THE SAVAGE "HOW-HOW" IS A FAMILY CREST 



In the village of Kitwingach, on a line with the old grave enclosures, but standing 

 by itself in an open space between the two rows of houses, is a boxlike platform on 

 which stands the rather crude figure of an animal known as "how-how." As the 

 story goes : — In old times a savage animal different from any known to the country 

 made its home on a wooded island in the Skeena River and preyed upon travelers and 

 hunters camping thereabouts, until finally it was killed by one of the Lakyebo 

 clan. To commemorate this exploit it was taken by his household as a particular 

 crest and as such is displayed both in this manner and surmounting carved columns 

 in front of the houses. 



The legends of the Tsimshian and associate people are replete with stories of 

 mythical beings and fabled monsters that are believed to exist or to have existed, and 

 from encounters or association with these by their ancestors, families have assumed 

 crests that have no known prototype. But these are generally of the water or the 

 air and are very complex in form, while the representation of the how-how is a simple 

 animal figure, although wholly unlike that of any species common to this locality. I 

 would suggest that the story might be really true, and that the animal unknown to 

 this people might have been a mountain lion, so common to the more southern and 

 interior portions of British Columbia, that had wandered across the mountains and 

 failing to find a sufficient food supply in its new home had attacked stray travelers 

 along the river. The bear is the only dangerous mammal in this section and the 

 people are so well acquainted with it that they could never mistake it for any other 

 animal. And the native artist in his greatest latitude would never represent the 

 bear form with the peculiar type of tail which always characterizes the representations 

 of the how-how and which corresponds so well to that of the lion 



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