Tsimshian

For the languages, see Tsimshianic languages.
Ed Bryant (Tsimshian), drumming at a meeting in Wuppertal, 1999

The Tsimshian (/ˈsɪmʃiən/; Sm'algyax: Ts’msyan) are an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Tsimshian translates to Inside the Skeena River.[1] Their communities are in British Columbia and Alaska, around Terrace and Prince Rupert and the southernmost corner of Alaska on Annette Island. There are approximately 10,000 Tsimshian. Their culture is matrilineal with a societal structure based on a clan system, properly referred to as a moiety. Early anthropologists and linguists grouped Gitxsan and Nisga'a as Tsimshian because of linguistic affinities. Under this terminology they were referred to as Coast Tsimshian, even though some communities were not coastal. The three groups identify as separate nations. There are many other ways to spell the name, such as Tsimpshean, Tsimshean, Tsimpshian, and others, but this article will use the spelling "Tsimshian".

At one time the Tsimshian lived on the upper reaches of the Skeena River near present-day Hazelton BC. After a series of disasters befell the people, a prince led a migration away from the cursed land to the coast, where they founded Kitkatla, reputed to be one of the oldest continually inhabited communities on Earth. Following suit, other Tsimshian chiefs later migrated down the river and began to occupy all the lands of the lower Skeena valley. Over time these groups developed a new dialect of their ancestral language and came to regard themselves as a distinct population, the Tsimshian proper, while still sharing all the rights and customs of the Gitksan, their kin on the upper Skeena.

In 1862 a smallpox epidemic annihilated many Tsimshian people. Further epidemics ravaged their communities until the late 1890s. Altogether, one in four Tsimshian died in a series of at least three large-scale outbreaks, . Lax Kw'alaams began burying their dead without ceremony on Rose Island. From this time forward many Tsimshian adopted the language, religion, and culture of nearby White colonists, who were predominantly Protestant and English. The Head Chiefs themselves were the ones who led the process of assimilation. Only in the 1970s did Tsimshian communities begin to return to their traditional culture, which appeared first in the school district.

In the 1880s the Anglican missionary William Duncan, with a group of Tsimshian, requested settlement on Annette Island from the U.S. government. After approval, the group founded New Metlakatla in Alaska. Duncan later requested that the community gain reservation status, and eventually, with the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, it became the only Native reservation in the state.

The New Metlakatla Tsimshian maintained their reservation status and holdings exclusive of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. They do not have an associated Native Corporation, although Tsimshian in Alaska may be shareholders of the Sealaska Corporation.

The Annette Island reservation was the only location in Alaska allowed to maintain fish traps, which were otherwise banned when Alaska became a state in 1959. The traps are used to provide food for people living on the reservation. Legally the community was required to use the traps at least once every three years or lose the right permanently. This practice was stopped early in the 2000s and they are no longer allowed.

Culture

Bag with 65 Inlaid Gambling Sticks, Tsimshian (Native American), 19th century, Brooklyn Museum
Tsimshian bentwood box featuring formline painting, 1850, collection of the UBC Anthropology Museum

Like all Northwest Coastal peoples, they thrived on the abundant sea life, especially salmon. The Tsimshian were a seafaring people, like the Haida. A staple for many years, the salmon continues to be at the center of their nutrition, despite large-scale commercial fishing. This abundant food source enabled the Tsimshian to live in permanent towns.

They lived in large longhouses, made from cedar house posts and panels. These were very large, and usually housed an entire extended family. Cultural taboos related to prohibiting women and men eating improper foods during and after childbirth. The marriage ceremony was an extremely formal affair, involving several prolonged and sequential ceremonies.

Tsimshian religion centered around the "Lord of Heaven", who aided people in times of need by sending supernatural servants to earth to aid them. The Tsimshian believed that charity and purification of the body (either by cleanliness or fasting) was the route to the afterlife.

As with all Northwest Coastal peoples, the Tsimshian engage in the potlatch, which they refer to as the yaawk, or feast. Today in Tsimshian culture, the potlatch is held at gatherings to honor deaths, burials, and succession to name-titles.

The Tsimshian live on in their art, their culture and their language, which is making a comeback. Like other coastal peoples, the Tsimshian fashioned most of their goods out of Western red cedar, particularly from its bark. It could be fashioned into tools, clothing, roofing, armor, building materials and canoe skins. They used cedar in their Chilkat weaving, which they are credited with inventing.[2] The Tsimshian competed with the Tlingit, Haida, the Athapaskan groups in the north and east, and the Wakashan groups in the south.

Tribes

The Tsimshian nation (meaning the Coast Tsimshian) in British Columbia consists of fourteen tribes:

Clans

The Tsimshian clans are the

Treaty process

The Tsimshian wanted to preserve their villages and fishing sites on the Skeena and Nass Rivers as early as 1879. They were not able to begin negotiating a treaty with the Canadian government until July 1983.[3] A decade later, fourteen bands united to negotiate under the collective name of the Tsimshian Tribal Council. A framework agreement was signed in 1997, and the Tsimshian nation continues to negotiate with the BC Treaty Commission to reach an Agreement-in-Principle.[4]

Language

The Tsimshian speak a Tsimshianic language, referred to by linguists as "Coast Tsimshian" and by Tsimshians as Sm'algyax, which means "real or true tongue." It has differing dialects from the North in Taquan to the south in Klemtu. Tsimshian also speak a language variety similar to the Gitxsan and the Nisga’a, but further differentiated than the regional Tsimshian variations. Very few speakers remain today in Canada and Alaska. Some linguists classify Tsimshianic languages as a member of the theoretical Penutian language group.

Notable Tsimshian people

Benjamin Haldane, 1907, Tsimshian photographer and musician

Anthropologists and other scholars who have worked with the Tsimshian

Missionaries who worked among the Tsimshian

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Campbell, Lyle (1997). American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pg. 396 n. 29
  2. ↑ Shearer, Cheryl. Understanding Northwest Coast Art. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2000: 28 ISBN 0-295-97973-9.
  3. ↑ Kitsumkalum and the Tsimshian Treaty Process Kitsumkalum Treaty Office
  4. ↑ Tsimshian First Nations - BC Treaty Commission

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tsimshian.