The eastern Dene are nomad hunters who gather berries and roots, while the western are semi-sedentary, living for most of the year in villages when they subsist largely on salmon. The former are patrilineal and the latter are grouped into matrilineal exogamic totemic clans. The headmen of the clans formed a class of privileged nobles who alone owned the hunting grounds. Morice speaks of clan, honorific and personal totems. The first two were adopted from coastal tribes, the honorific was assumed by some individuals in order to attain a rank to which they were not entitled by heredity. The "personal totem" is the guardian spirit or genius, the belief in which is common to nearly all North American peoples. Shamanism prevails throughout the area. The mythology almost always refers to a "Transformer" who visited the world when incomplete and set things in order. They have the custom of the potlatch[816]. If a man desires another man's wife he can challenge the husband to a wrestling match, the winner keeps the woman[817]. III. North Pacific Coast Area. This culture is rather complex with tribal variations, but it can be treated under three subdivisions, a northern group, Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian; a central group, the Kwakiutl tribes and the Bellacoola; and a southern group, the Coast Salish, Nootka, Chinook, Kalapooian, Waiilatpuan, Chimakuan and some Athapascan tribes. The first of these seem to be the type and are characterised by: the great dependence upon sea food, some hunting upon the mainland, large use of berries (dried fish, clams and berries are the staple food); cooking with hot stones in boxes and baskets; large rectangular gabled houses of upright cedar planks with carved posts and totem poles; travel chiefly by water in large seagoing dug-out canoes some of which had sails; no pottery nor stone vessels, except mortars; baskets in checker, those in twine reaching a high state of excellence among the Tlingit; coil basketry not made; mats of cedar bark and soft bags in abundance; no true loom, the warp hanging from a bar and weaving with the fingers downwards; clothing rather scanty, chiefly of skin, a wide basket hat (the only one of the kind on the continent, apparently for protection against rain); feet usually bare, but skin moccasins and leggings occasionally made; for weapons the bow, club and a peculiar dagger, no lances; slat, rod and skin armour; wooden helmets, no shields; practically no chipped stone tools, but nephrite or green stone used; wood work highly developed; work in copper possibly aboriginal but, if so, weakly developed. The central group differs in a few minor points; twisted and loosely woven bark or wool takes the place of skins for clothing and baskets are all in checkerwork. Among the southern group appears a strong tendency to use stone arrowheads, and a peculiar flat club occurs, vaguely similar to the New Zealand type[818].