BOisl TSIMSHIAN SOCIETY 479 



are supposed to have composed the whole family of man; while the other, and, I 

 think, most correct opinion, is that it refers to color, for the words are applicable. 

 Chitsah refers to anything of a pale color — fair people ; Nat-singh, from ah-zingh, black, 

 dark — that is, dark people; Tain-ge"s-ah-tsah, neither fair nor dark, between the two, 

 from tain-gees, the half, middle, and ah-tsah, brightish, from tsa, the sun, bright, 

 glittering, shining, &c. Another thing, the coimtry of the Na-tsik-koo-chin is called 

 Nah-t'singh to this day, and it is the identical country which the Nat-singh occupied. 

 The Na-tsik-koo-chin inhabit the high ridge of land between the Youcon and the 

 Arctic sea. They live entirely on the flesh of the reindeer, and are very dark-skinned 

 compared with the Chit-sangh, who live a good deal on fish. All the elderly men fish 

 the salmon and salmon trout during the summer, while the young men hunt the 

 moose, and have regular white-fish fisheries every autumn besides. Some of the 

 Chit-sangh are very fair, indeed, in some instances approaching to white. The 

 Tain-gees-ah-tsa live on salmon trout and moose meat, and, taken as a whole, are 

 neither so fair as the Chit-sangh nor so dark as the Nah-t'singh. They are half-and- 

 half between the two. A Chit-sangh cannot, by their rules, marry a Chit-sangh, 

 although the rule is set at naught occasionally; but when it dues take place the persons 

 are ridiculed and laughed at. The man is said to have married his sister, even though 

 she may be from another tribe and there be not the slightest connection by blood 

 between them. The same way with the other two divisions. The children are of the 

 same color as their mother. They receive caste from their mother; if a male Chit- 

 sangh marry a Nah-tsingh woman the children are Nah-tsingh, and if a male Nah-tsingh 

 many a Chit-sangh woman the children are Chit-sangh, so that the divisions are 

 always changing. As the fathers die out the country inhabited by the Chit-sangh 

 becomes occupied by the Nah-tsingh, and so on vice versa. They are continually 

 changing countries, as it were. Latterly, however, these rules are not so strictly 

 observed or enforced as formerly, so that there is getting to be a complete amalgama- 

 tion of the three great divisions, such a mixture that the difference of color is scarcely 

 perceptible, and, no doubt, will soon disappear altogether, except what is produced 

 by natural causes. The people who live on the flesh of the reindeer are always darker 

 than those who live on fish, or on part fish and part flesh. One good thing proceeded 

 from the above arrangement — it prevented war between two tribes who were naturally 

 hostile. The ties or obligations of color or caste were stronger than those of blood or 

 nationality. In war it was not tribe against tribe, but division against division, and 

 as the children were never of the same caste as the father, the children would, of 

 course, be against the father and the father against the children, part of one tribe 

 against part of another, and part against itself, so that, as may be supposed, there 

 would have been a pretty general confusion. This, however, was not likely to occur 

 very often, as the worst of parents would have naturally preferred peace to war with 

 his own children. 



Evidently these names correspond to Petitot's names: Nat-singh = 

 Nattse'in-kjoe't; Tam-gees-ah-tsah = T,oendji-dha3ttset-k(oe't; and 

 Chitsah probably =Etchian-k / oe't. 



The Tinneh above Nulato say that they have three divisions — 

 Medzihterotana, Tonitserotana, Noletsina. 1 



In Emmons's notes on the Tahltan 2 no mention is made of a three- 

 fold division like the one observed among the Tlingit and Loucheux, 

 although his description would make it appear that there are three 

 distinct groups of inland origin, besides the later immigrants from 

 the coast. This may perhaps agree with the information given by 



' Jett^ 1, p. 402. ! Emmons 4, pp. 13 el seq. 



