141 
ing to Semedeek, this household separated from that of Qawq at the time 
when the family lived at Gitanrset, before the tribe moved up to the 
Ta’awdzep fortress. Both families lived together in the same house at 
Ta’awdzep. 
Sqaysen owns two totem poles, which still stand^ at the upper end of 
the front row, at Kitwanga. 
DESCRIPTION 
The older of the two poles (Plate XXXIII, figure 1) was formerly a 
front-door post; the ceremonial entrance into the feast house was through 
its opening, at the bottom. Its name was The-Bear’s-den (Hrpe-sacynih)." 
There used to be an Eagle at the top. The two human figures, with a 
round hole in the stomach, represent the entrance to the Bear’s-den, and 
they are also called The-Bear’s-den. Under them and over the round 
doorway is a small Eagle, with wings spread wide open; its name is Split- 
eagle ( Palrhuyn-rhskycck ), 
The second (Plate XXIX, figure 3) also bears the name of The-Bear’s- 
den (Hrpe-smynih). Its figures, from the top down, are: The Eagle 
(Hrskywk ) holding the White-marten (’MashaH) in its talons; The-Bear’s- 
den {Hrpe-scemih J, the same human being with a round hole in the stomach; 
a large Eagle, named Palrhum-hrskya)k the Beaver (Tserncelih), sitting 
and gnawing a stick of cottonwood, and with its tail turned upwards on 
its stomach, in the conventional way; The-Bear’s-den, the same human 
figure with a small round hole in the stomach; the Split-beaver (Palrhum- 
isemcdih), head down and gnawing a stick; and a human figure at the 
bottom, representing either The-Bear’s-den person or, possibly^, chief 
Sqayien, in whose memory the pole was erected. 
ORIGIN 
Sqayaen’s crests are the same — -with the exception of the Beaver — 
as those of the head-chief of the Eagle families at Kitwanga, Qawq; a 
brief outline of their origin is given above, with the description of the poles 
of the head-chief. 
The use of the Beaver as a crest goes back to the time when the ances- 
tors of the three Eagle families of Kitwanga lived at Gitsemraelem, below the 
canyon of the Skeena. It is not used in the Nass River branch of the 
Eagle clan. 
Strange visitors according to the myth of origin, mysteriously caused 
the death of some people at the canyon. They were pursued up the hill- 
side to a lake, above Kitsalas, at Kwit’awren (Gravel-heart, or accord- 
ing to another interpretation, Cracked-stones). There, changing into 
beavers, they disappeared under the water. The people drained the 
lake, with the help of some of their Gitsemraelem relatives, and dis- 
covered the huge Beaver at the bottom, the body of which was covered 
‘One of these, the oldest at Kitwanga, fell down several years ago, but was restored and re^rected through the 
initiative of the Totem Pole Committee, of Ottawa, in 1925. 
^Alfred Sinclair, the interpreter, was under the presumably mistaken impression that the upper human figure 
represented the first Sqaysen, and the other figure another former chief in this family. 
•Although here, as in the former instance, the Eagle is not actually shown as the Split-eagle. 
•This second alternative is suggested by Alfred Sinclair, the interpreter, whose notion— evidently biased to 
a certain extent — ^was that human figures on poles often represent the late chiefs whom they commemorate. 
