TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY 



By Franz Boas 



BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE TSIMSHIAN 1 

 Culture Areas 



The North Pacific coast is inhabited by a number of distinct tribes, 

 whose culture is fairly uniform. We may distinguish three groups of 

 tribes — the northern group, which embraces the Tlingit, the Haida, 

 and the Tsimshian; the central group, which includes the Kwakiutl 

 tribes and the Bellacoola; and the southern group, to which belong 

 the Coast Salish and the Nootka. Among the last-named group the 

 characteristic traits of North Pacific coast culture are weakest, while 

 in the first group they are most strongly developed. In the following 

 pages I shall give a very brief description of the material culture of 

 the tribe, confining myself, however, to those points that may help 

 give the proper background of the life to which the myths and 

 tales refer. A fuller discussion of social customs, social organization, 

 and religion, as well as a description of the life of the people as it 

 appears in their tales and traditions, will be given later (see p. 393). 



Name 



The Tsimshian, who are the subject of the following sketch, take 

 their name from the Skeena River, on which they dwell. In their 

 own language this river is called E-sia'n, and they call themselves 

 Ts.'em-sia'n. TsIeth- is a nominal prefix, signifying "the inside of a 

 thing;" the initial Tc- of K-sia'n is a prefix indicating place names; so 

 that the word would mean "Inside Of The Skeena River." The loca- 

 tive prefix Jc- occurs in the names of almost all the rivers of this area, 

 as in K-lo'sEms ("Nass River"). 



The Tlingit of Alaska call the Tsimshian Ts.'otsxE'n (a phonetic 

 modification of the word TslEm-sia'n, m being absent in Tlingit), the 

 Bellacoola call them slxl'mx-, the Bellabella designate them as Gwe'tEla 

 ("Northerners"). The Haida call each tribe by its own proper name. 



i The notes on the Tsimshian contained in the Filth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada 

 (Boas 1, 1889), pp. 797-893, and those given in the Eleventh Report (Boas 1, 1S96), pp. 580 el scg., are em- 

 bodied in their entirety in the following descripl inn. It also contains the notes on the Nisqa' £ (so far as 

 they were not reprinted in Boas 5, pp. 651-660, 733) given in the Tenth Report (Boas 1, 1895), pp. 569- 

 583. (See Bibliography, pp. 39 el seq.) Wherever the data given here differ from the earlier descriptions. 

 Ihr lall.T :ir>' superseded. 



43 . 



