File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (18160812165).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo13amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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THE SAVAGE "HOW-HOW" IS A FAMILY CREST In the village of Kitwingach, on a line with the old grave enclosures, but standing by itself in an open space between the two rows of houses, is a boxlike platform on which stands the rather crude figure of an animal known as "how-how." As the story goes: — In old times a savage animal different from any known to the country made its home on a wooded island in the Skeena River and preyed upon travelers and hunters camping thereabouts, until finally it was killed by one of the Lakyebo clan. To commemorate this exploit it was taken by his household as a particular crest and as such is displayed both in this manner and surmounting carved columns in front of the houses. The legends of the Tsimshian and associate people are replete with stories of mythical beings and fabled monsters that are believed to exist or to have existed, and from encounters or association with these by their ancestors, families have assumed crests that have no known prototype. But these are generally of the water or the air and are very complex in form, while the representation of the how-how is a simple animal figure, although wholly unlike that of any species common to this locality. I would suggest that the story might be really true, and that the animal unknown to this people might have been a mountain lion, so common to the more southern and interior portions of British Columbia, that had wandered across the mountains and failing to find a sufficient food supply in its new home had attacked stray travelers along the river. The bear is the only dangerous mammal in this section and the people are so well acquainted with it that they could never mistake it for any other animal. And the native artist in his greatest latitude would never represent the bear form with the peculiar type of tail which always characterizes the representations of the how-how and which corresponds so well to that of the lion 367

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