Native Culture and the Painting Tradition -- The Explorers' Observations -- The Geographic Distribution of the Paintings -- The Foundations of the Painting Tradition -- The Village -- The House Group -- House Names -- The Crest System -- Mythology and Two-Dimensional Painting -- The Northern Style -- House Front and Facade Paintings -- Interior Screens -- Tlingit Screens and Emblems -- Tlingit House Front Paintings -- Tsimshian Background to Painting -- Tsimshian Paintings -- Haida Paintings -- The Central and Southern Traditions -- Northern Kwakiutl Paintings -- Bella Coola Paintings -- Southern Kwakiutl Paintings -- Southern Kwakiutl Variations in Painting -- Nuu chaa nulth Paintings -- Coast Salish Painting -- Characteristics of Northwest Coast Native Flat Painting -- Content of the Paintings -- The Question of Provenance -- Color -- Wood -- The Arrangement of Figures -- Bilateral Symmetry -- Horror Vacui -- The X-Ray Motif -- The Anatomy of the Face -- Eye and Face Designs -- The Extraordinary Place of the Tongue -- Appendages -- The Native Artist and His World -- A Few Known Artists -- Apprenticeship of Young Artists -- The Transitional Artists -- The Commissioning of a Painting -- The Artist at Work -- The Remarkable Case of the Rain Wall Screen -- A New Life -- The Great Surge Forward -- Resurrecting the House Front Painting -- The Return of the Interior Screen -- Drawings (figures) -- Photographs (plates).