139 
A young man of Raraotsren’s family, at Kitsalas, is said in the myth 
once to have shown particular respect to the dried salmon food of his rela- 
tives, and thus to have cured the Salmon chief of an infirmity. The live 
salmon, in gratitude, appeared to him as human beings in a canoe, at the 
river’s edge, and took him to their home down the river. They led him 
into three huge houses of the Salmon tribe; on the front of one was painted 
the Dog-Salmon (Qanees); on that of the second, the Steelhead-salmon 
(Mcelit), and on that of the third, the Spring-salmon. The salmon in 
those houses behaved as human beings. When the time for the salmon 
run arrived, the young man w’as provided with a fish garment and, changing 
into a salmon, he swam up the river with the school of salmon, until he 
reached the canyon, at the edge of which stood his home village. There 
his uncle Raraotsren caught a gigantic salmon which he could barely 
drag out of the water.^ In its body he discovered his nephew, who had 
disappeared several moons before. The Dog-salmon thereafter became 
the family crest. It somehow became the possession of Tewalasu, either 
through transmission in direct line or later contacts as between kinsmen. 
The Dog-salmon crest has also been used at times in a dramatic perform- 
ance (as a narhnawk) given by Tewalasu at Kitwanga. 
The Squirrel emblem (Tsenhlik) is used only by the two families of 
Tewalasu of Kitwanga, and of Qawq of Gitlarhdamks, on the upper Nass. 
Qawq of Gitlarhdamks owes his origin to the household of the same name 
on the Skeena, and his migration northwards is supposed to have taken 
place only as a result of the events recounted in the Squirrel myth. The 
ancestors of both families, at one time, when camping near a salmon- 
fence at Larh-kunsrserh, on the upper Nass, were harassed by repeated 
apparitions of monster Squirrels, the size of bears. Some, in particular a 
woman and her two daughters, fled back to the Skeena, and joined their 
tribe at Gitanriet. When they received word, later, that the chief of the 
monsters, the White-squirrel, had been destroyed, the daughters went back 
to the Nass, and their mother stayed with her people on the Skeena. Both 
branches of this family, those of Tewalasu, and of Qawq of the Nass, 
trace back their ancestry to these women. And they have since claimed 
the exclusive privilege of using the Squirrel as their distinctive emblem, 
though they retain as well most of the other crests of their earlier ancestors. 
The presence of the two lowest figures on the newer pole is worth 
especial attention as it is quite exceptional in character. The Starfish 
as a coat-of-arms does not belong to any of the Eagles, but only to some 
families of the Larhsail (Raven-Frog) phratry. Here it appears merely 
as the signature of one of the carvers of this pole, whose father was of the 
house of Tewalasu, and his mother belonged to the family of Kweenu, a 
Larhsail of Gitwinlkul, who owns the Starfish as one of his crests. 
FUNCTION 
The Dog-salmon pole was erected in memory of Tewalasu, less than 
seventy years ago.^ 
>The human figure spenring a salmon, as seen on the pole, is evidently meant to represent Raraotsren with his 
catch; and the smaller figure in the mouth of the lower salmon, his nephew. 
*01d Somedeek says that he w.os quite small at the time of its erection, he was "not yet able to pack water from 
the river.” According to Mrs. Wells, the present Sqayajn, it stands in memory of the second Tewahieu before the 
present. 
84628- lOJ 
