boas] TSIMSHIAN SOCIETY 481 



killer whales, a fish named mslx'ani'gun was painted on each side of 

 the door. Sea lions, which are considered the dogs of the sea spirit 

 Q!o'moq!wa, were the crossbeams. 1 



According to notes collected by Livingston Farrand in 1897, the 

 Bellabella have four exogamic groups, — Eagle, Killer Whale, Wolf, 

 and Raven. They recognize them as corresponding to the groups 

 of the northern tribes, but not to those of the tribes of Rivers Inlet 

 and Vancouver Island. Part of the children of a couple are assigned, 

 according to him, to the mother's group, part to that of the father. 

 The assignment is arbitrary and made after consultation between 

 the parents and their relatives. Preference is given, however, to 

 the mother's line. A single child belongs to the maternal group. 

 This would seem to imply that the first-born child belongs to the 

 maternal group. Names belonging to other groups might be taken 

 by an individual at a great potlatch, but these would not affect his 

 position in the group to which he belonged. 



The following Bellabella tribes have been recorded: 



Tribe Village 



0' e yala-itx Ya'laLe 2 



A £ wI'L!etx Xune's 3 



He'sta-itx Tla'yasiwe 64 



No'lo-itx No'lo 5 



Farrand and Boas (1, 1S90, p. 604) mention another tribe, the 

 Qo'qaitx. As I understand it, the exogamic groups were present 

 in all these villages. 



Among all these tribes the members of these groups have the privilege 

 of using designs represent ing certain animals or other objects as their 

 crests, and in many eases they claim a supernatural relationship to the 

 animals, which may therefore be said to be the totems of these groups, 

 in the narrower sense of this term. It is important, however, to know 

 that the principal crest animal and the animal from which the group 

 takes its name are not always the same. Thus the Raven side of the 

 Haida has as its principal crest the killer whale, and on the Eagle side of 

 the Haida the beaver is as important a crest as the eagle. Furthermore, 

 not all the members of each group have the same crest ; but among 

 the Tlingit and Haida there are a considerable number, among the 

 Tsimshian a small number, of subgroups, each of which has a number 

 of crest animals of its own. In a great many cases the acquisition 

 of these crest animals can be traced by historical or semihistorical 

 traditions; and we know that in some cases crests have been obtained 

 by gift from friends among foreign tribes or have been acquired in 

 war. Often among the Tlingit and Haida, and also among the 

 Tsimshian, their acquisition is explained by a myth which belongs only 



