We Tahltans have had difficulty in sorting out exact details for parts of this section. The reasons for our problem is explained at the end of this chapter. The following information is the best we have to offer at this time.

Every Tahltan was (and is) either Wolf or Crow. They form the framework for our personal identity, our marriage system, and our government.

There are also sub-clans. People within each clan have the right to use the crests. Frog (or toad) and Eagle are sub-clans of the Crow clan. Eagle is also a sub-clan of the Wolf clan. Teit (1912) says that both clans use the eagle. This is unusual, so he suggested that the crest may have been sold. Some people of the Tagishquan have the right to use the beaver. The Nanaai have the wolf, killer whale, grizzly bear, and shark as their sub-clans. They have the right to use these animals as crests.

Tahltan Village

Each person knows the clan that they belong to it is the same as the clan our mother belongs to. One problem that we have today is that many of our people have married people who are not Tahltan. If the child's mother is Tahltan, then she knows her Family group. If the child's mother is not Tahltan, then whose Family group does the child belong in?

Each clan (Wolf or Crow) is divided into Family groups. These are Families, with a capital because all people born into this group can trace their ancestry back to one woman.

As you saw in the history of our people, two Wolf women came from other lands and met at Tahltan River. A third woman, said to be the true sister of one of these women, came later. These three women were the first women in the Wolf clans. The fourth Wolf Clan, the Nanaai, came from the Tlingit and intermarried. They have the killer whale as their totem. This Family does not have its own hunting area, but hunts in the areas of other Families.

Three women of the Crow clan were sisters. They became the first women in the Crow clans.

As you see in the section called Confusion, we have several problems with the putting accurate names on the different Family groups in our country. We have gathered information from many sources and are still working on this problem. However, this is the most accurate information that we have to date. As we learn more, we will update this section.

Note that when possible, our Tahltan names have been used for the Family group names. An explanation about name variations will be included.

The information has been gathered from the following sources:

• Written material of Teit, Emmons, and Albright. Their information was supplied through interviews with locals and other written materials.

• Interviews with elders: Eva Callbreath, Grace Edzerza, Gerald Edzerza, Mary Low.

• Taped interviews, 1980-81: Students interviewed elders in the Telegraph Creek area during these two years. These people gave the most clear information: Amy Day, Eva Carlick, Benny Frank, Alex Dennis.

There were 3 Crow Families. Some people say that the 3 first women were sisters. Others say that the Nawthcoten were formed when a Nass woman married into the Tahltans.

1. Iskahititoten or Tudenekoten

This is the main Tahltan family. They "had rights" the Stikine River. Their main hunting area was towards Level Mountain and Cassiar Range.

There are several variations of this name. Spelling is a major problem and probably accounts for some of the confusion. If you could hear the names, you might hear that there is a similarity between the names.

Eva Callbreath says that Iska means something leaning. Hiti is a house. To refers to the river. Ten means land belonging to. So, Iskahititoten means the people down the river who have houses that lean.

Another name, given by Amy Day, was Edditoten. She says this means down the river Indians, they trap down the river.

Tudenekoten is the name in Teit's notes. He says that this name was given to this Family because it was the Tahltan name for the Stikine River. Other people refer to this Family as the Stikine Family.

People in this Family include:

2.Naloten

The people in this Family are from the Nahlin, Salmon Creek area. There seems to be no disagreement about this Family.

People in this Family group include:

This Family hunted in the southern part of our country. Their territory bordered on the country of the Nass Indians. This was a disputed area which resulted in many wars.

In the works of Teit and Albright, this area is named Naskoten and is listed as a Wolf clan. Note that our Tahltan spelling is used.

People in this Family group include:

We have four Wolf clans. Three are original Tahltan Families. The fourth Family, the Nanaai, was made up of Tlingit who had married with our people.

1. Tlogoten

This Family has been confused in Teit's notes. He calls this Klappanoten. It is referred to by our people as Klawbonoten.

People in this Family group include:

In Teit's notes, this Family is listed as Tagicotena, however, Eva Callbreath and Grace Edzerza both call this Family Tagishquan. People from this Family came from the Teslin area.

People in this Family group include:

3. Talakoten

This Family's area is named from tala, which means point. This is the narrow strip of land where the Tuya and Tanzilla Rivers join the Stikine.There are no surviving members of this Family.

People in this Family group included:

4.Nanaai

This fourth Wolf Family are Tlingits intermarried with the Tahltan. They have no headman in our country. Their headman lives in Wrangell, Alaska. They have no special hunting area.

People in this Family group include:

Outsiders have tried to sort out the basic Family groups which make up each clan. Teit, Emmons, and Albright present explanations and charts which are not completely accurate. There are several reasons for the confusion.

Our people had re-organized because of the severe drop in our population. We were about 2000 strong in the early 1800's. (The exact number is not known.) By 1850, our people had been almost destroyed by measles and smallpox.

We had no immunity to these diseases, so when our people got sick, they died quickly. During one epidemic, our people were together, putting up salmon. You can imagine how quickly they caught the disease from each other! By the time the epidemic had passed, only about 250-300 were left.

We recognized that the old way of organizing our Family groups was weakened because of our few numbers. So we came together and formed one group. We kept our Crow or Wolf status. We also knew the Family group that we belonged to, but it was not very important anymore.

Loss of Expertise and Teachers was a major problem. To understand how these diseases affected our population, think of a small hockey arena f illed with people. There are about 2000 hockey fans in the stands. They fill all the seats and some are standing at the back. Now, supposing they began to get sick and fall down. In the end, there is only one small section of fans left. Only about 300 are left!

Now, think about this: each person in the arena was an expert in a certain field, and the information was stored in his or her brain! Now you can see that a great deal of our knowledge was lost forever. It is as if our libraries and teachers today were destroyed.Those of us who were left did not have as much information about our culture Ñ they were experts only in their chosen field. Part of the knowledge that was lost is the details of our Family groups.

Informants have a certain point of view when they give information. We are all experts in our own home. So, when we are asked to give details about another's home, we do not have complete and accurate details. This was also true for the people who gave information to Teit and Emmons. The informants could only tell their part of the story accurately. And they did not necessarily have all of the information. Plus, only certain people could speak English well enough to provide these researchers with the information they needed.

Our lifestyle changed with the change in population plus the effects of non-natives. Up until about 1860, there were virtually no non-natives in our Tahltan country. But many came to stay when gold was discovered and we were included in the province of British Columbia. Non-natives hired our people and paid them money. By the time of the Cassiar Gold Rush in 1874, our old way of life had already changed. We had become people working for money. Although we still hunted and trapped, we were now paid in money or "credit" at the store. Our economy was now being based on money rather than on traditional skills and knowledge.

Non-Natives in Tahltan Country: 1905

We did not have the population to support ourselves by our traditional means. The result was that we did not travel to our traditional Family areas the same as we had done in the past. So we lost the details about boundaries and exact locations.

Loss of Faith in our traditional world view was perhaps the greatest reason for the incomplete information gathered by Teit and Emmons. We had believed that if we lived an honest, respectful lifestyle, that we would have a good, long and healthy life. We put our faith in the spirit world to help us through troubled times.

When our "best" people died with the rest during epidemics, our people lost faith in our traditional belief system. We saw the non-natives living through epidemics where our good people died. Their manitous and spirit helpers must stronger than ours. Therefore, our way must be the wrong way. We turned away from our old way of life and took up the new. We learned to live like the non-natives.

What happened was that we "forgot" parts our traditional culture. We did not live the way we had before, so some of the information was not important anymore. It was not relevant to our new life.

Several Languages. The names of Family groups are referred to in several languages. We have our own Tahltan names for the Families. Sometimes we had more than one name for the same place. The Tlingit have terms to describe us. Now we have the English language which tries to make sense of the native terms. Tahltan and Tlingit words for our Family groups have become mixed together.

Linguist or Not? Of course, spelling our native words is also a problem, since ours is not traditionally a written language. The spelling varies depending on what the "speller" heard. Did they hear a "t" or a "g"? Is the person writing the words a linguist with an ear trained to hear sounds? Or is the person saying the word speaking a dialect?

In conclusion, now that we understand what happened when the epidemics struck, we realize that there was a reason why our people died. We also realize that we need to look back and see who we were (and are) as Tahltans. Some of us believe that one of the reasons that we have so many social problems is because we have lost our identity. We do not know where we came from and who we are as a people. Our clan system is important. It is a way that we can see where we belong.