ON THE NORTH-WESTERN TRIBES OV CANADA. 823 



qo'utc nas :had'a'i^bear honse people, 

 na k'fil nas :had'a'i=empty house people, 

 t'a'ro nas :liad'iVi=copper house people, 

 knu nas :had'a'i^whale house people. 

 g"Egihe't nas :had'a'i=land-otter house people. 

 k''et nas :had'a'i=sea-lion house people. 

 :hot nas :had'a'i^box honse people, 

 k'ok' nas :had'a'i^snow-ovvl house people. 



From the first of these lists it will be seen that two of these gentes are 

 called from the locality which they formerly inhabited. Wemiaminow and 

 Kranse noted a few Tlingit gentes which were also named from the places 

 at which their houses stood, and one name of this kind is found on the 

 preceding list on p. 824. The majority of gentes are called from the 

 names and emblems of their houses. If a new house is built by the chief 

 of the gens it receives the name of the old one, the place of which it 

 takes. These facts show that the houses must be considered communal 

 houses of the gentes. The members of the gens are connected by ties 

 of consanguinity, not by an imaginary relationship through the totem. 

 The latter exists only inside the phratry. It must be borne in mind that 

 tlie emblems of the gens are only emblems commemorative of certain 

 events, that they do not indicate any relationship between man and 

 emblem. This becomes particularly clear in the case of the Haida 

 phratries, where the raven is the emblem of the eagle phratry and is not 

 used by the raven phratry. Gentes of great numerical strength are sub- 

 divided. The houses of each gens always stand grouped together. 



The single gentes do not possess the whole series of emblems pertain- 

 ing to the phratry. Among the Skidegate gentes enumerated above, the 

 one called Na s'a'yas has the following emblems: raven, shark, eagle, 

 frog. Their chief has, in addition to these, the fabulous five-finned whale 

 wa^k' and the fish I'd'ma (codfish ?). Before giving a festival the child of 

 the eagle gens must use no other emblem but the eagle. 



Any Haida who has the raven among his emblems, when marrying 

 a Tlingit, is considered a member of the raven phratry, and vice versa, the 

 emblems always deciding to which phratry an individual is to be 

 reckoned. 



The social organisation of the Tsimshian is somewhat difierent from 

 that of the preceding gi-oup of peoples. They have four gentes : the 

 raven, called K'anha'da ; the eagle, Laqski'yek (=on the eagle) ; the 

 wolf, Laqkyebo' (=on the wolf) ; and the bear, GyispotuwE'da. The 

 following is a partial list of their emblems. 



1. K'anha'da : Raven, codfish, starfish. 



2. Laqski'yek : Eagle, halibut, beaver, whale. 



3. Laqkyebo' : Wolf, crane, grizzly bear. 



4. GyispotuwE'da : Delpliinus orca, sun, moon, stars, rainbow, 



grouse, tsEm'aks (a sea-monster). 



The Tsimshian are divided into three classes : common people, middle- 

 class people, and chiefs. Common people are those who have not been 

 initiated into a secret society (v. p. 848) ; by the initiation they become 

 middle-class people ; but they can never become chiefs, who form a 

 distinct class. Each gfens has its own proper names, which are different 

 for chiefs and middle-class people. It seems that, as a rule, the names 



