Gitwangak Battle Hill
| Gitwangak Battle Hill National Historic Site | |
|---|---|
 Lieu patrimonial du Canada |
|
| Recognized since | October 14, 1971 |
| Type | National Historic Site |
| ID | 2197 |
| place | Kitwanga |
| Coordinates | 55 ° 7 '10 " N , 128 ° 1' 5" W |
| Recognized by | Canadian Federal Government |
| Approved by | Historic Sites and Monuments Act |
| Entry Canadian List of Monuments | |
The Gitwangak Battle Hill National Historic Site is in the Canadian province of British Columbia located, National Historic Site. The place was declared on October 14, 1971, then still as Kitwanga Fort (until 2006), to the National Historic Site of Canada .
On the hill in the Gitxsan area , in whose language the place is called Ta'awdzep (fortress), there was a fortified Tsimshian village consisting of five long houses between (before) 1700 and around 1835 . The base of the hill is 80 m wide, the top 40 m; around the hill were palisades. There were around a thousand storage pits on and around the hill.
Fred Johnson, Chief Lelt, was interviewed about the Battle Hill events in 1979 . Warchief 'Ne k t von den Gitwangak, one of the four local Gitxsan groups, built a village of four longhouses at this point to control trade across the Kitwanga River , but above all via the 60 km long Grease Trail (meant is the buttery fat of the candle fish ), which combined Nass and Skeena River .
From 1979 onwards, archaeologists found rabbit and salmon remains, storage pits and house posts. The five houses had an area of around 8 by 11 m, the largest house was probably that of the chief 'Nekt. The two outer houses hung far over the edge of the hill, over which tree trunks were dropped to ward off besiegers. Besiegers failed at the fortress at least twice. The chief, who apparently could not be harmed by the war clubs, is said to have been killed by the bullet from one of the first rifles to come into the region. With the greater range of the rifles, the hill in a valley became vulnerable after around 1824.
The chief's mother is said to have been a Luut ' k ' isxw who was kidnapped by Haida. Depending on the narrator, your place of birth will be moved to Kispiox, Kisgigas or one of the villages on the Nass River. She beheaded her kidnapper in her sleep and fled in a canoe with her son. From here her son 'Nekt attacked both Haisla (Tsimshian name: Kitimaat), as well as Haida , Tsimshian and Nisga'a . His descendants, such as Silas Brown, who had himself photographed in grizzly skin armor with metal plates in 1924, pass on his property. Jack Morgan from Gitwangak, who recorded a total of more than ten hours of interviews in the 1970s, which were supposed to be important in questions of land rights, kept the tapes carefully. He heard many stories from his grandfather, who knew the fortress was still inhabited.
In 1971, Parks Canada acquired the hill. During the first excavation campaign, numerous, very compact piles of ash were discovered, which consisted exclusively of the remains of animal bones. According to local Indians , this was because it was believed that the incomplete incineration of the animal remains would disrupt the food supply. During the burning, old men and women spoke to the bones. This ritual made it difficult for archaeologists to identify the animal species that were eaten, but it was possible to detect marmots , beavers , porcupines , rabbits, salmon and some species of birds.
When the fortress burned down, the houses that had been built on the edge of the hill crumbled, leaving ashes that were only slightly overgrown. Under the houses there were deep pits in which supplies were made for sieges. Under the walls there were elongated pits hardly any less deep, in which women and children could be housed relatively safely. They were located at the back of the houses, so that they could escape through tunnels if necessary. One of the local myths, the Skawah myth of the Gitxsan , one can infer that during the conquest, when the burning beams could already be heard, two women escaped in this way. They became the ancestors of a new Gitxsan clan. A total of around a thousand storage pits were found on and around the hill, 85 pits could still be found on the hill - most of the others were destroyed by agricultural use. Each woman had the task of filling her own pit with fish, berries and meat. For reasons of secrecy, only one's own pits were allowed to be known so that the location of the others could not be revealed so easily. There were also techniques to distract dogs from the pits, as well as techniques to prevent odor from being emitted.
An exception to the storage pits were three pits of unusual size below the hill. They served initiation rites for pubescent girls. However, only for three of the four clans that lived in the fortress, namely only for the eagle, the frog-raven and the wolf clan, but not for the clan of the Fireweed ( narrow-leaved willowherb ). Many of the interviewees among the Gitxsan were able to provide information about the duration of the separation from the family, about special facial clothing that was supposed to prevent the food from being "contaminated" by their eyes. According to their statements, the girls were able to express their desire for food or water by pulling on long wooden fiber straps of the red cedar, the giant tree of life , which led to their mothers' house. Usually girls spent these one to two months of locking and the exercises their aunts instructed far from the village, but this was not possible in this warlike area. Traces of steam baths, which the warriors took to prepare for the battles or to get rid of the unpleasant smell of fish or game, were also found.
After the archaeologists made a model of the fortress, some local people noted that contrary to the customs on the coast, there were no heavy stones on the houses. In addition, no oval entrances led into the houses - the houses had no entrances at all. Either you entered the house through the smoke vent, or you knew the sequence, known only to the respective owner, in which you had to move the strong wooden planks that formed the house wall against each other in order to get into the house.
The hill, which was built shortly before 1700, was abandoned in the 1830s at the latest in favor of a place five kilometers south. In 1905 a totem pole with 'Ne k t in grizzly armor and his famous club k'i'la x (strike only once) was built there.
The first recorded siege of the hill, on which there was only one house around 1700, was carried out by the Haida, who were on the hunt for slaves. The inhabitants of the hill took up the last fight against the Tsimshian, but they were defeated. Around 1835, the Tsimshians from the coast took the fortress into their extensive trading empire. The houses, the remains of which, especially ashes, can be dated, date from the period between 1750 and 1835. Even their residents not only traded in the coveted fat of the candle fish, but also owned obsidian from Mount Edziza . Its traces go back to the 17th century, possibly also back to the 16th. There were also metal remains, such as a nose ring, a metal that, according to oral tradition, had been brought by Russians. These stories also know of clashes with the Aleutians who were in the service of the Russians, or at least accompanied them. These contacts apparently only ended with the appearance of the first British, who the Hudson's Bay Company sent there in 1832 to build a trading fort on the Nass River. However, metal is likely to have come here in a roundabout way, as was the case with the neighboring tribes. Today it is assumed that metal objects found their way to the Gitksan shortly after 1700, almost three quarters of a century before the first direct contact with Europeans.
In 2006, the site known as Kitwanga Fort was renamed Gitwangak Battle Hill .
literature
- George F. MacDonald: Kitwanga Fort report , Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Civilization , 1989.
- George MacDonald: The Epic of Nect. The Archeology of Metaphor , in: Margaret Seguin: The Tsimshian. Images of the Past; Views for the Present , University of British Columbia Press 1984, reprinted 1993, pp. 65-81.
Web links
- Gitwangak Battle Hill National Historic Site of Canada , Parks Canada
- Gitwangak Battle Hill National Historic Site of Canada . In: BC Geographical Names (English)
Remarks
- ^ Gitwangak Battle Hill National Historic Site of Canada. What's New , Parks Canada.
- ^ Gitwangak Battle Hill National Historic Site of Canada. In: Canadian Register of Historic Places. Retrieved November 23, 2012 .
- ↑ Mary Beacock Fryer: Battlefields of Canada , Toronto: Dundurn Press 1986, 2nd edition, 1995, p.130..