Tsetsaut

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The Tsetsaut were a now extinct Indian tribe of the Northern Athabasques (Dene) in the border area of ​​the southwest of Alaska and British Columbias in the northwest of Canada . The Tsetsaut thus belonged to the subarctic cultural area ; their eponymous Northathapaskan language is also extinct today.

With T'set'sa'ut , Ts'ats'aaw or Jits'aawit ( "People in the interior") referred to the hostile and powerful Gitxsan ( "people of the Skeena River"), Tsimshian ( "people in the midst of the Skeena River") and Nisga'a ("people along the Nass River") several bands of the Northern Athabascans who had come to the coast from the inland or who tried to take possession of the rich fishing grounds along the Skeena River and Nass River by means of robbery and war expeditions to take.

However, T'set'sa'ut was usually a collective name for all neighboring and hostile Northern Athabasques, so that this also applies to the Sekani (Tsek'ene) in the southeast, Kaska Dena in the northeast, some of them closely related to the Tsetsaut . the Tahltan and Tagish (Tā̀gish kotʼīnèʼ) in the north as well as further north living bands of the Athabascans included. In order to distinguish them from the other athabasques they were actually called. Tsetsaut or Western Tsestaut , while some groups of today's Tahltan were called Eastern Tsestaut .

The confusion was also caused by the fact that such diverse peoples as the T'aaku Kwáan the Tlingit (Lingit) , the Pelly River Northern Tutchone , the Tagish, Kaska Dena, Tahltan, Sekani (Tsek'ene), Daneẕaa - as well as the Tsetsaut ( Wetaɬ) - as Nahanni / Nahani Dene ("People Over There Far Away").

The Tsetsauts themselves, however, called themselves Wetaɬ or Wetalth .

history

According to Teit , their former territory extended "... lay in a strip from near Bradfield Canal and the Iskut River across the streams flowing into Behm Canal perhaps to about the head of Boca de Quadra. They occupied all of the upper part of Portland Canal around the BC town of Stewart , and Salmon and Bear Rivers . They may have come down the canal as far as Maple Bay. They occupied all the White River and Meziadin Lake basins and one of their original headquarters, especially for salmon fishing, was at Meziadin Lake. They stretched across the head of the Skeena River above the Kuldo River over to Bear and Sustut lakes "

Around 1830 there were 500 tribesmen who lived in settlements along the East Behm Canal and the Portland Canal and had peaceful contacts with the neighboring Saanyaa Ḵwáan of the Tlingit as well as with the isolated living - closely related to the Tahltan (as wet goths often as the southernmost band of the Tahltan considered) - Athabaskan Lax̱wiiyip / Lakweip or Portland Inlet Athabascans or Stikine Tahltan , the latter referred to the Tsetsaut as Nackyina ("those on the other side (of the canal)").

The Tsetsaut were feared warriors among neighboring tribes and known as robbers who tried again and again to penetrate the rich fishing grounds of neighboring peoples and therefore attracted a lot of hostility.

The Tsetsaut and Tahltan, already weakened by epidemics and ongoing wars, were attacked around 1830 by a tribal alliance of Gitanyow (a closely related ethnic group of the Gitxsan), Gitxsan, Nisga'a, Tsimshian, Tlingit and the Lax̱wiiyip / Lakweip; after extensive and protracted fighting, the Tahltan were badly hit and the Tsetsauts were largely driven from their areas and almost exterminated. The Haida also participated in raids on the Tsetsaut and Tahltan during their dreaded raids along the entire north-west coast. After the defeat of the Tsetsaut, the Gitanyow took over most of their territory and expanded their tribal territory to the north considerably. The surviving Tsetsaut later had to seek protection from their former enemies - the Nisga'a - who they now kept as slaves , and who now claim their areas around the Portland Canal as traditional tribal territory to the government.

In 1895 there were only 12 tsetsauts left; Today there are still descendants of the Tsetsaut among the Nisga'a, Tahltan and Kaska First Nations, but without a separate Tsetsaut tribal identity; their language is only fragmentarily passed down by two Tsetsaut slaves among the Nisga'a whom Franz Boas interviewed and has been extinct since the 1920s.

language

  • ɬoʔ fish
  • xɔ grizzly bear
  • xadzinε male deer
  • qax rabbit
  • goʔ snake
  • ts'alε frog
  • ts'esdja mosquito
  • tsrāmaʔ wasp
  • at'ɔ nest
  • εkyagɔ ankle
  • aɬʼɔqʼ liver
  • dlε dance
  • kwuɬʼ dirt
  • well mother
  • ta' father
  • isča grandchild
  • axa hair
  • aɬa (ʔ) hand
  • txa kick
  • mmē lake
  • xutsʼedeʼ link

See also

swell

  1. ↑ Sekani Indians of Canada
  2. ^ Canada's First People - Subarctic People
  3. ↑ the name "Lax̱wiiyip / Lakweip" is derived from the Nisga'a word Lāy'wi'p , Laq'uyi'p - 'on the prairie'; the designation as "Stikine Tahltan" from the Tsimshian name: Stik'iin and their close relationship with the Tahltan
  4. ↑ Frederick Webb Hodge: Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico V. 2/4 , Digital Scanning Inc; 2003, ISBN 978-1582187495
  5. ↑ Merritt Ruhlen (1994), On the Origin of Languages ​​(Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy)

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