Note 15 — ANDREW LANG
Reading edition
I may be permitted to note that these four Tsimshian clans look, to me, as if they had originally been two pairs of phratries. We find a parallel Australian case in the Narran-ga tribe of York's peninsula in South Victoria. Here Mr. Howitt gives us the "classes" (his term for phratries):
KayiEmu.
WauiRed Kangaroo.
WiltuEagle Hawk.
WilthathuShark.
Each of these four main divisions had totem kins within it, and, as usual, the same totem (all are animals) never occurred in more than one main division. (Howitt, N.T.S.E.A. p. 130.) In precisely the same way "crests" of animal name occur in each of the four Tsimshian "clans":
RavenRaven, Codfish, Starfish.
EagleEagle, Halibut, Beaver, Whale.
WolfWolf, Crane, Grizzly Bear.
BearKiller Whale, Sun, Moon, Stars, Rainbow,
Grouse, and Sea Monster.
These "crests," thus arranged, no crest in more than one clan (or phratry?) look like old totems in the two pairs of clans, or, as I suspect, of phratries. The Australian parallel corroborates the view that the Tsimshian "clans" have been phratries.