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belonged to another clan of the same phratry or company; that is, they 
did not consider themselves as real relatives, although they belonged to- 
gether as a federated body, and could not intermarry with one another. 
Or again, they belonged to different phratries or companies. Thus, a tribe 
is an agglomeration of related, semi-related, and absolutely unrelated, 
households, the number of which seldom exceeded fifteen or twenty, and 
the actual population, from two to five hundred or less. It came into 
existence casually, as a rule after some other tribes had broken up through 
necessity or catastrophe; and it dissolved likewise. Families that belong 
to one tribe now, still distinctly conserve the memory of the times, within 
the last two hundred years, when their ancestors were members for a time 
of two or three different tribes in turn, and moved four or five times to as 
many different villages. They sometimes are still described under such 
tribal names of the past. 
Phratries. There are four phratries or companies among the Gitksan. 
Every family inevitably belongs to one of them, and their members are 
found in the various tribes of the upper Skeen a. These phratries are as 
follows. 
Larhsail or Frog-Raven, the equivalent of the Ranhada phratry of 
the Tsimsyan. 
Fireweed or Gisrast, the equivalent of wliich is the Gispewudwade, 
among the Tsimsyan and Nisrse. 
Wolf or Larhkeebu. 
Eagle or Larhskeek. 
The largest of these, among the Gitksan, is the Frog-Raven, The 
Fireweed and the Wolf come next. The Eagle, on the other hand, is very 
small; it is a recent accretion from outside, being represented merely by 
one clan in the village of Kitwanga, the nearest to the Tsimsyan frontier. 
It must be noted, however, that Weegyet of the Fireweed phratry, at 
Gitsegyukla, traces back his ancestry to Eagle ancestors, formerly m-embers 
of the Eagle group at Kitwanga; the change from one phratry to another 
happened as the result of what may be termed a social accident. Besides, 
not a few emblems that are now considered legitimate possessions of the 
Eagle phratry were previously acquired among the Gitksan by various 
families in the other phratries. 
The phratries in their present form are not very ancient. They are 
more in the nature of a federation than the natural growth of kinship 
units, once small, into large groups; their ramifications extend through 
several nations. But it is not the object of this monograph to discuss 
social organization in detail. 
Clans. The clans are groups of kinsmen within a phratry — the phra- 
try comprising various clans. They usually consist of several families 
closely related to one another, though often scattered far and wide through- 
out the tribes of one nation or even beyond. Their members claim the 
same maternal ancestors and the same traditional rights and privileges. 
The various branches of a clan, or families and households, issued from 
each other in the course of time, and for this reason maintain ties of mutual 
