Tsimshian Language

Like all Tsimshian, our traditional society is matrilineal, which means we are organized according to the female side of the family.

Individuals belong to the family of their mothers and inherit property as well as social status through the mother, not the father.  This is a fundamental law of the Tsimshian.

The father’s side of the family is also in important during the lifetime of the child but we do not pass that that connection through the generations. 

The mother’s family is the Waap or House to which each of us belongs.

The Waap owns the resources that provide life’s necessities and comforts. These resources include important material possesses such as territories or laxyuup, fishing sites, houses, and so on, but also non-material property such as names and titles, dances and songs, stories and histories or adawx. 

The family holds these possessions as a management group called a house or waap. They are managed by the family under the leadership of the chiefly title holders (the Sm’gyigyet) and the matriarchs (Sigidimnak).

- James McDonlad