118 
complete on this pole; their arms are in varied postures; their heads are 
sometimes tilted sideways, and their countenances assume peculiar and 
diversified expressions. The largest figures at the top stand probably for 
Split-person; the single human face below the row of children may be 
meant for Tsiwiladaw, the ancestress that adopted the Woodpecker as a 
pet; the other large figure below two rows of children is Split-person again, 
with two human beings in her arms; the crest at the bottom seems to be 
Large-nosed-person, the nose of which has fallen off. This pole contains 
a total of over twenty-six figures — which is probably far in excess of any 
other pole in existence. 
The fourth pole, the most recent, also bears the name of Mountain- 
eagle or Thunder-bird f Skaimsem ). It stands on the lower terrace, nearer 
to the river (Plate XXIV, figure 3), and represents in simplified form the 
same mythic adventures and emblems: Mountain-eagle, at the top; 
Tsiwiladaw, the mythic ancestress with a child in her arms; four of her 
children ; and Large-nosed-person ( GiVweedzarat ). 
ORIGIN 
There is much discrepancy in the accounts given locally of the mythic 
origin of the crests of the Woodpecker or the Caterpillars, the Split or 
Double-headed-person, the Thunder-bird and his human mate Tsiwiladaw, 
and the Person-with-a-long-nose. But these are all typical Wolf emblems, 
and must be of some antiquity. 
The Person-with-a-long-nose is evidently the same, under a different 
name and with another myth, as Tree-dweller and Large-belly — whose 
nose was long and sharp like a knife. These are the emblems of some 
Wolf families of another clan on the upper Skeena (page 126). 
W^ood pecker is used as an emblem in another Wolf clan of the upper 
Skeena, that of Ksemqaqhl (page 128). There it appears under two forms, 
Dragon-fly and Mosquito. 
The small, human-like beings with distinctive contortions are also 
familiar elsewhere, particularly in the Wild-rice clans of the Wolf phratry 
on the upper Skeena. But here their name and explanation are different, 
in spite of a general thematic resemblance. They appear sometimes as 
Shadows-in-the-lake or in the crest of Hole-through-the-Sky (WuVnaqaq) 
(page 123). 
Split-Person also reminds one of the Split-bear of the same Wild-rice 
clans of the upper Skeena; on both sides there are representations of these 
mythic beings with their entrails out of their body. 
The historic significance of these similarities is that all these kinship 
symbols undoubtedly go back to the same remote prototypes. As they 
travelled far apart for a considerable period, they became differentiated. 
If now, their names, their remembered significance, and the myths vary, 
it is that they are more recent than the pictorial emblems and the funda- 
mental concepts themselves. The clans of the Wild-rice and that of 
Hrain (Kaien) island — ^here represented by Weerhse — are likely to be 
genealogically related, if we take into account these ancient heirlooms in 
their common possession. 
The accounts given of the origin of these crests in Weerhse’s family 
and among his Tsimsyan relatives of the Gitsees tribe are, in brief, as 
follows : 
