The Whale House of the Chilkat 



By GEORGE T. EMMONS 



AN ACCOUNT OF THE CHILKAT INDIANS OF ALASKA, AND THE MOST 

 IMPORTANT OF THEIR ANCIENT COMMUNAL HOUSES 



The material here presented has been gathered from the most rehable native sources through- 

 out a period of twenty-five years of intimate personal acquaintance and association with the 

 Tlingit, and treats of their past, before the exodus from their old villages to the mining camps 

 and salmon canneries of the white man so reduced their numbers that communal life in the 

 large old houses, upon which their social customs and practices depended, was rendered 

 impossible, and the seed of a new life was sown. — George T. Emmons. 



UPON the discovery of the North- 

 west Coast of America, the 

 THngit were found in possession 

 of southeastern Alaska, with the excep- 

 tion possibly of the southernmost por- 

 tion of Prince of Wales Island, which had 

 been wrested from them by invading 

 Haida from Masset on the Queen Char- 

 lotte Islands during the latter half of 

 the eighteenth century. From the testi- 

 mony of the early explorers, this occu- 

 pation seems to have been of sufficient 

 age to have developed a racial type, 

 speaking the same tongue, acknowledg- 

 ing established laws, and bound by like 

 conventions. What knowledge we can 

 gather of their origin and early life from 

 their family traditions, songs, and geo- 

 graphical names, although fragmentary 

 and vague, tells consistently of a uniform 

 northward migration by water, along 

 the coast and through the inland chan- 

 nels from the Tsimshian peninsula and 

 Prince of Wales Island, which was con- 

 stantly augmented by parties of Interior 

 people descending the greater rivers to 

 the sea. 



The social organization of the Tlingit 

 is founded on matriarchy, or descent 

 through the mother, and is dependent 

 upon two parties, the members of each 

 of which may not marry among them- 

 selves, but the two parties intermarry 

 and supplement each other upon the 



many ceremonial occasions that mark 

 their intercourse. 



The two parties are subdivided in- 

 to fifty-six existing families or clans, 

 founded on blood relationship and ab- 

 solutely independent in government, 

 succession, inheritance, and territory. 

 Within the family there is a well-defined 

 aristocracy, wholly dependent upon 

 birth, from which the chiefs are chosen ; 

 an intermediate class consisting of those 

 who have forced themselves to the front, 

 through wealth, character, or artistic 

 ability; and the poorer people. In 

 earlier days there were many slaves who 

 had no recognized rights. 



Geographically considered, there are 

 sixteen tribal divisions known as 

 "kwans," a contraction of ka (man) and 

 an (land lived on or claimed). Of these 

 several tribes the Chilkat-kwan has been 

 the most prominent since our acquaint- 

 ance with Alaska. The relative impor- 

 tance of a primitive people is measured 

 by conditions of food supply and other 

 natural resources. The commanding 

 position of the Chilkat, at the head of the 

 inland channels controlling the mountain 

 passes to the interior, gave them the 

 monopoly of the fur trade of the upper 

 Yukon Valley, and the placer copper 

 fields of the White River region. These 

 products, unknown to the coastal area, 

 were economically important in primi- 



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