500 TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY [eth. U>. 31 



property of one clan 1 would have belonged to another village, and 

 chiefs' sons had to move away to the village of the uncle whom they 

 succeeded. Instances of this will be found in the war story on pp. 355, 

 356. Thus the married woman and her children would, in case of 

 cousin marriages, return to her own father's village, an incident that 

 occurs with great freqiiency in tales. 



When a woman dies, her children may be brought up in their 

 father's house; but when they are grown up, they return to their 

 own relatives, i. e., their mother's family. 



Parents did everything for their children that might advance their 

 social standing. By appropriate ceremonies, to be described later, 

 they gave the names that expressed their advancing standing, they 

 perforated their ears and the septum of the nose. Girls were given 

 the labret. They also let the child take a position in the ceremonial 

 societies which would entitle them to a position in the higher social 

 ranks of the tribe. 



When a family is likely to die out, the father is allowed to adopt 

 one of his daughters, who then receives a name belonging to his crest. 

 On this occasion a great festival is given. A man can not adopt more 

 than one child at a time. Thus Mr. Tate adopted his daughter, 

 who thus attained the legal status of his sister, and to whom he gave 

 his mother's name, X-ts!Em-maks n'.exhrie'xl ("White In Center Of 

 Killer Whales"). His own mother's father adopted him, and gave 

 him the legal status of a sister's son, transmitting his name to him. 

 While he is by birth a member of the Eagle group, he became then 

 a member of the G'ispawadwE'da, and henceforth could marry only 

 a woman of the Wolf or Ganha'da groups. 



Crests and Other Clan 1 Property. — The clans have crests like those 

 of the Haida and Tlingit. These are called SEnlai'dulcs (that is, 

 "symbols," "marks," "signs") 135, line 4 from end; but the proper 

 term for a crest is dzapTc. 



When explaining the crests, Mr. Tate says, "Whatever the clans 

 saw on their early migrations, when they escaped from their enemies 

 and endured the greatest hardships, — the strange animals they saw, 

 the birds, heavenly bodies, monsters, supernatural beings of the 

 mountains and of the sea, anything that seemed important and 

 unusual, — that they took for their crests." A discussion relating to 

 the origin of crests has been given on pp. 411 et sea. Connected with 

 these crests were crest-songs, mourning-songs, lullabies or cradle- 

 songs, songs for clan festivals (potlatches), songs of victory, and 

 special songs belonging to chiefs and princes. 2 Mayne 3 states, 



i " Clan " is here used in the sense that it may designate either an undivided exogamie group or one of 

 its subdivisions that is characterized by the same crest and other properly, and is assumed to be 

 <lr-,i rmt'd from one ancestral group. 



-C:moe-songs, some dancing-songs, love-songs, and smisjs sung after the killing ol animals, were not clan 

 property. 



3 Mayne, p. 258. 



