368 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



We shall now briefly review the main facts of clan organization 

 among the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and Kwakiutl, concerning whom 

 our published information is fullest. The Tlingit are divided into two 

 main divisions, known respectively as Ravens and Wolves, the latter 

 being in some of the villages referred to also as Eagles. In at least 

 one of the southern Tlingit tribes, the Sanya, there is a division which 

 stands outside of the grouping into two phratries, and the members 

 of which may intermarry with either the Ravens or the Wolves. 

 The Ravens and Wolves are respectively debarred from intermarriage 

 within their own ranks. A Raven man must marry a Wolf woman," 

 a Wolf man a Raven woman, while the children of the pair belong 

 to the phratry of the mother. It is important to bear in mind that 

 this dual division of the Tlingit Indians is not associated with partic- 

 ular villages or even tribes, but applies to all the Tlingit tribes. A 

 Raven, for instance, from Tongas, the southernmost Tlingit village, 

 is as strictly debarred from marrying a Raven woman of Yakutat, in 

 the extreme north, as a Raven woman of his own village. When we 

 remember that he may never have been within miles of Yakutat and 

 may know few or no Indians from that region, we see clearly that 

 whether or not phratrie exogamy is in origin an outgrowth of an inter- 

 dict against marriage of those of close kin, an interdict which we find 

 to be practically universal, it is certainly rather different from it 

 psychologically. The leading crest or emblem, of the Raven people 

 is the raven, who is at the same time the most important mythological 

 being in the beliefs of the Tlingit Indians. The main crest of the 

 Wolf people is the wolf. The phratries stand to each other as opposites 

 that do each other mutual services. Thus, the Wolves conduct the 

 funeral ceremionies of the Ravens and, when they give a feast, distrib- 

 ute the property to the Ravens. 



Each phratry is subdivided into a considerable number of clans, 

 each with its own distinctive crest or crests, generally in addition to 

 the general crest of the phratry to which it belongs. Unlike the two 

 main phratries, the clans are not found in all the villages of the Tlingit, 

 though many of them are found represented in more than one village. 

 If we assume, as I believe to be the case, that the clans were originally 

 nothing but village communities, it follows that the present distri- 

 bution of clans is secondary and due to migrations or movements of 

 part of the clansmen away from the main body of their kinsmen. 

 Should a number of clansmen of the original clan village be induced 

 for one rea"son or another to take up residence in another village, the 

 home primarily of another clan, it is clear that they would, to begin 

 with, be an intrusive element in their new home; but would in course 

 of time be looked upon as forming an integral part of the village com- 



