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villages are all on the main river or its tributaries, the houses are arranged in 

 one or two parallel lines on elevated beaches overlooking the water. The 

 clans are grouped together. But to-day under missionary influence the old 

 villages are being deserted for new sites or when still inhabited the primitive 

 communal houses are giving place to small modern dwellings, and with the 

 building of the Grand Trunk Railway through the country every vestige of 

 the old life will soon disappear as will the people themselves. 



THE KILLER-WHALE [AT THE LEFT] AND " BEAR-UNDER-WATER 

 FIGURES IN FRONT OF A CHIEF'S HOUSE 



AS CREST 



In some instances individual crest figures are placed on platforms in front of the 

 houses and serve the same purpose as the heraldic columns in displaying the emblem. 

 In the village of Kishpiyeoux in front of the house of Gaal, chief of the Kish-hash clan, 

 are large painted wooden figures of the two principal crests of the division — the killer- 

 whale, indicated by the curved dorsal fin with the circular hole in the base below the 

 horizontal white stripe, and the mythical " bear-under-water " in which a horizontal 

 striped dorsal fin rises above the back of a bear figure. Between these two is a tall, 

 slender, tapering pole, carved and painted to represent a snake. The head is black 

 and a black line extends the entire length down the middle of the back. It is slightly 

 octagonal in form and the sides are adzed to represent scales. The snake is a crest 

 of Chief Gaal's direct family, not a general clan emblem. It comes to them from the 

 killing of an immense water-snake by one of the family in early days, after it had 

 destroyed many people and its last victim was a young woman of the family who is 

 represented by the carved head hah hidden by the grass, below the snake's mouth. 

 This use of the snake as a family crest and its display on a totem pole is the only 

 instance of the kind that I have seen among the Kitksan or other divisions of the 

 Tsimshian people 



