Ligeex
Encyclopedia
Ligeex is an hereditary name-title belonging to the Gispaxlo'ots
tribe of the Tsimshian
First Nation from the village of Lax Kw'alaams
(a.k.a. Port Simpson), British Columbia
, Canada. The name, and the chieftainship it represents, is passed along matrilineally within the royal house
(a matrilineally defined extended family
) called the House of Ligeex. The House of Ligeex belongs to the Laxsgiik
(Eagle clan).
Ligeex is considered to be traditionally the most powerful Tsimshian chieftainship. In the period of early European contact, Ligeex controlled Tsimshian trade with peoples up the Skeena River
, a privilege he protected through tribute and through war if necessary. His position was eventually weakened as the Hudson's Bay Company
rose in influence through the fur trade
in the nineteenth century.
The name Ligeex is conventionally described as being of Heiltsuk
linguistic origin and as meaning Stone Cliff. Tradition holds that the House of Ligeex is an offshoot of another Gispaxlo'ots Laxsgiik house, the House of Nis'wa'maķ, which is one of the Gwinhuut
houses deriving from migrations from Tlingit territory in what is now Alaska
. A woman from the House of Nis'wa'maķ was kidnapped by -- and wedded to -- a Haisla
chief from Kitamaat, to the south, and was subsequently kidnapped from Kitamaat by a Heiltsuk
chief from Bella Bella
, even farther south, who also took her as his wife. She bore him a son, who inherited from his father, the Heiltsuk chief, the name Ligeex. When the woman and her son were able to return to the Gispaxlo'ots, the name Ligeex was retained as a name that could passed along in the family's maternal line, gradually rising to prominence.
It was a Ligeex who married his daughter Sudaał to Dr. John Frederick Kennedy of the Hudson's Bay Company
in 1832, an arranged intercultural marriage which smoothed the way for the establishment of the HBC fort (Fort Simpson, a.k.a. Port Simpson) at Lax Kw'alaams, Ligeex's territorial possession, in 1834.
The most famous holders of the name were a series of men named Paul Legaic in the late nineteenth century.
In one famous incident, the HBC employee and Gispaxlo'ots house-group chief Arthur Wellington Clah
intervened and saved the life of the Anglican lay missionary in Lax Kw'alaams, William Duncan
, when Paul Legaic ordered Duncan at gunpoint to cease tolling churchbells on the day of his (Legaic's) daughter's initiation into a Tsimshian secret society
. This Ligeex soon became a key convert of Duncan's and was baptised with the name of Christ's disciple Paul
. This Paul Legaic and his wife and daughter moved with Duncan for a while to the nearby village of Metlakatla
, founded by Duncan in 1862 as a utopian Christian community where about 50 Lax Kw'alaams natives could be protected from the pernicious influence of the H.B.C. fort atmosphere. There Legaic was made a constable briefly and was also sent to Lax Kw'alaams and the Nass River
to try to convert more First Nations to people to Christianity. On one such trip, in 1869, he died in Lax Kw'alaams.
The anthropologist Viola Garfield
wrote in 1938 that the last fully installed chief of the original House of Ligeex had been Paul Legaic (d. 1890), a successor to the Paul Legaic converted by Duncan. Paul Legaic II's sister Martha Legaic succeeded him and herself died in 1902. At that point the maternal line had run out and, for lack of a consensus among other Gispaxlo'ots over succession, a council of four leading house-group heads administered Gispaxlo'ots affairs for a period. Then the Ligeex chieftainship was given to George Kelly, a member of the House of Sgagweet, the leading, royal Laxsgiik
house of the Gitando
tribe of Lax Kw'alaams and a house with close historical relations with the House of Ligeex. Kelly, whose father was white and who had been born at Port Ludlow, Washington
and raised in Victoria, B.C.
, died in 1933 and Garfield in 1938 reported that at that point a new council had taken over the Gispaxlo'ots leadership. She opined that there would probably never be another Ligeex, although she detailed rival claims for taking over the name and its privileges, including a Cape Fox, Alaska, Tlingit family that had established itself in Lax Kw'alaams as a new House of Nis'wa'maķ.
In Barbeau's survey of totem poles, he reports that a Fin-of-the-Shark pole more than thirty feet in height belonging to Ligeex was erected ca. 1837. In 1950 Barbeau wrote that the eagle figure which topped this pole was still preserved in Lax Kw'alaams. An earlier Fin-of-the-Shark pole had stood at the original Gispaxlo'ots village on the Skeena River
where the Skeena meets the Shames River.
Barbeau also describes an Eagle totem pole belonging to Ligeex which stood in Lax Kw'alaams until falling and was probably cut up, some time before 1926. This pole had been erected about 1866. It had been typical for slaves to be sacrificed by having the pole erected into a hole on top of them or by being killed first and then buried beneath the pole. On this occasion, however, a Nisga'a
slave woman and a Haida one were liberated at the last moment before they could be sacrificed.
In the early 1930s Garfield recorded information on Ligeex and the Gispaxlo'ots, including phonograph recordings of House of Ligeex songs, from Matthew Johnson, a head of one of the other Gispaxlo'ots house-groups.
A rock painting on a cliffside near the mouth of the Skeena River, visible from Highway 16, depicts traditional copper shields and a human face, marking Ligeex's ancient control of the river's trade.
Gispaxlo'ots
The Gispaxlo'ots are one of the 14 tribes of the Tsimshian nation in British Columbia, Canada, and one of the nine of those tribes making up the "Nine Tribes" of the lower Skeena River resident at Lax Kw'alaams , B.C...
tribe of the Tsimshian
Tsimshian
The Tsimshian are an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Tsimshian translates to Inside the Skeena River. Their communities are in British Columbia and Alaska, around Terrace and Prince Rupert and the southernmost corner of Alaska on Annette Island. There are approximately 10,000...
First Nation from the village of Lax Kw'alaams
Lax Kw'alaams
Lax-Kw'alaams , usually called Port Simpson, is an Indigenous village community in British Columbia, Canada, not far from the city of Prince Rupert. It is the home of the "Nine Tribes" of the lower Skeena River, which are nine of the fourteen tribes of the Tsimshian nation...
(a.k.a. Port Simpson), British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, Canada. The name, and the chieftainship it represents, is passed along matrilineally within the royal house
Royal House
A royal house or royal dynasty consists of at least one, but usually more monarchs who are related to one another, as well as their non-reigning descendants and spouses. Monarchs of the same realm who are not related to one another are usually deemed to belong to different houses, and each house is...
(a matrilineally defined extended family
Extended family
The term extended family has several distinct meanings. In modern Western cultures dominated by nuclear family constructs, it has come to be used generically to refer to grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins, whether they live together within the same household or not. However, it may also refer...
) called the House of Ligeex. The House of Ligeex belongs to the Laxsgiik
Laxsgiik
The Laxsgiik is the name for the Eagle "clan" in the language of the Tsimshian nation of British Columbia, Canada, and southeast Alaska...
(Eagle clan).
Ligeex is considered to be traditionally the most powerful Tsimshian chieftainship. In the period of early European contact, Ligeex controlled Tsimshian trade with peoples up the Skeena River
Skeena River
The Skeena River is the second longest river entirely within British Columbia, Canada . The Skeena is an important transportation artery, particularly for the Tsimshian and the Gitxsan - whose names mean "inside the Skeena River" and "people of the Skeena River" respectively, and also during the...
, a privilege he protected through tribute and through war if necessary. His position was eventually weakened as the Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
rose in influence through the fur trade
Fur trade
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of world market for in the early modern period furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most valued...
in the nineteenth century.
The name Ligeex is conventionally described as being of Heiltsuk
Heiltsuk
The Heiltsuk are an Indigenous First Nations of the Central Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia, centred on the island communities of Bella Bella and Klemtu. The government of the Heiltsuk people is the Heiltsuk Nation...
linguistic origin and as meaning Stone Cliff. Tradition holds that the House of Ligeex is an offshoot of another Gispaxlo'ots Laxsgiik house, the House of Nis'wa'maķ, which is one of the Gwinhuut
Laxsgiik
The Laxsgiik is the name for the Eagle "clan" in the language of the Tsimshian nation of British Columbia, Canada, and southeast Alaska...
houses deriving from migrations from Tlingit territory in what is now Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
. A woman from the House of Nis'wa'maķ was kidnapped by -- and wedded to -- a Haisla
Haisla
The Haisla are an indigenous people living at Kitamaat in the North Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia. Their indigenous Haisla language is named after them...
chief from Kitamaat, to the south, and was subsequently kidnapped from Kitamaat by a Heiltsuk
Heiltsuk
The Heiltsuk are an Indigenous First Nations of the Central Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia, centred on the island communities of Bella Bella and Klemtu. The government of the Heiltsuk people is the Heiltsuk Nation...
chief from Bella Bella
Bella Bella
Bella Bella may refer to:* Bella Bella, British Columbia, on Campbell Island, also known as Waglisla**Bella Bella Airport, airport north west of Bella Bella**Bella Bella Airport, airport east of Bella Bella...
, even farther south, who also took her as his wife. She bore him a son, who inherited from his father, the Heiltsuk chief, the name Ligeex. When the woman and her son were able to return to the Gispaxlo'ots, the name Ligeex was retained as a name that could passed along in the family's maternal line, gradually rising to prominence.
It was a Ligeex who married his daughter Sudaał to Dr. John Frederick Kennedy of the Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
in 1832, an arranged intercultural marriage which smoothed the way for the establishment of the HBC fort (Fort Simpson, a.k.a. Port Simpson) at Lax Kw'alaams, Ligeex's territorial possession, in 1834.
The most famous holders of the name were a series of men named Paul Legaic in the late nineteenth century.
In one famous incident, the HBC employee and Gispaxlo'ots house-group chief Arthur Wellington Clah
Arthur Wellington Clah
Arthur Wellington Clah was a Canadian First Nations employee of the Hudson's Bay Company at Lax Kw'alaams , B.C., who was also a hereditary chief in the Tsimshian nation, an anthropological informant, and an extensive diarist....
intervened and saved the life of the Anglican lay missionary in Lax Kw'alaams, William Duncan
William Duncan (missionary)
William Duncan was an English-born Anglican missionary who founded the Tsimshian communities of Metlakatla, British Columbia, in Canada, and Metlakatla, Alaska, in the United States...
, when Paul Legaic ordered Duncan at gunpoint to cease tolling churchbells on the day of his (Legaic's) daughter's initiation into a Tsimshian secret society
Secret society
A secret society is a club or organization whose activities and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, which hide their...
. This Ligeex soon became a key convert of Duncan's and was baptised with the name of Christ's disciple Paul
Paul of Tarsus
Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...
. This Paul Legaic and his wife and daughter moved with Duncan for a while to the nearby village of Metlakatla
Metlakatla, British Columbia
Metlakatla, British Columbia, is a small community that is one of the seven Tsimshian village communities in British Columbia, Canada. It is situated at Metlakatla Pass near Prince Rupert, British Columbia...
, founded by Duncan in 1862 as a utopian Christian community where about 50 Lax Kw'alaams natives could be protected from the pernicious influence of the H.B.C. fort atmosphere. There Legaic was made a constable briefly and was also sent to Lax Kw'alaams and the Nass River
Nass River
The Nass River is a river in northern British Columbia, Canada. It flows from the Coast Mountains southwest to Nass Bay, a sidewater of Portland Inlet, which connects to the North Pacific Ocean via the Dixon Entrance...
to try to convert more First Nations to people to Christianity. On one such trip, in 1869, he died in Lax Kw'alaams.
The anthropologist Viola Garfield
Viola Garfield
Viola E. Garfield was an American anthropologist best known for her work on the social organization and plastic arts of the Tsimshian nation in British Columbia and Alaska.-Early life:...
wrote in 1938 that the last fully installed chief of the original House of Ligeex had been Paul Legaic (d. 1890), a successor to the Paul Legaic converted by Duncan. Paul Legaic II's sister Martha Legaic succeeded him and herself died in 1902. At that point the maternal line had run out and, for lack of a consensus among other Gispaxlo'ots over succession, a council of four leading house-group heads administered Gispaxlo'ots affairs for a period. Then the Ligeex chieftainship was given to George Kelly, a member of the House of Sgagweet, the leading, royal Laxsgiik
Laxsgiik
The Laxsgiik is the name for the Eagle "clan" in the language of the Tsimshian nation of British Columbia, Canada, and southeast Alaska...
house of the Gitando
Gitando
The Gitando are the youngest of the 14 tribes of the Tsimshian nation in British Columbia, Canada, and one of the nine of those tribes making up the "Nine Tribes" of the lower Skeena River resident at Lax Kw'alaams , B.C. The name Gitando means the people of weirs...
tribe of Lax Kw'alaams and a house with close historical relations with the House of Ligeex. Kelly, whose father was white and who had been born at Port Ludlow, Washington
Port Ludlow, Washington
Port Ludlow is a census-designated place in Jefferson County, Washington, United States. It is also the name of the marine inlet on which the CDP is located. The CDP's population was 1,968 at the 2000 census. Originally a logging and sawmill community, its economy declined during the first half of...
and raised in Victoria, B.C.
Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
, died in 1933 and Garfield in 1938 reported that at that point a new council had taken over the Gispaxlo'ots leadership. She opined that there would probably never be another Ligeex, although she detailed rival claims for taking over the name and its privileges, including a Cape Fox, Alaska, Tlingit family that had established itself in Lax Kw'alaams as a new House of Nis'wa'maķ.
In Barbeau's survey of totem poles, he reports that a Fin-of-the-Shark pole more than thirty feet in height belonging to Ligeex was erected ca. 1837. In 1950 Barbeau wrote that the eagle figure which topped this pole was still preserved in Lax Kw'alaams. An earlier Fin-of-the-Shark pole had stood at the original Gispaxlo'ots village on the Skeena River
Skeena River
The Skeena River is the second longest river entirely within British Columbia, Canada . The Skeena is an important transportation artery, particularly for the Tsimshian and the Gitxsan - whose names mean "inside the Skeena River" and "people of the Skeena River" respectively, and also during the...
where the Skeena meets the Shames River.
Barbeau also describes an Eagle totem pole belonging to Ligeex which stood in Lax Kw'alaams until falling and was probably cut up, some time before 1926. This pole had been erected about 1866. It had been typical for slaves to be sacrificed by having the pole erected into a hole on top of them or by being killed first and then buried beneath the pole. On this occasion, however, a Nisga'a
Nisga'a
The Nisga’a , often formerly spelled Nishga and spelled in the Nisga’a language as Nisga’a, are an Indigenous nation or First Nation in Canada. They live in the Nass River valley of northwestern British Columbia. Their name comes from a combination of two Nisga’a words: Nisk’-"top lip" and...
slave woman and a Haida one were liberated at the last moment before they could be sacrificed.
In the early 1930s Garfield recorded information on Ligeex and the Gispaxlo'ots, including phonograph recordings of House of Ligeex songs, from Matthew Johnson, a head of one of the other Gispaxlo'ots house-groups.
A rock painting on a cliffside near the mouth of the Skeena River, visible from Highway 16, depicts traditional copper shields and a human face, marking Ligeex's ancient control of the river's trade.