Sealaska Heritage Institute: Laxgyibuu Clan Crest with David R. Boxley | Sealaska Heritage

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here today. My name is Iva Nofak. I'm Lakhp'iiwool from Alaska, and my father is Stol Deeyow. David A. Fox's name was Lapskeed, Eagle Clan.

My great-grandfather was Haun'aa Stelberg Bolton.

So I feel like I need to give you all a little bit of context before I actually get to the stories, um, and which goes to what Tom, in this very kind introduction, said about, you know, my efforts to try to reframe our history because we have been because of our colonizers and the amount of books that have been written about them at the Katla, along with government schooling and generations of our people being taken further and further away from that Tsimshian knowledge and identity. We are defined by William Duncan and being colonized and moved to Alaska. And that's all most anybody knows, including our own people. About being who we are. And I— the more I've learned, the more that kind of infuriates me.

And, you know, to the point where I brought up some of these stories in recent months, and I've been told by some that they are concerned that I'm making these things up because they've never heard Ament Katmin talk. About this older history. You know, it's said, it's been written, that William Duncan might be the most successful missionary in this area. And in many ways that's true, although I know that my father and I would not be on his list of favorite people. So I'm going to frame this around my clan and give you a little bit of broader history of migration before I tell these stories.

The Laxgibu. There's seats, guys. We have some seats. The Laxgibu, who are again, in English we call the Wolfline, but Laxgibu means of the wolf. We originate at a place called Laxwi'ip.

Which is a plateau in the interior of British Columbia in between the headwaters of the Skeena, Nass, and Skeena Rivers.

Another, I'd say, problematic issue with semantics and nomenclature when talking about all of our peoples, is restricting us to the titles Tsimshian, Tlingit, and Haida. Tsimshian means from out of the Skeena River. Sien is the river. So, sien. But the Laxgyibu started on the Skeena, and the story, the oldest stories we have, talk about us having a conflict And this is all through a Somali point of view, obviously.

At the time, I'm sure we were not speaking Somali. As a matter of fact, I know we weren't. Um, there was a conflict between the wolf people and some raven people, and we had to move down the Stikine.

This is gonna— I'm gonna go a bit back and forth, but as we move down the Stikine, and if anybody— is anyone in here Kawwantan or please forgive me if I get this wrong, Nanyai. Nanyai. Nanyai. Okay. Thank you for the correction.

We come to this glacier as we're making our escape and the story goes that there were 6 canoes and 2 of them turned back and went over the mountains to the Nass River and began to settle down on the Nass. Two went north up toward Whitehorse and established clans up that way. The last two decided to give it a shot, and they, uh, they sent a log down the river with branches on it. One man climbed up over the top to see if the log came through with the branches still all sticking out. They knew it was big enough to send their canoes down the river, down under the glacier.

And it did, it made it through, so they decided to go down through. And for a time settled down near the mouth of the Stikine. And one of the names that still exists in Laxgyi Guu lineages, again, this will sound familiar to anybody that knows Wrangell, we pronounce it Lushpayin. Which in Wrangell is Gushqain.

We lived there for a time, and as I'm finding out with every clan's different tribes' migrations, you know, you live there for a while and you split off. Some people stay, some people leave. And we moved down to a place we called Na'a, and then eventually to Lakuset'ala, which is just next to where Old Cape Fox is behind Inet Island. Eventually turning down around Mountain Point down where the old Tongass Village was, some of the people decided to move up and settle on the Nass River. And in those stories, this is absolutely fascinating to me, talks about meeting the Gispuwada, the killer whale people at the time who were really grizzly bear people, they hadn't gotten their killer whale crest yet, and met them.

And that's where we learned Somali. The dalagik. And it's in the name, actually. So in Coast, they call it Coast Seseyan. In Seseyan Somali, wolf is kibau.

On the Naas, their dialect of Somali, they say kibu. Lakhgibu. We still say gibu even though we— that's not our word or our pronunciation of wolf. But it shows that they got to the Nass first, learned Somali, and then people decided to keep moving south, eventually going to a place called Makle-Kaafle, which is where all of the Kaafle is now in British Columbia. It's where 9 Tsimshian tribes would return.

So I'm going to tell one of the stories here, and these are going to be slightly shortened versions for the sake of time. But so the origin of being identified by the wolf there, and this is a dance that if you watch Gid'ho:n, we, we do this. And actually there's a There's a confusion that I've figured out just recently between these two stories. Both include something about Prince of Wolves, but one becomes a crest called that, and the other is the cause for the creation of the wolf crest. There was a chief who was a good hunter, and he was going out with members of his house to go hunt, and he had, like in a lot, too many of our stories, very beautiful wife, uh, that was very desired by other people.

And, uh, while he was gone, one of them came and there was some very, you know, inappropriate philandering going on. Um, he came back and he asked one of his slaves, tell me the truth, has my wife been doing anything wrong since I've been gone? Because I haven't been able to hunt anything. And they said, yeah, she has him. He comes and sees her every night.

So, uh, he made this ruse that he was going to go out hunting for days and, you know, just went far enough to get out of sight. And that night snuck up into the house and found the two of them and cut this man's head off. He had a wolf— there's a couple different versions of the story, but he had a wolf helmet and a tunic covered in deer hooves. And this man's name— the man's name was, uh, Kyaat Muswan. It means, uh, eats a whole deer.

And, uh, real soon, like the next night, the village starts hearing howling coming from what's behind the village. And it gets closer and closer each night, and the people start getting freaked out and start building these palisades. Walls to protect, to protect the community. And pretty soon the wolves are right at the palisades, and the people are, you know, basically gone to war with this giant pack of wolves and throwing rocks. And lots of wolves died, but they're demanding the body of, of this— end up being their prince, their one of the, you know, probably next in line to chief of their people.

And, uh, in one version of the story it's, it's the wolves asking. Another version it's his mother saying, you know, "Where is my son? Can you give me the body of my son back and all his belongings?" And the chief felt very wronged by all this that was happening. He said, "No, I'm not doing that." And then after a while they said, "Well then, then you're going to come and take his place. I'm going to make you my son." And you'll come back and you'll own these clothes, you'll own the helmet and the tunic and everything that comes with it from our people.

He goes and he stays with these wolves for a time long enough that— this often happens in our old stories too— that when he returns to his village eventually with these two wolf sisters who have brought a bunch of wealth with them, so much that they can't bring it all down to the village themselves, his people have to come up and get it, but they've almost forgotten who he was. He's been gone so long.

And there's, uh, they are still like these half-wolves, half-humans, so they're doing hunting for the people and be able to get, you know, all this wealth, skins and stuff. And the wealth of this, this man and his, his family, his clan, you know, has increased by how much these wolves are able to help. And there's a deal struck about, uh, you know, the wolves will avoid us when we're out hunting and we'll leave them be when they're hunting. And that's the beginning of being identified, this group of people being identified as— in Somali, "Aqibu, Aqibu, Aqibu." And I can only imagine, as I've run into these stories, that they're old enough that I've found multiple versions from different perspectives or you know, one lineage has decided to claim this is how it happened, or this is how it happened, that kind of thing. The other story that I was really excited to tell today, and as I learned it, I had just watched actually another one of SHI's lectures that a man told the Kagwantan's history and talked about one of their crests.

Where that came from. And as I was listening to it, I said, oh, well, that's the same story we hear.

So there was— and this is another one where there's multiple versions and multiple names given to the chief that this happened to. So I'm going to tell it generally without picking one over the other, because I don't want to say that one is better than the other. And again, as I'm telling these stories, um, there is a heartbreaking disconnect that is constantly on my mind, uh, that goes back to, you know, someone saying, well, you're just making this stuff up. Um, when we first— before I tell the story— when we first moved to Matkavik, Alaska, we came to Alaska The world was, um, upside down for us. And, um, you know, we were, you know, we had to sign paperwork that said there's no hot nacho, no calling shotlins, and no face painting, and all the things, you know, these things that no secret society dances, all the stuff that made up, especially the Black Lodge, um, that we couldn't do these things.

But that first generation that moved had grown up knowing those things. And in that first generation, the first people were born in Matcá, Alaska. Some of them had names. The babies of my great-grandfather had a name, um, that came from, you know, traveled with these lineages. So there was stuff happening clearly secretly.

When we first got there. But as the children of those pioneers, uh, got sent off to school, and then their children, you know, who said— they all said, oh, we heard our grandparents speaking Somali, but they'd always tell us, this is not for you. Or, you know, they kind of laugh at them when they tried to talk. It was because they were trying to protect them from what they'd all gone through. And so that breaking You know, amazing what one generation can do to lose that knowledge.

And, you know, trying to take it back is intimidating and scary. And, you know, we've gotten so used to not having that, you know, even down to— and I think it's helped cause confusion between like the Tsiatas Wusipians where You know, we say, well, there's 4 clans.

Again, that's— there's a miscommunication happening in the English we're using to talk about ourselves. Clans, for sense, we say that we're talking about what Tlingits and Haidas would call voyages. Yeah, yeah. Um, for us it's frey'atxu because there's 4, but it's that level of things. And when we went with Duncan and when you know, whether it was because we'd become Christians or whether it was because, uh, it was safe there, he had medicine that could help us from smallpox, whatever it was, um, we voluntarily gave up our chief system, which is how our house system runs.

We gave up potlatching. That is devastating to try to maintain these kinds of stories and things. The one thing that we held on to, and you'll see it on Men of Katlas flag, one kid, one uses, the other sits hand grips waiting, is they at least felt important enough to hold on to which of the phratries they belonged to. That that lineage, even if it was the bare bones of it, was so important that they needed to hold on to that. It's the reason that I think we can start rebuilding now using, thank goodness, what was documented.

It just so happens that William Bain recorded these stories was Lakitu, so I do find that there's a little bit more Lakitu content in his work, which helps Wiki. But, uh, anyway, so there was this, uh, chief who had— depending on where you're from, was a different name— but, um, in his village they heard this howling out on the edges of on his territory, coming a bit closer to the village each day.

And it sounded, uh, you know, it didn't sound threatening. They just thought, gee, what's, what's going on? There's something bad, you know, something wrong back there with these wolves.

So he grabbed, uh, his— some warriors and some of his slaves. He said, we're gonna go check this out. And all the people with him were freaked out. And they got to this clearing and there was this big wolf, but he looked pretty emaciated and was kind of, you know, crawling up and, you know, showing its belly and was, you know, looked vulnerable. Something was wrong.

And it kept howling. And as it would howl, he got close enough, you know, brave to go look. And as it opened its mouth to howl, he could see that there was a bone caught. In his throat, and clearly it was preventing him from being able to eat. Now, and, um, but she said, well, I'm gonna reach in.

A couple of you grab him. When he opens his mouth to howl again, I'm gonna reach in and get this bullhound.

They all find the courage to do it, and they do it because there's his whole pack is all running around yelping and you know, concerned. And he's— and they said, I don't think he's going to bite you. He said, I don't think so. This is their chief and they're worried about him and just come for my house. I'm going to help, I'm going to help my brother, he said.

So the indication that, oh, this is already somebody who has that identity as Akhtigo. And he reaches in and he gets the bone out and the wolf, you know, licks his hand and nuzzles him and shows that appreciation. They all After a while, a few days or weeks later, depends on the version of the story, they'd hear that howling again outside their village. And he again goes, "I'm gonna go see what's going on with my brother." And they head out there and there's this big wolf who's clearly feeling better.

With a big deer laying there as a thank you for, for saving them. And, um, that same kind of happy yipping, yelping wolves, and they run off. And this continues for a while too. And eventually, you know, some days it's just the skins that are left, certain versions of the story. And as people go up and they take all these skins down And so that chief— and again, because there's different versions of it, because there are versions of chiefs with different names, I can only assume that this is an old enough story that as people have moved on to different areas, they still claim that same origin.

They just decided over time, no, it was this chief it happened to, or it was our chief. Yeah. And those Wolf Clan lineages are, uh, they're not necessarily general. This one obviously is connected, and from what I've put together and from the help of William Duff, who in the '70s tried to organize Bayan's materials in a way that is a little bit easier to search— it's still all handwritten, so part of my project here is to try to organize that even more, but it made it so I could, you know, really see these lineage. And there seems to be three major Lakhibu lineages that identify themselves as nowadays what we call Tenshi-en.

And it's exciting to say, Susan, two of them —could anyone who's Lakitu raise their hand, please? So we've got two of those branches, uh, in the room. My grandmother, um, was of the third originally, my dad's mom. And, uh, but they're also— but like I said, they're connected to Vaniska Lakitu, they're connected to the Gitsen, Lakibu, and those migrations are documented well enough that even though they're told from the Tsimshian perspective, you can tell how we're connected to the clans in Wrangell or the Kauwantan. Matter of fact, the Kauwantan story I heard, not to speak for them, but it's on SHI's things, so I'm going to talk about it because it helps me.

Said that it happened toward, down toward Tsimshian territory when the Tlingits were living in Prince Rupert Harbour area.

That's documented in our history and the conflicts between that. But one of the things that's interesting about that is In the old stories, the Gispuwada, the other Tsimshian clans, talk about this, that when they arrived down the Skeena River, bringing Somali down the Skeena River, they said that there was a time when only the Laxgibu lived at Makusha'aashuu.

We know those Laxgibu weren't speaking Somali.

They were probably speaking Tlingit. Yeah. And I think one of the things that's come across to me in all of this, um, is— and this is documented too, but I think it's important to talk about— that when we would run into— right, like I told you earlier, a couple canoes went down the Nass. When those wolves met the other wolves who went under the glacier on the Nass, they joined back together because they had those maybe common origins, because they share that crest. It could have been decades or hundreds of years before they got back together again.

But simply seeing somebody else with the same crest, the old people immediately recognized those people as relatives. It was automatic, even if there was no blood connection. It's talked about that, well, because Tsimshian Eagles and Haida Eagles share origins, that there's one story that there was a Tsimshian fighting the Haidas, and the Eagle Clan Tsimshians fought with the Eagle Haidas against the Sinsmeara because they were the same people.

I do catch myself in saying that and wanting to clear— make clear, though, that obviously time and hundreds of years of hardship and the experiences that happened after we've separated and the establishment of territories still matters. But I think those connections I'm pretty excited about because that idea of somebody over there has the same crest as I do, that's somebody that at least I know is my relation. And I think the old people have this sense of not only taking care of one another, but there's a thing a teacher of mine says that words are like the wind. You know, you think about what you say before you say it because you don't know where they're going to be carried.

But we live in a time now where we're forced to identify ourselves as Kwee'ayda since where 300 years ago that wouldn't have been how any of us would say who we are. We've been forced into that because we have to deal with federal governments and have nations and all these things that, you know, but each of the villages were these, you know, city-states. And more important than that, it was each clan. The clans owned the stuff. Not even the tribe that you're living in.

It was those, those lineages that mattered. And so this journey that I'm on in this casual conversation I'm having with you, so casually, because I want to be honest that I'm still at the beginnings of understanding all this. My people are at the beginning of reclaiming this, and it's going to be the same for the other clans. It's a relearning for us, but I still find it really important to say it's not made up.

Thank goodness that our own people were involved in documenting our histories.

Those were cared for and still exist. Thank goodness we have the opportunity to learn that our language is not— it's not yet too late to say that and to view this history through that perspective.

So I want everybody to understand, I guess, and for as much as this is about Lhakhibu and to Lhakhibu in the audience, I hope I done any well today, but as a Metlakatla, it's really important to me that in thinking about this history, that the Laki'pul originated, migrated down the Stikine, and we used to live further north in Alaska in ancient, ancient times. Eventually we come to the Skeena and incorporated into the Tsimshian after some conflict. We were the first ones down near Kitkatla when the Gisborne came down. There was they talk about all the wars between the Lakitu and the Gesi'agwada, but then a bunch of Lakitu stayed and became Gitxa'atla or Gitkaatla or all these different Tsimshian tribes. We often overfocus on war in our stories.

There was a lot more getting along, we think, than we talk about. And then we settled, we settled in amongst the Tsimshian. Dudson Bay Company comes, William Duncan arrives, and we move one more time from British Columbia. Now that there's a difference— there was never a difference before, people didn't know what Alaska was up until they told us there's a border here now— um, then one more time we migrated. And it gets less validity, it seems, because it happened in this turmoil, because it happened after, you know, federal governments were formed, because we were living in a time where we were having to put things away.

And so, you know, everybody was in chaos. Smallpox had decimated everybody, and It doesn't get the same treatment as any other migration at any other time where people decide some are going to stay and some are going to go.

And these connections I'm talking about between our clans, it's the same for all four Sinsian clans. I've read about now our connections with the Tlingit, Haida, and other tribes down the coast. So I want you all to wish me well in trying to overcome William Duncan's shadow when it comes to talking about Tsimshian people. We are not some foreign transplants that never saw Southeast Alaska before 1887. It's just not true.

And I think that loss of history in one way or another has happened to all of us. And I, my real hope is that by the time I'm an old man, my people will know about other crests that they each have, and as much as we can rediscover about our lineages. And then that same kind of relationship, I'm already speaking with a clan leader from writing all about recognizing these connections between the Laki people and their people.

Peace is built on that kind of knowledge and understanding. So I'll stop there, and I'm happy to take questions, whether or not I'll be able to answer them. I think I've preempted this part with enough knowledge to know that I might not have the answers. And I want to thank my dad just for a second, because when I was a kid, when I was incessant about asking questions, he always taught me this great lesson. He said, "Dave, I'm not going to tell you I know the answer to something if I don't know what the answer is." He said it just like that too.

I'm really, uh, I'm thankful for that, because sometimes you just don't know. And that's— boy, that's life, isn't it? So I also want to say that I got over my nervousness, but I'm really thrilled that my dad and Noni are in this room and that not only are there folks that just wanted to come and listen, but a bunch of my friends and relatives. So thank you all very much. Tawagashiwus.

And feel free to ask any questions.

Amy, could I ask you, is there anyone in Malva Padma that owns the crest of the Komodi bear? That, to my knowledge— matter of fact, I'm carving a talking stick right now for a friend of mine who's going to give it to his village down in Herky Bay. So that crest that I'm aware of belongs to one of the, uh, at least with one of the killer whale houses in Hartley Bay, BC. If any of those people are in Metlakatla right now, I'm not 100% sure. That's a good question.

It leads into explaining that Metlakatla, Alaska is made up of not only all 14 tribes of Tsimshian who came together at different points, there's even one lineage, he's my somali apprentice right now, his relatives never lived in Metlakatla, BC. They moved straight from Kitsumkalum to Port Essington to Metlakatla, Alaska, which again bucks the story about how we got to where we are. Explain the K'moni bear. So K'moni, they call it the spirit bear. It's that, it's kind of a grizzly bear hybrid.

It's got, it's kind of a whitish bear that has kind of brown spots over its eyes, they call it spirit bear. But to my mind, it's owned by them, and I don't, I don't know if any one of that lineage is in Metlakatla. I wonder, Dustin, I haven't seen any carved masks of the Kodi bear. I saw one at the Field Museum, and it was really funny because the A person that was working in that department said, "Why are Tsup'tsiyans carving polar bears?" And my mother said, "You correct them right now. Those are Kamoti bears." Oh my God.

There are, now that I think about it, There is one line of Lakibu who is on the— they're on the mass that maintained— in that story, the part where they're going under the glacier, when they got through, it's in one story, it doesn't belong to all Lakibu, but they saw one of those pimoti bears climbing on the glacier, and one of the chiefs took that as a crest. Those kinds of specialized crests were really fought over. And in that story, one of the other groups of Lakitu who were in those canoes tried to claim it at one point, and there was this conflict. And the chief who had it said, well, you can use just the head. The rest, the rest, the whole thing is ours.

You can just use it. That happens a lot. And that this idea of, you know, again, the complexity of the Tsimshian crest system, it is truly complex. So there are general crests that all Tsimshians can use. For example, the crane and black bear are Lak'ti'wu crests, and all Lak'ti'wu have.

But as lineages move and split, they have experiences, they take on crests where they go. So certain houses houses have crests that are specific to them, and there are hundreds and hundreds of, uh, sub, you know, uh, lower— what do you think of as lower-tier crests that belong to just certain families or certain houses. What was it in general that caused people to migrate and to move around? That's a good question. Um, there's— in the old stories, there are climactic events, you know, the most The most famous that got documented is the flood.

There were about 5 major migrations out of a village called Temlacham, which is where the Gisbutwada, the Kilwa, comes from. One of them that is funny is it was getting to be springtime and salmon were coming and they're, you know, catching fish and it snowed one day and this irresponsible young man held up the fish to the sky, to the chief of the sky, and said, "What are you doing? Don't you see that we're catching fish? Why are you sending snow?" He sent so much snow that it covered the village and they starved, and then they had to get up and leave. Once they left, they found that it was only their village that he had been in.

There were instances of just overpopulation, you know, where brothers will say, "Well, I'm going to take my house down on this It ends up being the same house with the same dress, the same songs and all that history. But they move to a new territory and take that territory. Obviously conflict, which also has introduced the question to me about what rights go with you when you move. And it seems to be that whether through, you know, overpopulation or some positive kind of split, that even in the ones that are contested where there's conflict between people, they still— those crests are those maternal lines that's born in, that's yours no matter what, and it goes with you. So those, you know, there's 14 tribes of Tsimshian in the old days.

A bunch of those, the the lineages that you find in those communities are interrelated to the ones in the other communities. They've just decided to move and they become the people of that place. And my argument now is that, you know, Katla, Alaska is the 15th because what's happened again is a whole bunch of different lineages have decided to live together in a place. They've become those people. But that doesn't sever that blood, you know, lineage back to wherever you come from.

But yeah, there's a bunch— seems to be a bunch of reasons why, why that happens, and it's endlessly fascinating. I never in my life thought that I was supposed to be a carver. What am I doing up here? Um, in, in trying to learn Somali and, you know, all this stuff is just happening, but I'm finding that this, this knowledge base is changing how I look at the the artwork I create. I'm carving a talking stick right now that has a specific crest on it that's going to go to the village of Tuxgiyu down in Parks Bay, B.C.

And having read those stories in Somalia, getting to be able to create crests for them has really taught me a lot about the responsibility that is on a carver in, in making physical these stories and crests that belong to, to people, how precious it is to them. So what a responsibility that is on me. Um, if someone else was doing any of these things, I'd be happy to sit and listen to their lectures. Um, I'm doing it because I just felt like, you know, Done. Question back there.

I have a general question. Could you explain the relationship between tribe, clan, crest? Okay, that's a good question. The relationship between the terms tribe, clan, crest, and that's going to be different now depending on who you're talking to. If they identify as Tsimshian, Tlingit, or Haida, the terminology is used differently by each of us.

Tribe, uh, to me, if someone said, what tribe are you from, that's talking about these, um, kind of city-state villages where a bunch of lineages have decided to live together in a place, and they all have territories that are kind of next to each other or related to each other, and they live together. That's a tribe. I often will talk about— for Sintzean, in talking about Sintzean as a general one, really what— when you say Sintzean, what you're saying is Somali-speaking peoples who had their tribes on the Skeena River. That's what that means. It's a very general term.

From there, each of those lineages, whatever number of houses there were in a village, you know, some would be Eagle Clan, some would be Wolf, some would be Killer Whale. Very rarely were all four clans in one village. Usually start— used to be just two. We, even though there were four, uh, phratries amongst the people, the Sm'algyax-speaking people, Most often in the old days there were just two clans per village, very much like Tlingit and Haida villages where there were some two sides. Um, did make things easier.

Four is a mess sometimes. Um, so each of those houses would belong to one of those phratries. Um, the ones who were of the same phratry would assist each other at potlatch time, that kind of thing, whether or not they had the exact same origins or not.

Crests are the sometimes, often images, not always, whether carved or painted, that are the symbols that represent that particular lineage.

I often compare it to like the coat of arms you see at Knight Riding the Bell, but they're, you know, family crest on their shield. It's that kind of thing. Um, and again, the more, the more specific house you're talking about, they may have had experiences that adds to their crest. And not all of our crests were, um, physical. The, the Laksí, my father's people, have a crest called, um, early morning drinking.

So if a, if a guest is in their home and drinks water early in the morning, they have to be able to give. That's a crest, even though it's not this tangible thing. A lot of people have a crest called the first snow, that the first snow of the year happens, that there's a group of lineage of Lakota who would have to call a feast. So there are ceremonial crests on top of physical. Anybody else?

He's shocked. Now go ahead.

It seems actually, from what I've learned about from Bernard and Michael's closer people, it seems like Swahili-speaking people have an additional layer of complexity compared to the Latvian and the Hungarian and Latvian. Addition to these different elements of bigotry, you want to use the Klan House, IRB, the Swastikas, because we were also divided into a discrimination and social misquoting measure. And do you understand what that's all about or how that complicates things? Sure. And it does complicate Many things.

So it's a good question. Somali, the language, began up at the headwaters of the Skeena at Tamafan. It's an old village site, and it's really a community that was started by the Gispuwada and Wanhada. So in that way, Somali-speaking people started out as a Moedi system. Lakhpiigu and Lakskiig came later.

That's evident in the words themselves. So, "gisbudwada" and "lenhada" are so old we're not exactly sure what they even mean, whereas Lakskiig and Lakpiigu literally mean "of the wolf" and "of the eagle." So we're definitely later arrivals as far as that Somali-speaking world. But all of the clans that are represented throughout the Somali-speaking world in those three major dialects that nowadays people think of as Nisqay, Gixen, and Simsiyen are also interrelated. So the Dishast are absolutely the same people as the Dishbawada, even though they're called something else, with the Gixen and another name. They have the same origin stories.

I think part of it is the isolation to the parts of the rivers that they lived on, but more than that, it's like what I said earlier about, you know, isolating ourselves into Tlingit Haida and Tsimshian instead of recognizing where relationships actually exist through those clan and matrilineal ages. Crest Connection, uh, in having to deal with federal governments, um, and that as we had to, uh, group together in smaller and smaller numbers after diseases and had to make treaties with, with governments, um, that, that isolation kind of solidified us into these three separate things, when in reality there's, there's enormous connection between the three. The cultures are nearly identical, um, you know, other than dialectal differences in what we talk about. Um, the clans have the same, you know, the crest lineages have the same origins.

Um, a lot of us now think of each other Obviously, as brethren like this, interacting with each other, there isn't the same division that there is necessarily, like, if the Nisga'a Nation needs to sign a treaty with the British Columbia government and the Tsimshian argue over where boundaries lie. There's a conflict going on right now, British Columbia, between different Tsimshian tribes over territories. And as I've been doing this research, and I've tried very hard to stay out of it, But I can't help but notice that, you know, a chief in this village is complaining about what that village is doing. But I know from— because I've read from the stories that his lineage used to live where those people are now. Um, but again, it's— we, we end up being forced into, um, fighting for the scraps that governments want to give us, and it's easier for us to fight amongst each each other than it is to turn around and confront the giant that we actually have to fight and that's responsible for what's happened to us.

Um, and that's what causes all this, you know, um, sad, sometimes unnecessary conflict between peoples. Um, yeah, go ahead. Um, so not so much a common I was just wanting— or a question as much as a comment, I guess, uh, and forgive me if it may not be the place, but Tlingit culture, when someone shares something so important, it's important for the opposites to, to be there to respond. And so I wanted to do that, especially as a Wrangell Raven, as a Wrangell Raven clan leader. Um, in fact, when I stepped into that role, uh, we're Tiaton, and the, the name I was given, they discussed, which is is, as I understand it, from Tsimshian origin, is something that came to us.

I don't even know the translation of that word, really. It was just kind of a nod. It has been passed down in our clan leaders for a long time. But since you're sharing some of that history, and especially since you brought up that sometimes folks want to ask, you know, how do we know if that part's true, uh, as a Wrangell Raven I wanted to just be able to say we still tell those stories in Wrangell too. I spent a lot of time listening to our archives, you know, I have recordings of William Paul, Tom Newkass, Herb Drapney, some of our elders that have gone before us, and they all affirm these things that we were talking about, about our connections on the Stikine River, both from the Nanyaa'ayt' land and then other folks that We also talk about our connection to them.

But also as the Rainbow Ravens, we too have our origins further to the south, so talk about that. In fact, we just had a party for Grandma Ethel, and we told some of that migration history, and one of the things we saw from the words of George Blake, who was one of our culture bearers who passed away maybe 100 years ago. He gave us two names of the clans that we came from, that the Tewapon came from, when we were living further south, further south of— forgive me if I mispronounce them, but Gitsheesh and Boulder. And so we had two of our— two ravens who had married into the non-Gai And so since they had been around us so much, we put those names onto our Tsimshian relatives so that those names aren't forgotten because we want to make sure people know about that. And so don't feel like we're fighting that giant alone.

You're able to enjoy seeing that and hearing that and are supporting me with that. For what it's worth, especially when you talk about fighting the bigger giant that we're fighting and especially that post of William Duncan's speaking with Cheech. William Paul, I think especially, is somebody that looked to our history as a way of rooting what we are doing when we're fighting that giant to say this has been our land since time immemorial. You know, we went to the Supreme Court and argued about why we had rights to our land. He relied on those stories, and so I think many Kiwis are Proud of that.

That really means a lot to me. And the Gitsisis are one of the 9 Tsimshian tribes that wintered at Lakhlakafe. My grandmother was of that tribe, but Lakhliduul, not Lakhlakafe. We have our stories too. We get seas, ravens moving north, and we're all, we're all a lot more— I want to talk about other things, but it's not my place to talk about other clans.

But we're a lot more connected than people think, and I think this kind of spreading this knowledge can only help in unifying us, um, like I said, to, to battle those bigger giants we have all to fight. And, um, I'm, I'm really proud to, uh, begin this process, like I said, of, of reframing Sincere History. I don't want anyone to— I, I want everyone to stop thinking that we were these foreign transplants.

We have always been, uh, the next-door neighbors, Julie Plingett and I, always, to the point that we're families. But that's the truth. So it's not like somebody grabbed us from Florida and dropped us in Southeast Alaska. Um, yeah, so I'm really thrilled everybody came. I want to thank Tom for suffering through working with all of us trying to document these.

Chris, I appreciate you. And thanks to SHI for doing this. Like I said, it came at a good time. I was kind of doing this on my own anyway, and having a venue to talk about this, I think, is really, really important. And, you know, if you don't hear a lot of other Tsimshians talk about this, it's only because we just have a lot of work I've got to do.

I know, you know, I figure I've got about 40 years left, so I'm going to do my best with it.

I saw when Oryx was in— well, Amuxis and Oryx.

"Alietska na sel's, the ahpoya will well you." My great-grandfather said to my dad, "That's a heavy weight to carry, but it's a good weight." And I think about that all the time in doing this mistakes to get my name out. Whether it was through politics— thank goodness I'm not on council at the moment— or this kind of thing.

Anytime you decide to stand up and say, hey, this is what's happening, this is what I think, you know, you get a target on your back very often. But I really believe in this, and there's more to— there's more yet for us to bring back. And the process, you know, what Celebration does for us, you know, came out of a time where this was absolutely necessary. I am one of the ones who is starting to feel like it was— no disrespect, because I know why it started— but the parade doesn't do it for me the way it used to. I don't need tourists taking pictures of me.

What I need is my people to speak our language. And know these histories and potlatch and, and as we're ready, move beyond hoo-ha to really living it. And we're all at different stages of taking that journey. Not everybody is ready for more than hoo-ha, just yet. But it's really my hope that that that's where we get it.

You know, if someday— and again, please take this in good nature, I intend it— if someday a celebration isn't necessary anymore, great.

Great. I don't want us to have to only feel like you can have that moment once every 2 We should be potlatching in each of our communities all the time. And a potlatch can be so intimidating, that idea, but that's what your clan is there for, to come together to help and for your relatives to come and help you while the same clan can help you do these things.

If we don't make the push for our language and for that knowledge of history and carry it on through that legal place that a potlatch is, You know, it'll keep being this fragile thing until people really make that who we are and how we live.

I feel like that's the natural extension of what we got to, you know, what my dad achieved and what his generation has achieved. And now it's on us to keep going, you know, to take those next steps.

Appreciate your help. Thank you.