144 
Phratries 
Tlinkit: Raven; Wolf (in some villages called Engle)^ 
Haida: Raven; Eagle 
Tsimshian : Raven; Wolf; Eagle; Gispuivudwada (a word of 
unknown meaning) - 
There can be no doubt that tiiese divisions did not arise 
indeiKuidently. Whether the Tlinkit established the system first, 
and passed it on to their southern neighbours, as some writers believe, 
or whether its roots lie grounded in a time preceding the present 
arrangement of the po]^ulation, does not matter for our present 
jmrpose- What is im]:)ortaut is that the Tiulians themselves recognized 
its common origin, and that although the three ]ieoples sjioke different 
languages’"^ and had different political interests, the phratric divisions 
overrode these boundaries. A Haida man of the Raven phratry, 
for example, could marry a Tlinkit or Tsimshian woman of the Wolf 
jDhratry, but not a Raven woman, even though he captured her in 
warfare. ]\Iore than this, if a Haida Raven found himself by some 
accident in a Tlinkit village unknown to him. he naturally turned 
for hospitality and protection to its learling Raven inhabitant, and 
very rarely f{)unfl his apjilication refused.^ 
Tlie clan and the phratry were social and ceremonial units, not 
political; they cut across geographical and even linguistic divisions. 
The smallest jiolitical unit was the village community. The largest was 
the same village community, or perhaps rather an indefinite number 
of neighbouring villages whose inhabitants possessed the same culture, 
spoke the same language, frequently intermarried, participated in 
joint festivals, aiul relied on each other for mutual ju’otection. While 
every village had a definite leader, the head man or woman of its 
dominant clan (two leaders if there were two clans of equal strength), 
there was no leader for the amorjihous group, which had no other 
bond than the ties of common interest. If enemies attacked a village 
its neighbours generally rallied to its support, and a village that 
1 A lliird division, called Soiiyn, in sonic of the soutliern Tlinkit villages, stood in certain ways 
outside the two main groups; its members could intermarry with eithei-. 
2 The main emblem or crest of this last phratry varied. Some villages recopnisied the killer-whale, 
others the grizzly lieqr, still others the plant called iireweed. Harlieau. C. M.: ‘‘ Orowth and Federation 
in Tsimshian Phratries”; Proc. Nineteenth Inter. Cong. Americanist.s, ji. 405 (Washington, 1917). 
3 Haida and Tlinkit, though perhaps genetically connected, differ from each other far more than 
French and I'higli.sh. 
4 There Ls some evidence that even in warfare enemies belonging to the .same phratry often tried 
to avoid each other. 
