Tsetsaut

The Tsetsaut (Nisga'a language: Jits'aawit; in the Tsetsaut language: Wetaŀ or Wetaɬ) were an Athabaskan-speaking group whose territory was around the head of the Portland Canal, straddling what is now the boundary between the US state of Alaska and the Canadian province of British Columbia. The name T'set'sa'ut, meaning "those of the Interior", was used by the Nisga'a and Gitxsan in reference to their origin as migrants into the region from somewhere farther inland; their use of the term is not to the Tsetsaut alone but also can refer to the Tahltan and the Sekani.

Other than Nisga'a stories about them, little is known about the Tsetsaut other than fragments of their language collected from two Tsetsaut slaves of the Nisga'a interviewed by Franz Boas in 1894.[1]

  1. ^ Boas, Franz, and Pliny Earle Goddard (1924) "Ts'ets'aut, an Athapascan Language from Portland Canal, British Columbia." International Journal of American Linguistics, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1–35.