The Gitga'at (sometimes also spelled Gitga'ata or Gitk'a'ata) are one of the 14 tribes of the

Tsimshian The Tsimshian (; ) are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace, British Columbia, Terrace and ...

nation in

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

, Canada, and inhabit the village of

Hartley Bay Hartley Bay is a First Nations community on the coast of British Columbia. The village is located at the mouth of Douglas Channel, about north of Vancouver and south of Prince Rupert. It is an isolated village accessible only by air and wa ...

, British Columbia, the name of which in the

Tsimshian language The Tsimshianic languages are a family of languages spoken in northwestern British Columbia and in Southeast Alaska on Annette Island and Ketchikan. All Tsimshianic languages are endangered, some with only around 400 speakers. Only around 2,170 ...

is Txałgiu. The name Gitga'ata in the Tsimshian language means "people of the cane" (as in, a ceremonial stick). The Gitga'ata, along with the

Kitasoo The Kitasoo are one of the 14 tribes of the Tsimshian people in Canada, who inhabit, along with the Xai'xais, the village of Klemtu, British Columbia. The name ''Kitasoo'' derives from the Tsimshian name ''Gidestsu'', from ''git-'' (people of) an ...

Tsimshians at

Klemtu Klemtu is an unincorporated community on Swindle Island in the coastal fjords of British Columbia, Canada. It is located on Kitasoo Indian Reserve No. 1. Klemtu is the home of the Kitasoo tribe of Tsimshians, originally from Kitasu Bay, and ...

, B.C., are often classed as "

Southern Tsimshian Southern Tsimshian, (pronounced: ) or , is the southern dialect of the Tsimshian language, spoken by the Gitga'ata and Kitasoo Tsimshians in Klemtu, B.C. It became extinct with the death of the last remaining speaker, Violet Neasloss. is c ...

," their traditional language being the southern dialect of the Tsimshian language. Most Tsimshian-speakers in Hartley Bay today, however, speak the form of the language shared by villages to the north. Their

band government In Canada, an Indian band (), First Nation band () or simply band, is the basic unit of government for those peoples subject to the ''Indian Act'' (i.e. status Indians or First Nations). Bands are typically small groups of people: the largest in ...

is the

Hartley Bay Indian Band The Gitga'at First Nation is a Canadian First Nation, also known as the Hartley Bay First Nation. The members of the Gitga'at First Nation are often referred to as Gitka'a'ata. The population of Gitk’a’ata peoples living in Hartley Bay is ap ...

, aka the Gitga'at First Nation. In 1947, Edmund Patalas ("belonging to the Kitamat tribe at Hartley Bay") described to the Tsimshian ethnologist

William Beynon William Beynon (1888–1958), also known as Gusgai'in or Gusgain, was a Canadian hereditary chief of the Tsimshian Nation and an oral historian. He served as an ethnographer, translator, and linguistic consultant to many anthropologists who s ...

the origins of the

Laxsgiik The Laxsgiik (variously spelled) is the name for the Eagle "clan" (phratry) in the language of the Tsimshian nation of British Columbia, Canada, and southeast Alaska. It is considered analogous or identical to identically named groups among the nei ...

(Eagle clan) people of the "Gitxon" group who migrated from the land of the

Haida Haida may refer to: Haida people Many uses of the word derive from the name of an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. * Haida people, an Indigenous ethnic group of North America (Canada) ** Council of the Haida Nati ...

people on

Haida Gwaii Haida Gwaii (; / , literally "Islands of the Haida people"), previously known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, is an archipelago located between off the British Columbia Coast, northern Pacific coast in the Canadian province of British Columbia ...

first to

Kitamaat Kitimat is a district municipality in the North Coast region of British Columbia, Canada. It is a member municipality of the Regional District of Kitimat–Stikine regional government. The Kitimat Valley is part of the most populous urban distri ...

and then to the Gitga'ata people, where a branch of this group, the House of Sinaxeet, is now considered "the royal Eagle house of Kitkata" (described in Barbeau's ''Totem Poles'').

Bibliography

* Barbeau, Marius (1950) ''Totem Poles.'' 2 vols. (Anthropology Series 30, National Museum of Canada Bulletin 119.) Ottawa: National Museum of Canada. * Miller, Jay (1997) ''Tsimshian Culture: A Light through the Ages.'' Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. * Seguin, Margaret (ed.) (1984) ''The Tsimshian: Images of the Past; Views for the Present.'' Vancouver: UBC Press. * Seguin, Margaret (1985) ''Interpretive Contexts for Traditional and Current Coast Tsimshian Feasts.'' Ottawa: National Museums of Canada. * Turner, Nancy J., and Helen Clifton (2006) "The Forest and the Seaweed: Gitga'at Seaweed, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and Community Survival." In: ''Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Natural Resource Management,'' ed. by Charles R. Menzies, pp. 66-86. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Tsimshian North Coast of British Columbia