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The Tsimshian〔Note: There are many other ways to spell the name, such as: Tsimpshean, Tsimshean, Tsimpshian, and others, but this article will use the most common spelling, "Tsimshian".〕 (; Sm'algyax: ''Ts’msyan'') are an indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia and far southern Alaska, around Terrace and Prince Rupert in British Columbia, and Alaska's Annette Island. The Tsimshian people comprises approximately 10,000 members belonging across seven member First Nation peoples (which include the ''Kitselas'', ''Kitsumkalum'', and the "Allied Tribes" of the ''Lax Kw'Alaams'', ''Metlakatla'', ''Kitkatla'', ''Gitga'at'' (at Hartley Bay) and ''Kitasoo'' (at Klemtu)). The Tsimshian are one of the largest groups of First Nations' people in northwest British Columbia. The Tsimshian culture is matrilineal, with a societal structure based on a clan system, properly referred to as a ''moiety''. Early anthropologists and linguists had also grouped ''Gitksan'' and ''Nishga'' as ''Tsimshian'' because of apparent linguistic affinities. They were referred to as "Coast Tsimshian," even though some communities were not coastal. The three groups, however, self-identify as separate nations. ==History== Tsimshian translates to ''Inside the Skeena River''.〔Campbell, Lyle (1997). ''American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pg. 396 n. 29〕 At one time the Tsimshian lived on the upper reaches of the Skeena River near present-day Hazelton, British Columbia. After a series of disasters befell the people, a prince led a migration away from the cursed land to the coast, where they founded Kitkatla Village. Other Tsimshian chiefs followed them down the river and occupied all the lands of the lower Skeena valley. Over time, these groups developed a new dialect of their ancestral language and came to regard themselves as a distinct population, the Tsimshian-proper, while still sharing all the rights and customs of the Gitxsan, their kin on the upper Skeena. Throughout the second half of the 19th-century, epidemics ravaged their communities. In 1862 a smallpox epidemic annihilated many of the Tsimshian people. Altogether, one in four Tsimshian died in a series of at least three large-scale outbreaks. In the 1880s the Anglican missionary William Duncan, along with a group of the Tsimshian, requested settlement on Annette Island from the U.S. government. After gaining approval, the group founded New Metlakatla in Alaska. Duncan requested that the community gain reservation status, and eventually, with the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), it became a reservation. The residents of Arctic Village and Venetie accepted free and simple title to the land within the Venetie reservation boundaries, while all the others participated in ANCSA. The New Metlakatla Tsimshian maintained their reservation status and holdings exclusive of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. They do not have an associated Native Corporation, although Tsimshian in Alaska may be shareholders of the Sealaska Corporation. The Annette Island reservation was the only location in Alaska allowed to maintain fish traps, which were otherwise banned when Alaska became a state in 1959. The traps were used to provide food for people living on the reservation. Legally the community was required to use the traps at least once every three years or lose the right permanently. This practice was stopped early in the 2000s and they are no longer allowed. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tsimshian」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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