Tsimshian

TSIMSHIAN ( ) (meaning "inside the Skeena River") is a grouping of FIRST NATIONS peoples living in northwest BC. It is based on the Tsimshian language family, which relates to the Penutian languages of Oregon and California and includes speakers of 3 languages: Coast Tsimshian, Southern Tsimshian, and Nass-Gitksan, the language of the NISGA'A and the GITKSAN (see FIRST NATIONS LANGUAGES). Aside from that linguistic connotation, Tsimshian usually refers to the first 2 of the groups: the Coast Tsimshian along the lower reaches of the SKEENA R below KITSELAS CANYON, and the Southern Tsimshian along the coast to the south. The ARCHAEOLOGICAL record shows that many of their village sites have been populated for thousands of years. The Tsimshian traditionally inhabited several winter villages that were more or less autonomous units. Each village had its own territory and resource sites and each was represented by hereditary chiefs.

The basic social units were the matrilineal clan and the house. Each clan and each house had its own chief, who controlled resource exploitation and ceremonial privileges. Village chiefs were usually the heads of the highest-ranking houses. Society was divided hierarchically into 4 distinct classes. Summer was devoted to catching and preserving SALMON, the most important food source. Other resources included shellfish, game animals and waterfowl. For the most part winters were spent socializing, feasting and holding POTLATCHES and other ceremonials in the permanent villages, which consisted of large houses constructed of CEDAR planks and timbers (see ARCHITECTURE, ABORIGINAL). Housefronts were decorated with crest designs, as were the TOTEM POLES so strongly associated with the Tsimshian (see ART, NORTHWEST COAST ABORIGINAL).

The Tsimshian became involved in the trade for SEA OTTER pelts beginning with the arrival of the first trading vessel in 1787. The first permanent trading post, FORT SIMPSON, was established on the NASS R in 1831 and resulted in traditional village sites being abandoned as the people relocated near the traders. Trade brought large amounts of wealth into Tsimshian society, encouraging a florescence of artistic production and a destabilization of social structure and rank. Epidemic diseases seriously depleted the population from about 8,500 in 1835 to a low of 3,550 in 1895. (By the late 1990s the population of the Coast and Southern Tsimshian had rebounded to about 10,000.) The activities of missionaries, most notably William DUNCAN, intensified the pace of change, as did the SALMON CANNING industry that flourished at the mouth of the Skeena R after 1876. Many Tsimshian worked seasonally at the canneries.

RESERVES were established in the late 19th century at traditional sites, and villages became bands under the Indian Act. The offices of those bands (First Nations) have mainly centralized in PRINCE RUPERT, and FISHING and LOGGING are economic mainstays of the Tsimshian.