4 
AGE OF THE POLES 
The totem poles of the upper Skeena on the average have been carved 
and erected in the past forty or fifty years. The oldest, five or six in number, 
may slightly exceed seventy years in age. Not a few are less than thirty 
years old. The evidence clearly shows that the existing poles constitute 
the first set of elaborate memorials ever erected among the Gitksan. Com- 
paratively few have fallen, decayed, or been destroyed. It is quite safe 
to say that totem poles became a notable feature in the majority — four 
out of seven — of the Gitksan villages only after 1870 or 1880. Only six 
out of the twenty-seven poles at Gitwinlkul exceed fifty years of age; 
about the same number at Kitwanga and Kispayaks; one at Gitenmaks 
(Hazelton) and another at Qaldo. Of the four Hagwelget poles, two were 
erected slightly before 1866 and the two others soon after. The names 
of the carvers of these poles, with the exception of less than half a dozen, 
are still remembered. 
It is a mistake to say, as is often done, that totem poles are hundreds 
of years old. They could not be because of the nature of the materials 
and climatic conditions. A green cedar cut and planted, without preser- 
vatives, in the ground, cannot stand upright far beyond fifty or sixty years 
on the upper Skeena,^ where precipitation is moderate and the soil usually 
consists of gravel and sand. Along the coast, it seldom can endure the 
intense moisture that prevails most of the year, and the muskeg foundation, 
much more than forty years. The totem poles of Port Simpson, for in- 
stance, all decayed on the south side first, which is exposed to warm, rainy 
winds; and most of them tumbled to the ground in less than forty years. 
Thus it has come about that the oldest poles of the Gitksan count 
among the earliest relics of the kind still in existence. Many of them for 
that reason are of an archaic type and quite crude; and they fairly repre- 
sent some of the past stages in the evolution of this native art. 
CARVERS 
Carving was a truly popular art among the Gitksan as well as among 
their North West Coast neighbours. If some artists were at times pre- 
ferred to others for their skill, their selection for definite tasks on the whole 
depended upon definite rules rather than personal choice.^ Every family 
of standing in the tribes had strong inducements to resort to its own carvers 
for important functions in ceremonial life. Of this we have conclusive 
proof: the hundred totem poles of the upper Skeena were produced by 
more than thirty local carvers and thirteen foreigners. Six of the foreigners 
were from the Nass, three from the lower Skeena, and four from Bulkley 
river. The Gitksan carvers belonged to independent social groups: twenty- 
three were members of various families of the Frog-Raven phratry; nine 
belonged to Wolf families, three to the Fireweeds, five to the Eagles. 
Seventy-eight out of the hundred and nine poles were the work of Gitksans, 
and the balance is ascribed to outsiders (See page 178, Carvers). 
It is significant that several of the earliest poles were carved by 
Nass River artists. These constitute some of the outstanding achieve- 
*Tlie pole of Ilalus (Plate IX, figures 1 and 2), at Kjtwanga, was erected in 1907 and collapsed in 192G. It has 
since been re-erected under Government and railway supervision. 
*See the paragraph on Function, page 6. 
