This investigation indicates that it is more difficult for people living in the isolation of remote areas and surrounded by dark forests and mountains to distinguish hearsay, fantasy, imagination and reality than it is for those who walk through illuminated city streets amidst noisy neighbours. A lonely Euro-Canadian farmer when asked about Sasquatches said, “When it is daylight I don't believe in them but at night when I am alone in the mountains or in the bush they could be real.”
It is also obvious that formal education is an important factor in determining whether a person has unwavering belief in mythology, and the higher the level of formal education the less a person believes in these phenomena.
References
1.
BoasFranz: “The Mythology of the Bella Coola Indians”.The Jesup North Pacific Expedition; Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History Vol. II/Anthropology 1. Leiden. Brill.1898.
2.
BoasFranz, and HuntGeorge: “Kwakiutl Texts”.The Jesup North Pacific Expedition. Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History Vol. III. Leiden, Brill, 1905.
3.
BoasFranz: (Ed.) “Folk-Tales of Salishan and Sahaptin Tribes”.Memoirs of the American Folklore Society Vol. XI. New York. Stechert: 1917.
BoasFranz: “Kwakiutl Culture as Reflected in Mythology”.Memoirs of the American Folklore Society Vol. XXVIII. New York. Stechert, 1935.
6.
BoasFranz: Kwakiutl Ethnography. CodereH. (Ed.) Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1966.
7.
DuffWilson: “The Upper Stalo Indians of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia”.Anthropology in B.C. Memoir No 1, Victoria, B.C. Provincial Museum,1952.
8.
GreenJohn: On the Track of the Sas-quatch. Agassiz, B.C., Cheam Publ. Co., 1968.
9.
LeightonAlexander H., and HughesJane H.: “Cultures as Causative of Mental Disorder” in: GruenbergE. M., and HuxleyM.Causes of Mental Disorders, A Review of Epidemiological Knowledge 1959; pp. 341–365. New York.Milbank Memorial Fund, 1961.
10.
SwantonJohn R.: “Tlingit Myths and Texts”.Smithsonian Institute – Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin39, Washington, Govt. Printing Office,1909.
11.
TeitJames A.: “The Shuswap”.The Jesup North Pacific Expedition. Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History Vol. II/6. Leiden, Brill:1905.
12.
TeitJames A.: “Mythology of the Thompson Indians”.The Jesup North Pacific Expedition — Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History Vol. VIII/2Leiden, Brill.1911.
13.
TeitJames A.: “The Salishan Tribes of the Western Plateaus”.Smithsonian Institute – Bureau of American Ethnology. 45th Annual Report 1927–28. WashingtonU.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1930.
