Gitwilgyoots

The Gitwilgyoots are one of the 14 tribes of the Tsimshian nation in British Columbia, Canada, and one of the nine of those tribes making up the "Nine Tribes" of the lower Skeena River resident at Lax Kw'alaams (a.k.a. Port Simpson), B.C. The name "Gitwilgyoots" means literally "people of the place of kelp." Their traditional territory includes several areas around the estuary of the Skeena River. Since 1834, they have been based at Lax Kw'alaams, when a Hudson's Bay Company fort was established there.

The chieftainship of the Gitwilgyoots resides in the hereditary name-title Saxsa'axt. The anthropologist Viola Garfield recorded in 1938 that the holder of Saxsa'axt at that point had succeeded his mother's brother, in accordance with matrilineal rules of succession, and had held office for more than thirty years. In the 1930s the House of Saxsa'axt was the largest house-group (matrilineal extended family) in Lax Kw'alaams. A totem pole belonging to this house, portraying an anthropomorphous grizzly bear, was raised in the 1870s and was by the 1930s still standing but decayed beyond recognition.

In 1935 William Beynon recorded that Gitwilgyoots people in Lax Kw'alaams included 49 members of the Gispwudwada (Killerwhale clan) (three house-groups, including the House of Saxsa'axt with 22 members), 1 member of the Ganhada (Raven), 10 members of the Laxgibuu (Wolf) (1 house), and 23 members of the Laxsgiik (Eagle) (1 house).

Bibliography

* Garfield, Viola E. (1939) "Tsimshian Clan and Society." "University of Washington Publications in Anthropology," vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 167-340.