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

Tsimshian The Tsimshian (; tsi, Ts’msyan or Tsm'syen) are an Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace and Prince Rupert, and Metlakatla, Alaska on Annette Island, the only r ...

nation in

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, 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 wate ...

, British Columbia, the name of which in the Tsimshian language 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 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 t ...

, 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 Klemtu is an unincorporated community on Swindle Island in the coastal fjords of British Colu ...

," 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 is the

Hartley Bay Indian Band The Hartley Bay Indian Band is also known as the Gitga'at First Nation or 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 ra ...

, 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) was a Canadian hereditary chief of the Tsimshian Nation and an oral historian; he served as ethnographer, translator, and linguistic consultant to many anthropologists who studied his people. Early life and educatio ...

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 people on

Haida Gwaii Haida Gwaii (; hai, X̱aaydag̱a Gwaay.yaay / , literally "Islands of the Haida people") is an archipelago located between off the northern Pacific coast of Canada. The islands are separated from the mainland to the east by the shallow Heca ...

first to Kitamaat 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