62 
Here is, in brief outline, how the members of this family explain their 
origin^. While the ancestors still lived at Footprints-in-shallow-water 
(Tsem'anlu-srcerhs ), among the Tsetsaut, their chief pursuit was the hunt. 
The eldest of four brothers, Ramlarhyselk, once stopped at a spring “where 
the water always boiled.” After a meal he went to the spring for water. 
He beheld a human -like being within the spring and ten small offspring 
of the Raven perched on him. On top of his head was a Raven’s nest. 
An incomplete reproduction of this vision is attempted on the tallest of 
Ramlarhyaelk’s poles, as described above. The four brothers tried to 
pull the strange being out of the water, but failed at first. Finally, they 
called Lurhawn and his family to their assistance and drained the spring 
by digging a trench. At the spot where the strange being had appeared 
to them they saw a large pillar of stone upon which was engraved a large 
human figure, with the offspring of the Raven perched on it. They called 
more people of the Wolf and the Fireweed phratries to their help and 
hauled the pillar of stone to their village and placed it in front of Ramlar- 
hyaelk’s house. But while they had gone to invite other bands of the 
Stikeen Tsetsaut to a big feast, the stone pillar disappeared in the lake, 
leaving a deep trench in its track. Ramlarhyaelk, when he discovered 
his loss, composed a song, which is still preserved, in which he vented his 
grief. To avoid humiliation when the guests came, he reproduced the 
mystic being in a wood carving, a totem pole, which he christened, Person- 
of-spring-bottom (Gywdem-^zooyerh ), and he called the ravens on it Ravens- 
of-the-water (Qaqem-dzem’aks ). “He had many carvers working for him, 
to finish the pole, while the people were coming in and actually feasting. 
He had the pole erected and gave it the name of On-lies-the-Raven (Ha’- 
neelahl-qao )” This is the name of one of the poles of Ramlarhyaelk, at 
Gitwinlkul. 
After this event, the brothers started for the hunt in the mountains. 
While they were away, one of them, Gyaebesu, was lost, and the others 
could not find him. They in the end gave up their search for him. One 
of the “brothers” kept on by himself looking for him in the direction of the 
headwaters of the river called Water-of-wild-rice-gathering (Ksa^anrasrh ). 
There he observed excrements of human beings at the bottom of a huge 
tree. In the tree was a nest, and in the nest a large bird on the back of 
which sat Gyaebesu, “his hands holding on to the wings of the bird, his 
head just behind that of the bird, and his feet in the middle of the bird’s 
back. This bird was the Real-kingfisher (Semgycek). In full it is called 
Real-kingfisher-in-the-nest ( Semgyczrem-tsem^anluhl j. Gyaebesu was in- 
duced to come back to the village, where a big feast was given, with the 
assistance of Ramlarhyaelk, Lurhawn, and the Larhsail people. The new 
crest of the Real-kingfisher was produced in the feast; and a song was 
composed, to commemorate the event. The Real-kingfisher and the Raven 
thus were the first two crests obtained by the ancestors of the clan. 
The members of this clan migrated, at a later period, towards the sea- 
coast to the place now called Gitlarhdamks, on the upper Nass. There 
Ramlarhyaelk distributed numerous presents at a feast to the guests, and 
exhibited for the first time the Raven crest in the form of a house-front 
Unformants: George Derrick (Lurhawn, of Gitwinlkul), Ambrose Derrick (now of Kitwanga), Arthur Derrick 
(Ramlarhyielk, of Gitlarhdamks), and Salomon Harris (Lielt, of Kitwanga). 
