THE OLD WHALE HOUSE 18 DETAIL OF THE HOUSE POSTS 25 GONAKATATE-GARS 25 DUCK-TOOLH-GARS 26 YEHLH-GARS 28 TLUKE-ASS-A-GARS 29 OBJECTS ASSOCIATED WITH THE HOUSE 30 THE PRESENT WHALE HOUSE 33 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PLATES. 1. Decorative Figure on Edge of House Platform. 2. Carved and painted Screen over the Front of the Chief's Private Apartment at Rear of the House. 3. Carved Posts inside the Entrance to the House, Gonakatate-Gars and Duck-Toolh-Gars, respectively. 4. Carved Posts flanking Screen in Plate 2, Yehlh-Gars and Tluke-ass-a-Gars, respectively. TEXT FIGURES. 1. Coudahwot and Yehlh-Gouhu, Chiefs of the Con-nuh-ta-di 7 2. An Old House, Kluckwan 11 3. Con-nuh-ta-di Grave Houses, Kluckwan 12 4. The Whale House of the Chilkat 19 5. Groundplan of the Whale House 21 6. Wood-worm Dish, as seen in the House 32 [Illustration: Fig. 1. Coudahwot and Yehlh-gouhu, Chiefs of the Con-nuh-ta-di. _Photograph copyrighted by Winter and Pond._] INTRODUCTION. Upon the discovery of the Northwest Coast of America, the Tlingit were found in possession of Southeastern Alaska with possibly the exception of the southernmost portion of Prince of Wales Island, which had been wrested from them by invading Haida from Masset on the Queen Charlotte Islands, during the latter half of the eighteenth century. From the testimony of the early explorers, this occupation seems to have been of sufficient age to have developed a racial type, speaking the same tongue, acknowledging established laws, and bound by like conventions. What knowledge we can gather of their origin and early life from their family traditions, songs, and geographical names, although fragmentary and vague, consistently tells of a uniform northward migration by water, along the coast and through the inland channels from the Tsimshian peninsula and Prince of Wales Island, which was constantly augmented by parties of Interior people descending the greater rivers to the sea. An indefinite belief in an earlier coast population is current among the older people, and in confirmation of this, they refer to some family songs and local names still used but not understood. As the Tlingit are unquestionably a mixed race, this aboriginal element must have been absorbed and contributed its racial characteristics to the evolution of the present race.