13 
to have had carved houseposts and house-front entrance poles, with round 
or ovoid holes at the bottom as ceremonial doorways. The house of the 
Gitwinlkul head-chief Weerhse had four corner posts representing one of 
his crests — the Grizzly-bear standing erect. At least four of the houses 
at Kitsalas canyon^ half-way down the Skeena to the coast, had such decor- 
ated corner and entrance poles. These half-decayed remnants still sur- 
vive.^ The ridge beam of a house still to be seen at Kitsalas® was also 
carved to represent a fish, the Dog-salmon crest of its owner. Several of 
the oldest poles at Kitwanga, Gitwinlkul, and Gitenmaks (Hazelton), are 
exactly of that type, and they are said to be from sixty to seventy years 
old,^ They were house-front posts. But this style of house decoration 
was superseded as soon as the natives gave up building large communal 
lodges of the purely native type; and memorial columns standing away 
from the houses became the new fashion. It is fairly safe to say that none 
of these monuments existed on the upper Skeena before 1840. Some of 
them made their appearance about 1850 at Gitwinlkul and Kitwanga 
first and almost at once spread to Kispayaks and Gitsegyukla® and even 
to the Carrier village of Hagwelget. Gitwinlkul had the largest cluster 
of them all, whereas Gitenmaks (Hazelton) never seems to have had more 
than a very few, and its present four poles were erected only after the 
establishment of the Indian reserve in 1890. The two villages of Kisgagas 
and Qaldo at the headwaters were not properly speaking totem-pole villages, 
as they never boasted of more than a few poles, most of them simple and 
crude. 
Internal evidence tells the same tale. The technique of the carving 
on several of the old poles is self-revealing, particularly as it discloses 
anterior stages in the art. It is essentially the technique of making masks 
or of carving small detached objects; or again, of representing masked and 
costumed performers® as they appeared in festivals rather than the real 
animals or objects as they exist in nature. These early Skeena River 
carvers had not yet acquired the skill of the Nass River masters, who had 
advanced to the point of thinking of a large pole as an architectural unit, 
which called for unity and harmony of decorative treatment. It is obvious 
that they were primarily carvers of masks and trays and charms.^ 
Ha?sem-hliyawn and his contemporaries, of Gitwinlkul, seem to have 
been responsible for the advance of the art beyond its first stage; and yet 
they belong as much (for their location and affiliations) to the Nass as to 
the Skeena. 
The decorated poles of the Gitksan from the first were essentially 
sculptural. Their figures were carved in low and high relief. The device 
of supplementing the surface with external additions and affixing them 
with pegs, served to enhance the high relief, for the sake of realism. Yet, 
native colours — red, yellow, black, and in some instances, blue-green — 
were often resorted to for the decoration of the eyes, the eyebrows, the 
lips, and the nostrils. When the White man’s paint became available, it 
Un the Gitrh-tsawh section, on the railway side, 
n'hey have now been re.stored under Government and railway supervision. 
’On tne Gitrh-tsserh side, south of the river. This Dog-salmon ridge-pole still exists. 
*See the list pages 167 and 187. 
‘There seem to nave been three or four hou.se-front or other poles at Gitsegyukla, that were burnt down at the 
time of the fire of 1872. The present graveyard is on the old village site, slightly to the west of the present village. 
‘What is called narhnawk. 
’Plate IX, figure 2; Plate XI, figure 5; Plate X\T, figure 5; Plate XVII, figure 1 ; Plate XVII, figure 2; Pl.ate 
XXVn, figure 5; and Plate XXVHI, figure 1; Plate XVHI, figures 1, 2. 
