for primitive societies by such eminent anthropologists as Raymond Firth, Bronislaw Malinowski, and Sir Peter Buck for the Oceanic area. The material gathered by Boas for the Kwakiutl of the Northwest coast of North America implies the same for traditional Kwakiutl society. Myths interact with all other elements of social structure and organization, so that the total system of social relations in the society is not to be understood without an understanding of the role of myth in providing a wide frame of reference within which the total social behavior of the members of the society becomes significant. This proposition has been accepted into the body of generalizations about primitive society built up In the field of anthropology. It does not Imply a conception of society as an apparatus maintaining the culture as it is, since all cultures are changing by the stresses inherent in social interaction and by the choices open to individuals. The empirical data brought forward in this thesis to support the assumption that myth and social organisation are bound together in a system of social relationships demonstrate that such a system is not closed, but open to adjustment without apparent opposition. This thesis is an attempt to give fuller meaning to the generalisation that the myths of a people are bound into the total system of social relations. The proposition advanced here is that even under conditions of advanced acculturation (to Western European culture) in a small once tribal society, myth will play a part. Where the old myths fade, new ones will arise to take their places in the, changing social context. The alteration of social structure, of social organisation, and of the roles played by individuals will create the need for maintaining some ancient myths that underwrite the worthiness of the individual and group. New myths will arise to justify rapidly changing patterns of behavior under the impact of Euro-American culture. This proposition has been tested and supported by the data derived from field work. Upon the basis of the affirmation of this proposition by data derived in a small society in the process of rapid change, the above hypothesis may be generalised to suggest that in all tribal societies moving rapidly into the orbit of advanced ones, myth will not be lost. Just as social structure, social organization and the roles of individuals will change feat be fitted into new configurations, so myth will not disappear but be transfigured or newly created in order to meet the needs of people for an understanding of their changing existence. The operation of myth and social context In Cape Hudge society today is discussed in this thesis by reference to the operation of myths in two important areas of social organizations social control and values. The exploration of myth in these areas touches upon most aspects of life in the village. Intensive field work was of one month's duration in the summer of 1963 when I lived with my husband and three children in the village but casual contacts and interest in the village had extended over a ten-year period prior to the formal study. The contacts made by my husband, two teen-age children and on pre-school child extended the range of social contacts very considerably. The definition of my position as wife and mother was of prime importance to my ready acceptance. The villagers had happily been introduced to anthropologists through Helen Codere who left behind an atmosphere of admiration and trust. The villagers expressed the opinion that other villages were getting anthropologists interested in them and they thought it was high time for someone from the University to come again. The field work situation could not have been more propitious I wish to express my sincere regard for the great achievements of these people and my thanks for their generosity and hospitality. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

This thesis deals with Tlingit notions about death, spirits, land otters and shamans. The linkage between these categories and their relationship to the social order are explored by examining Tlingit mythology. Particular myths are analyzed that embody the concepts and beliefs which the Tlingit used to deal with the unanswerable question: What happens when someone dies? Socially, there was a set pattern of ritual practices and a series of memorial feasts to dispense with the body and spirit of someone who died a normal death. Yet, there was an anomalous situation associated with death by drowning or being lost in the woods. The Tlingit indicated that people who died in this manner were taken by land otter spirits and could become shamans if certain conditions were met. This thesis contends that this explanatory scenario was an important aspect of Tlingit cosmology, since it provided a means of illustrating the source of shamanic power, and also of how that power was related to the social aspects of Tlingit culture. The myths dealing with land otter possession offer information about how shamanic power was attained and also provide a glimpse into the importance of the role of the Tlingit shaman as a mediator between the social and the spiritual domains. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

LD2668 .T4 1941 H41 / Master of Science