SOME KITES AN TOTEM POLES 363 



Specifically, this name belongs only to the dwellers of the seaboard. Its 

 meaning, " in the Shian " (the native name of the Skeena River) marks them 

 as sojourners within the confines of the river, and this they were, for their 

 permanent villages were on the coast and they resorted to the lower river 

 only during the fishing season to procure their winter food supply of salmon. 

 The inhabitants of the valley of the Nass are known as Niska and those 

 who live on the upper reaches of the Skeena and its tributaries, beyond 

 the canon, are the Kitksan [Kitishian] — -"people of the Shian," implying 

 a permanency of residence on and an ownership of the river. This inland 

 division claims to be the parent stock from which both the Tsimshian and the 

 Niska have descended. 



The oldest local traditions of the Kitksan go back to the subsidence of 

 the flood, when those who were saved landed on the north bank of the river 

 just below and across from the mouth of the Bulkley and founded Tahm lah 

 halm which is so often mentioned in song and story. Here they remained 

 for many generations until they became a great people, and to express their 

 numbers, the old native who gave me the following account of their disper- 

 sion said that when the geese in their migration were passing over the village, 

 the assembled multitudes would raise a mighty shout and the frightened 

 birds would fold their wings and fall to the ground. After a season of 

 extreme cold, snow continued to fall late in the spring long after the salmon 

 should have run in from the sea, and starvation looked the people in the face. 

 Driven to desperation and resentment against the spirit of the cold, an old 

 chief soaked a dried salmon in water until it assumed a fresh appearance, 

 and spitting it after the manner of cooking the fresh fish, he went without 

 the doorway and in a loud voice reviled the ice spirit saying, " You have no 

 strength, you are but a weakling, you cannot hurt us and keep the salmon 

 away. See the fresh new fish I took this morning, see it ready for the fire ! " 

 This so incensed the spirit that it sent a mighty flood, the ice in the river 

 gorged and then the water rose and bursting its bounds swept all before it, 

 and in consternation the people fled and in small bands sought new homes, 

 some following the river to the coast, others crossing overland to the bars 

 while those who remained settled at favorable points along the upper river. 

 Other versions of the dispersion are quite different in detail but all agree in 

 the fact that the want of food after an extended period of extreme cold 

 caused an exodus and a division of the people. 



The Kitksan comprise seven geographic divisions that might best be 

 termed village communities or bands, each one of which has a fixed village 

 within well-defined territorial limits for hunting, fishing and berry-gathering 

 although travel by the river is open to all. These divisions take the names 

 of the villages with the prefix of Kit, "people." Each community is com- 

 posed of two or more of the four totemic clans living together through the 

 necessity of intermarriage and for social and protective purposes. The 



